I follow many people on twitter who dislike HN. Reason for this is opinions here are alsmost entirely from white males with money.
I don't understand what's dislikeable about opinions from people who are white with money.
HN comments are underrated
21–30 of 383 posts
Re: HN comments are underrated
#22I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments that floods several discussion forums that I have come across. "Nice article", "Great write-up" and the next thing you know, you have created a place where people are only interested in submitting their articles and getting it upvoted rather than make meaningful contributions. People want to make good contributions here and that's something that differenti…
Indeed. When my comments or articles hit the frontpage/top of the thread, I don't really care. What excites me is when I get a ton of responses from more experienced people. Because that gives me an opportunity to learn something.
Re: HN comments are underrated
#23Another thing I've noticed about HN comments is that everything is hyped beyond what it deserves.
For example, the recent DDoS attacks were just a bunch of skids with Mirai, but it was discussed as if it was the end of the internet.
There's also the issue of self-censorship, where users will refrain from posting their opinion in case they get downvotes and negative karma.
The things people post here are fascinating, but the comments, in my honest opinion, aren't.
Re: HN comments are underrated
#24You post a list of the best comments on HN without putting The Wisdom of Bane on the list?
Seriously, how did The Wisdom of Bane not make it one here? That is one of the best comments on all of HN.
For the uninitiated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902739
Re: HN comments are underrated
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. I've seen plenty of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" in the comments and complaints about engineers always trying to use the newest technology.
Yes, using any tool or language that came out after the commenter started programming is "hipster". And you see a lot of xkcd 927 and "I can't help thinking effort would have been better spent on an existing project" when someone writes any program of any type where other examples exist.
I only post a 927 when there are >6 different standards in the field, and there's no way a new one will catch on. As for the effort better spent posts, those are awful. Never post those. Instead post about how great emacs is compared to vim: you're more likely to spawn useful discussion.
Re: HN comments are underrated
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who invented it. My ADHD brain loves the depth that side topics can get explored and being surrounded by people far cleverer than me This is pretty much why I use…
> This is pretty much why I use HN at all: it doesn't make me feel smart, but I learn new, exciting things constantly. Thanks for articulating it so well.
...okay. You're welcome, I guess, but I'm not sure what's so hard about articulating it that makes doing so praiseworthy.
Or were you just being nice? If so, that's totally fine, never mind.
Re: HN comments are underrated
#27HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who…
>I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic
If you stay off the default subreddits and only go on the intellectual/debate subreddits, then I honestly think reddit is better for this. The amount of expertise on reddit is astounding. It's very easy to find someone to rigorously challenge any view I have. I'd go so far as to say that it's the smartest place on the internet (except for maybe places like MathOverflow and some other specialty blogs/forums). They do have a natural advantage because of their huge userbase.
Re: HN comments are underrated
#28HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who…
> blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. I've seen plenty of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" in the comments and complaints about engineers always trying to use the newest technology.
I did say tendency!
I still get surprised the way opinion goes for some posts. I won't be betting on the likely sentiment any time soon! Whichever way opinion leans it rarely stifles discussion.
Re: HN comments are underrated
#29I think HN needs a way to easily find the top comments. There are absolute gems deep in discussion threads, but you'll need to spend a lot of time reading to find them. Hence, it's very nice of Dan Luu to list some of his favorites.
The top root-level comment for each comment page is obviously easy to see, but good comments deeper in the comment tree are easily lost. Would be great if e.g. the top 5% voted comments on a page were highlighted in some way.
Perhaps a workable solution would be to just follow the comments listing of smart people. Guess I'll at least try that.
Re: HN comments are underrated
#30I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments that floods several discussion forums that I have come across. "Nice article", "Great write-up" and the next thing you know, you have created a place where people are only interested in submitting their articles and getting it upvoted rather than make meaningful contributions. People want to make good contributions here and that's something that differenti…
Sometimes really good articles don't have lots of comments. In these circumstances, I post an "excellent article!" comment just to give the author some feedback that someone somewhere actually read the article, and they really liked it! Humans writing articles appreciate that.
I am denying importance of compliments but they lose their lustre if the whole culture of forum is to "appear too nice"; it just gives an impression of everyone making comments for the sake of it. Besides that, the entire point of a forum doesn't bode well if there aren't any strong comments touching the subject, even if they are cynical or scornful. Take a look at OP's example of the "Should you leave a bad job?" thread [1].
The first comment is surely harsh and questions the entire thought process of hating a mundane job. Some people would disagree with it; some would not but I would be disappointed if the comment didn't exist.