Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#1

Post by THENATHE » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 3:43 AM UTC

Very small, curated community posting thoughtful political, general, arts, gaming, etc news (specifically not just tech and “nerd” focused) that has some level of commenting functionality?

I LOVE hackernews but I am finding that I really don’t get a lot of non-tech news here (and I understand that is the point) and so I am looking for something to replace Reddit, TikTok, and google news at getting regular stories.

Some things I have tried:

RSS feeds: don’t really see a practical benefit to this over google news

Google News: want to get away from it as I am trying to excommunicate Google from my life as much as possible, and it misses the comment functions

Apple News: not happy I have to pay money for half of it, and the other problem I have is I could give a rats ass about their “curated” stories and audio news.

Reddit: generally, too mainstream and filled with a bunch of chaff I don’t really want to sift through to get to the nuggets, when the nuggets are quite common on here

TikTok: the world news I have gotten on here is great! But often filled with other videos that distract me or are not something I want to actively fill my time with

Thoughts? If this doesn’t exist, would people be interested in it being created, and does anyone think it has a chance of taking off (and not immediately falling to the slop that is public Internet forums)?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#2

Post by ofalkaed » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 3:59 AM UTC

Oddly enough I had been considering making a similar thread but asking for something akin to HN but with less non-tech news. Perhaps the question that both I and OP are asking is, does anyone know of a site that stays on topic?

>Thoughts? If this doesn’t exist, would people be interested in it being created, and does anyone think it has a chance of taking off

There is absolutely a market for it but it will eventually become a tech forum.

Edit: I apologize for the meta posting, Saturday night, what can I say.

Edit: Prepended "Edit:" to my apology even though it wasn't an edit, it seems more appropriate as an edit. Once again, I apologize for the meta posting, Saturday night, what can I say.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#3

Post by ksec » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:08 AM UTC

It doesn't exist yet. I would argue even HN has its bias. For example for a long time anything MySQL or Java dont get much upvote.

I actually want something that sort of combine the both. I want something that tells me what everyone is reading. Because I dont even consume mainstream news any more. And something that is not mainstream but interesting.

I also think the design of HN is a giant filter for 80 to 90% of internet users.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#4

Post by dinkumthinkum » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:16 AM UTC

ofalkaed wrote: post #2

Oddly enough I had been considering making a similar thread but asking for something akin to HN but with less non-tech news. Perhaps the question that both I and OP are asking is, does anyone know of a site that stays on topic? >Thoughts? If this doesn’t exist, would people be interested in it being created, and does anyone think it has a chance of taking off There is absolutely a market for it but it will eventually…

People have made many such curations of HN over the years. I can't recall any names of them or if they still exist but just commenting to say it has been done. Honestly, you could probably just have some AI based chrome extension do the filtering for you.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#5

Post by bufferoverflow » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:21 AM UTC

Reddit, but you have to carefully select your subs. And it's not very useful for politics, because it's very one-sided, very far left, and they ban you for any transgressions that don't fit the narrative.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#6

Post by ipcress_file » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:21 AM UTC

ofalkaed wrote: post #2

Oddly enough I had been considering making a similar thread but asking for something akin to HN but with less non-tech news. Perhaps the question that both I and OP are asking is, does anyone know of a site that stays on topic? >Thoughts? If this doesn’t exist, would people be interested in it being created, and does anyone think it has a chance of taking off There is absolutely a market for it but it will eventually…

I think lobste.rs stays on topic (computers and programming).

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#7

Post by rattray » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:24 AM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #5

Reddit, but you have to carefully select your subs. And it's not very useful for politics, because it's very one-sided, very far left, and they ban you for any transgressions that don't fit the narrative.

Should we create a subreddit for this, with a news/politics focus but an hn vibe?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#8

Post by bufferoverflow » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:28 AM UTC

rattray wrote: post #7

bufferoverflow wrote: post #5

Reddit, but you have to carefully select your subs. And it's not very useful for politics, because it's very one-sided, very far left, and they ban you for any transgressions that don't fit the narrative.

Should we create a subreddit for this, with a news/politics focus but an hn vibe?

Good luck with that. Their moderation is too insane and not transparent for my taste.

And, considering HN is quite far left, you won't create anything new really.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#9

Post by udev4096 » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:28 AM UTC

There is lesswrong, slashdot and lobsters which do have good similarity with HN

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone know of a general news site akin to Hacker News?

#10

Post by wewewedxfgdf » Sun, Jun 08, 2025, 5:39 AM UTC

lobster.rs is good and tech focused.

I think it should discard any submissions that are already on Hacker news because it's often same/same. If I think it was reliably different I'd visit it more.