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HN comments are underrated

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Re: HN comments are underrated

#121

Post by jomamaxx »

wfeui3 wrote: post #71

I lost faith in HN crowd when hyperloop started. California can not even replicate 40 years old TGV, but somehow it will build space-like technology for fraction of price. And than there are politics. Entire world should accept millions of refugees. But SF is different, and should not even host 400 homeless who arrive every year.

I agree - the Musk delirium is strong with these ones.

You have to take HN with a dose of salty optimism.

The Valley depends on a little bit of irrational koolaid thinking.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#122

Post by toxican »

tptacek wrote: post #114
VodkaHaze wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is a swamp of filth wrt economics comments. Basically all the subreddits except /r/academiceconomics, /r/badeconomics, /r/econpapers are awful. I'm friends with the mods of /r/economics and they have a really hard time reigning in the masses of ideologues (on all sides) ruining what should remain pure economics discussions.

Reddit and HN make an interesting comparison. Reddit's highs are really high, far higher than HN's, often skirting the level of "so good as to be newsworthy". But Reddit's lows --- and I don't mean trolling and harassment, I mean the lower bounds of normal conversation there --- are much lower. I think the median HN comment is better, by a lot, than the median Reddit comment. I think you can extend the same judgement…

While I still think HN probably has the better median, the quality of what you're exposed to on reddit is mostly up to you. Ditch the defaults and Reddit's median skyrockets. Ditch some of the more popular non-defaults, it skyrockets some more. Start building a list of well-moderated subreddits with a strong sense of community, and it jumps some more.

Not that you're doing this with your comment, but it has always struck me as odd to treat reddit like it's a single website with a single experience for all users. Yes, there's a base, universal experience, but it's truly up to the user to tailor that experience into what they want. You want memes and fart jokes? There are subs for that. You want to look at breathtaking photos? There are (poorly named) subs for that. You want to discuss why obscure Warcraft character A is behaving so oddly toward Warcraft character B? There's a sub for that. To me, that will always be Reddit's strength.

No matter what reputation it gets, no matter how much shit goes on in the defaults, there's always my little specialty subreddits filled with meaningful content to consume.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#123

Post by ranit »

VodkaHaze wrote: post #82
shawnee_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business startup ideas are essentially experiments in economic theory. Yet HN comments are vastly inferior to Reddit's when regarding anything to do with economics. It didn't used to be this way, and I kind of miss the HN of old... where logic and fearlessness were valued more than affiliation or keeping up of brand appearances. I've been finding it increasingly disconcerting that the incentive here lately has been t…

Reddit is a swamp of filth wrt economics comments. Basically all the subreddits except /r/academiceconomics, /r/badeconomics, /r/econpapers are awful. I'm friends with the mods of /r/economics and they have a really hard time reigning in the masses of ideologues (on all sides) ruining what should remain pure economics discussions.

> Basically all the subreddits except /r/academiceconomics, /r/badeconomics, /r/econpapers are awful.

You probably mean "Basically all the subreddits related to economics except ..."

Re: HN comments are underrated

#124

Post by jomamaxx »

shawnee_ wrote: post #78
Jimmy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Business startup ideas are essentially experiments in economic theory. Yet HN comments are vastly inferior to Reddit's when regarding anything to do with economics. It didn't used to be this way, and I kind of miss the HN of old... where logic and fearlessness were valued more than affiliation or keeping up of brand appearances. I've been finding it increasingly disconcerting that the incentive here lately has been t…

"Yet HN comments are vastly inferior to Reddit's when regarding anything to do with economics."

I find that HN is pretty weak on economics. But it's a tech blog, so ...

And I'm not so sure that 'business ideas' are about economics. Usually, they are simply about doing things using newly available technology, in ways that are obvious in hindsight.

I don't think that AirBnB conceptually is rocket science - it's the great experience they provide for everyone. It's really well put together. AirBnB done by a lesser team of people would be something you never heard of.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#125

Post by fernandotakai »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #87
k__ wrote: post #7

I follow many people on twitter who dislike HN. Reason for this is opinions here are alsmost entirely from white males with money.

If that is an issue you find, why not comment and offer views from other walks of life? I certainly do at times. I'm legally white - but depending on the amount of sun I have, am not always viewed as such in the common world. I'm female, not exactly rich, and have blue hair. Naturally, my viewpoints can be different. There are others like me - folks from other countries, not rich, not male. At the same time, knowing…

same with me, legally white latino from a 3rd world country that works remotely. i would say i'm different from the usual hn user and i'm happy to share my opinions (sometimes)

Re: HN comments are underrated

#126

Post by throwanem »

panic wrote: post #100
throwanem wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discounting someone's opinion on the basis of skin color and economic circumstances rather than content, for example.

A person's background is what forms their perspective on the world. That background and perspective affects the content of their posts. You can't separate the two things so easily.

True. But only the content is available for analysis. I'm not sure why it's preferable to judge assumptions about a given commenter's background and perspective rather than what that commenter actually says.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#127

Post by zzzcpan »

cronjobber wrote: post #109

> when people make comments that aren’t just reasonable sounding but are actually correct, those comments tend to get upvoted For a while, I found that on pages with lots of comments the most interesting ones were to be found at the top––and, buried between actual dross, at the bottom. That might have changed, I don't see it that much anymore. But that could be a side effect of something even less desirable. I think…

I have the opposite experience. I never found the most interesting comments at the top on popular posts. They usually just reflect a public opinion or come from "famous" HNers. I even reconsider my opinions, when my comments are upvoted too much. Because it means that public shares the same opinion and it is likely to be influenced by PR/marketing/politics.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#128

Post by angry_octet »

tptacek wrote: post #101
latch wrote: post #32

Removing the vote count was a step back. You end up with highly positioned comments that are factually wrong and no way to weigh the corrections made in replies. If you saw that a comment had 20 votes, but a reply had 500, you'd have something to go by. If nothing else, they could show the relative score of a reply to its parent.

The vote counts weren't removed to make the comments more comprehensible or the threads easier to mentally rank. Their removal may very well have made those tasks harder. Vote counts were struck because they were causing fights. Paul Graham decided to risk sacrificing a little bit of comprehensibility in exchange for some extra civility. I think the tradeoff has worked very well --- especially because incivility crow…

It would be good if the vote counts became visible after a time period, say 7 days. That way when people re-visit a topic the most appreciated comments are visible.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#129

Post by unixhero »

jomamaxx wrote: post #124
shawnee_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business startup ideas are essentially experiments in economic theory. Yet HN comments are vastly inferior to Reddit's when regarding anything to do with economics. It didn't used to be this way, and I kind of miss the HN of old... where logic and fearlessness were valued more than affiliation or keeping up of brand appearances. I've been finding it increasingly disconcerting that the incentive here lately has been t…

"Yet HN comments are vastly inferior to Reddit's when regarding anything to do with economics." I find that HN is pretty weak on economics. But it's a tech blog, so ... And I'm not so sure that 'business ideas' are about economics. Usually, they are simply about doing things using newly available technology, in ways that are obvious in hindsight. I don't think that AirBnB conceptually is rocket science - it's the gre…

I beg to differ!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12556160

Re: HN comments are underrated

#130

Post by tptacek »

angry_octet wrote: post #128
tptacek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vote counts weren't removed to make the comments more comprehensible or the threads easier to mentally rank. Their removal may very well have made those tasks harder. Vote counts were struck because they were causing fights. Paul Graham decided to risk sacrificing a little bit of comprehensibility in exchange for some extra civility. I think the tradeoff has worked very well --- especially because incivility crow…

It would be good if the vote counts became visible after a time period, say 7 days. That way when people re-visit a topic the most appreciated comments are visible.

You can get the scores on old comments through search. Since, to a first approximation, the average 7 day old thread gets zero viewers, it seems unlikely to be worth the energy to add new features just for them. But if you think it's worth doing, you should mail Dan and Scott at hn@ycombinator.com.
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