Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#21

Post by vertex-four »

mcny wrote: post #18
wingerlang wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hardly any discussion about politics, religion I don't get a lot of this on reddit as well, unless I purposefully wander into related subreddits. Maybe the odd trump reference comes up sometimes.

» Hardly any discussion about politics, religion, or any other topic that no one ever changes their minds about. Maybe I don't understand the word "politics" but I think most of my posts are inherently political in nature. When we talk about how we need to increase taxes and decrease public spending, it is a political statement. When I say most people who don't have children should seriously consider not having any c…

When I say “I deserve to exist”, that’s unfortunately a strongly political statement. And when people can afford to say “I avoid politics”, that is in itself political.

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#22

Post by dentemple »

scarface74 wrote: post #13

HN is my “safe place”. Hardly any discussion about politics, religion, or any other topic that no one ever changes their minds about. I do my part. I flag submissions that are overly political even if I agree with them.

> or any other topic that no one ever changes their minds about

It sounds like you don't read any of the web development discussions here.

New Technology is evil, and Server-Side Javascript will be responsible for the second-coming of Christ.

The statement is an exaggeration, but that's about how passionately the HN crowd seems to push their ecosystem politics here.

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#23

Post by craftyguy »

ksec wrote: post #19

Signal To Noise Ratio. I registered my account on ~2012, but I have been reading HN since 2010, and I didn't participate because the quality of the comment were way too high, and I am not sure if I could make any decent contribution. And it isn't really HN that is being additive. It is the community, being sensible and professional. It also avoid ( mostly ) all religion and politics debate, or basically things that i…

> Signal To Noise Ratio

I find the Noise to Signal ratio on HN to be incredibly high.

For example, multiple posts per day[0] reminding us that facebook is 'bad' and 'spying on us' (no shit). When whatevercoin was a thing, there were many posts per day about how bit whatevercoins were the {best,worst,crashing,soaring,smart,dumb,future}.

HN started off with some direction, but now it seems to be turning into the fake internet point machine that many reddit sites are: where folks are rewarded for (re)posting whatever the 'hot topic' is of the month, and bolstered by millions of tangential or anectodal comments from people who never made it past the headline.

0. http://funkyimg.com/i/2S1gE.png

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#25

Post by joezydeco »

ksec wrote: post #19

Signal To Noise Ratio. I registered my account on ~2012, but I have been reading HN since 2010, and I didn't participate because the quality of the comment were way too high, and I am not sure if I could make any decent contribution. And it isn't really HN that is being additive. It is the community, being sensible and professional. It also avoid ( mostly ) all religion and politics debate, or basically things that i…

HN also avoids a lot of the web-based pitfalls that let the S/N ratio decrease.

You can't post images inline. You can't embed links into text. Replies don't get forwarded to your inbox.

Simple things like that focus the site on the discussion and not on meme-building.

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#26

Post by scarface74 »

vertex-four wrote: post #21
mcny wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

» Hardly any discussion about politics, religion, or any other topic that no one ever changes their minds about. Maybe I don't understand the word "politics" but I think most of my posts are inherently political in nature. When we talk about how we need to increase taxes and decrease public spending, it is a political statement. When I say most people who don't have children should seriously consider not having any c…

When I say “I deserve to exist”, that’s unfortunately a strongly political statement. And when people can afford to say “I avoid politics”, that is in itself political.

I have strong political views that I express other places and I am definitely not in a “privileged” demographic that can afford not to be political - I just don’t express them here except sometimes economics and try to back them up with as unbiased credible sources as I can.

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#27

Post by sgillen »

craftyguy wrote: post #23
ksec wrote: post #19

Signal To Noise Ratio. I registered my account on ~2012, but I have been reading HN since 2010, and I didn't participate because the quality of the comment were way too high, and I am not sure if I could make any decent contribution. And it isn't really HN that is being additive. It is the community, being sensible and professional. It also avoid ( mostly ) all religion and politics debate, or basically things that i…

> Signal To Noise Ratio I find the Noise to Signal ratio on HN to be incredibly high. For example, multiple posts per day[0] reminding us that facebook is 'bad' and 'spying on us' (no shit). When whatevercoin was a thing, there were many posts per day about how bit whatevercoins were the {best,worst,crashing,soaring,smart,dumb,future}. HN started off with some direction, but now it seems to be turning into the fake i…

Is it “incredibly” high though? I think you have legitimate criticisms but compared to other news aggregator/ social media sites I think the quality is very high.

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#28

Post by veddox »

Aside from the expertise represented in the HN crowd, I think another key factor is the self-reinforcing culture Y Combinator managed to build here. The guidelines aren't just some random document, they actually describe the spirit of the place - and the community strongly enforces them. This means that uncivil or contentles comments are unusually rare, which drastically improves the quality of the discussion.

Of course, the system isn't perfect (and regularly leads to the semi-justified claim that outlying opinions aren't welcome here), but on the whole it works very well.

Re: Ask HN: How can HN be more addictive than Reddit?

#29

Post by craftyguy »

sgillen wrote: post #27
craftyguy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Signal To Noise Ratio I find the Noise to Signal ratio on HN to be incredibly high. For example, multiple posts per day[0] reminding us that facebook is 'bad' and 'spying on us' (no shit). When whatevercoin was a thing, there were many posts per day about how bit whatevercoins were the {best,worst,crashing,soaring,smart,dumb,future}. HN started off with some direction, but now it seems to be turning into the fake i…

Is it “incredibly” high though? I think you have legitimate criticisms but compared to other news aggregator/ social media sites I think the quality is very high.

Compared to sites like lobste.rs and some super moderated topic-specific subreddits, it is 'incredibly' high.
Post reply on HN