Just curious... why not somewhere else? It's the only community with smart people I know. Are there any others?
Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
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Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#2Mostly-polite interaction on the content of ideas rather than personal attacks.
High signal-to-noise ratio.
A fair number of thought-provoking posts from a lot of different angles.
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#3Mostly-polite interaction on the content of ideas rather than personal attacks. High signal-to-noise ratio. A fair number of thought-provoking posts from a lot of different angles.
Why is so hard to build a similar community somewhere else? (I don't plan to but...) Suppose I wanted to build a community like HN, how do I proceed?
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#4Mostly-polite interaction on the content of ideas rather than personal attacks. High signal-to-noise ratio. A fair number of thought-provoking posts from a lot of different angles.
Why is so hard to build a similar community somewhere else? (I don't plan to but...) Suppose I wanted to build a community like HN, how do I proceed?
What do you want in a community that doesn't already exist somewhere?
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#5Mostly-polite interaction on the content of ideas rather than personal attacks. High signal-to-noise ratio. A fair number of thought-provoking posts from a lot of different angles.
Why is so hard to build a similar community somewhere else? (I don't plan to but...) Suppose I wanted to build a community like HN, how do I proceed?
It's the old chicken-and-egg problem: you build a community by attracting new users, but new users will join only if there's already a good community. It's hard to get a community started.
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#6There is also https://lobste.rs, and I like their approach more (it's not inherently related to venture capital backed startups, and its much more transparent with the community (i.e. the concept of effectively hiding unpopular opinions does not exist there)
Unfortunately, it's also nowhere near as active - possibly because it works on invites and its often hard to find someone who will invite others.
Having said that, if anyone wants an invite, please reply here (or see my profile to email me, please include your HN username if you do that) and I'll shoot you an invite.
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#7Simple ui. No crap to cut through.
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#8There is also https://lobste.rs , and I like their approach more (it's not inherently related to venture capital backed startups, and its much more transparent with the community (i.e. the concept of effectively hiding unpopular opinions does not exist there) Unfortunately, it's also nowhere near as active - possibly because it works on invites and its often hard to find someone who will invite others. Having said th…
I like how close-knit lobsters is. I feel like I can follow discussions much easier as opposed to on HN. And yes, the community being transparent is nice because it feels like the site is owned by everyone.
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#9Low-effort 'humour' comments get downvoted here! Compare to much of reddit, which is to wade through hoards of comedy-slugs attempting to riff off each other.
Re: Ask HN: What's so special about HN? Why do you hang out here?
#10There is also https://lobste.rs , and I like their approach more (it's not inherently related to venture capital backed startups, and its much more transparent with the community (i.e. the concept of effectively hiding unpopular opinions does not exist there) Unfortunately, it's also nowhere near as active - possibly because it works on invites and its often hard to find someone who will invite others. Having said th…
Lobsters' tagging/filtering feature is also neat. Beside that, other thing I find lacking in HN is mobile experience, sure it's got optimized lately but I accidentally hit upvote sometimes.