Why I stopped reading HN (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#91

Post by jariel » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:13 AM UTC

I have to disagree with the commentary a little bit HN is still one of the only places where the insights are consistently thoughtful.

There are a lot of smart people on FT it's paywalled and quite expensive (ie professionals only) and even it can be a little reddity at times.

Don't fully discount some forums on Reddit as there are some smart people there, and there's something to be said for 'raw' authenticity, sometimes a poorly articulated point can be enlightening, but you have to wade through a lot.

I don't actually agree fully with the moderating approach but you have to give them credit here.

As far as 'cutting edge programming' well - is there such a thing? We can only argue so much about concepts that have been addressed before. One might say 'AI' or at least Deep Learning is the domain of 'cutting edge programming' wherein there's enough new fodder.

And there's been a Cambrian Explosion of startups so pure novelty is going to be hard to find.

A simple rule: "Would you miss it if it were gone?" I think so, which is something to say in 2020.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#92

Post by parasubvert » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

gherkinnn wrote: post #15

LeCow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. On Reddit even a percieved differing opinion results in hate mail, insulting and shouting. It's one of the reasons I never signed up to Twitter.

Twitter has to be the worst major platform. It is a rollercoaster of misery, disgust, and annoyance. And there isn’t even a proverbial nugget in the turd to make it worth it.

I prefer Twitter to Facebook. I still think there are threads on Twitter (daily!) where things can be learned in real time for later follow up/reflection. It isn’t a good medium for arguing though. This experience may be a reflection of my particular old school circle (I joined in 2006)

Facebook unfortunately doesn’t have vibe where people You trust can jump in and provide an insightful thread. It’s just stacked piles of trolling and baiting. Its only saving grace is keeping in touch with family and friends who don’t use any other platforms.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#93

Post by Ma8ee » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:16 AM UTC

foldr wrote: post #82

Ma8ee wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reread the relevant parts of the text again, and I don't find anything that supports that the author meant anything else with "semantics" than I do. Semantics is about "meaning", not only on a superficial level.

"Semantic arguments are particularly insidious. Trained logicians should know that semantic meaning is arbitrary (unless the actual argument is about language). The worst thing you can do is to have an argument in which you talk past each other because you each have a different idea about what the words mean." It doesn't make sense to dismiss an argument as merely semantic if you are talking about something more than…

But the author's point was that arguments shouldn't be dismissed as merely semantics, but that semantic questions are important and has to be resolved for it to be meaningful discussion.

Yes, the different sides have a genuine disagreement about the point at which life begins, but that is because they mean different things when they say that something is alive.

So this discussion is becomming a bit too meta, but now we are discussing meaning of the term semantics. Considering that the author himself took up the discussion about abortion as an example of something that is "purely a semantic one", I'm convinced that he meant the same thing as I do when he used the term semantic.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#94

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:17 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #85

teekert wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this before but, given time, the HN comment sections always sort themselves nicely. I may encounter a nice article that I want to send to the management of my company for example, I refrian from doing this immediatly. Instead I leave the tab open and after a couple of hours I refresh en the top comment are almost always insightful and either reinforce my choice to send the article or make me decide not to.

Either HN has some incredibly smart sorting algorithm, or the level of discussion here is amazing for the number of users. On sites like Reddit the first 2 or 3 top level comments are puns, sarcastic one liners or a variation on the current meme. Or it might be a matter of etiquette: the same user on HN upvotes the smart comment and then goes on Reddit and upvotes the dismissive and overused quip.

It's the etiquette. The community standards are by no means perfect, or always adhered to, but in general, if you want to dismiss something or post a joke, you have to put some work into it.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#95

Post by contravariant » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

gherkinnn wrote: post #15

LeCow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. On Reddit even a percieved differing opinion results in hate mail, insulting and shouting. It's one of the reasons I never signed up to Twitter.

Twitter has to be the worst major platform. It is a rollercoaster of misery, disgust, and annoyance. And there isn’t even a proverbial nugget in the turd to make it worth it.

I'm surprised people expected differently from a platform where every conversation is a shouting match by design.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#96

Post by names_are_hard » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #74

kstenerud wrote: post #33

All forums ossify after enough time has passed and the initial population has been crowded out. People come to these places for various reasons: - To debate - To learn - To engage intellectually with other people - To be heard/validated - To gain social standing The problem is (like all human forums) that as the included population rises, you need to make a bigger and bigger splash to be heard, and that means that af…

> initial population has been crowded out. This is called Eternal September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September If everyone is allowed to join, and there is little moderation, there is reversion to the mean aka reversion to mediocrity. You need really strict moderation to keep the quality up. One of my favourite subreddits is /r/AskHistorians It's generally useless to post anything but question into the c…

This is something that's bothered me for a while, but I'm beginning to make peace with it. Everything is ephemeral, nothing good lasts, and if you want to find the good stuff you have to keep searching. It's the cycle of life for anything of value - first it's niche, then it goes mainstream, then it turns to crap. True for online communities, products (digital and physical), and probably much more.

Ok, there's one thing that seems to last: the linux desktop never takes off. Some people bemoan this, I like it. It means that the Linux I love won't go away...not just yet, anyway. Every year that linux fails to popularize on the desktop is another year I don't have to go looking for a new niche tool that will do what I want instead of what its creators want.

edit: typos

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#97

Post by parasubvert » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

etripe wrote: post #71

LeCow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. On Reddit even a percieved differing opinion results in hate mail, insulting and shouting. It's one of the reasons I never signed up to Twitter.

I'm relatively new to HN but a reddit "senior", and one of the things I really appreciate about this place is the relative lack of toxicity. To me, it seems people really come here for civil discussion and default to asking questions instead of flaming. Well, that and more people source their claims.

TBH that’s good moderation (And scalable algorithms to delegate such privilege) at work. there are plenty of flames and toxicity here, they’re just suppressed.

Also the really controversial topics tend to get flagged.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#98

Post by Kaibeezy » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #83

etripe wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm relatively new to HN but a reddit "senior", and one of the things I really appreciate about this place is the relative lack of toxicity. To me, it seems people really come here for civil discussion and default to asking questions instead of flaming. Well, that and more people source their claims.

From a 30 year view of communities, including Fido, Usenet, Reddit and many others, I’d attribute that to @dang’s and @pg’s benevolent dictatorship. Many communities start out nice and well meaning, but at some point devolve into a Wild West. HN did not, and I think that’s thanks to dang’s moderation (and pg’s at an earlier time) Also, “small” things like dropping the vote counts, and having canonical rules for title…

As the great architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said: “God is in the details.”

Mies’ work wasn’t without flaws or detractors, but then compare one of his subtle, perfected masterworks to the infinite cheap and nasty boxes that leveraged only the sketch outline of his style.

Now translate that into any field, absolutely including online community building. There’s no question where HN stands.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#99

Post by _y5hn » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

dwrodri wrote: post #3

I uninstalled my 3rd party reddit app the other day for very similar reasons. I love reddit as a way for getting my tech news, but there's just so much about the platform that I don't like which is becoming harder and harder to avoid. The communities I really enjoy (r/cpp, r/MachineLearning, r/DataScience) are still for the most part wonderful communities and they provide killer feeds that let me stay up to date with…

For the subreddits I track with RSS I've yet to encounter anything political or someone not arguing constructively. Is this something with the platform or each forum? I often don't mince words either. After a while in a community one tends to have "seen it all", so it'll be longer between nuggets produced.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#100

Post by MagnumOpus » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #85

teekert wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this before but, given time, the HN comment sections always sort themselves nicely. I may encounter a nice article that I want to send to the management of my company for example, I refrian from doing this immediatly. Instead I leave the tab open and after a couple of hours I refresh en the top comment are almost always insightful and either reinforce my choice to send the article or make me decide not to.

Either HN has some incredibly smart sorting algorithm, or the level of discussion here is amazing for the number of users. On sites like Reddit the first 2 or 3 top level comments are puns, sarcastic one liners or a variation on the current meme. Or it might be a matter of etiquette: the same user on HN upvotes the smart comment and then goes on Reddit and upvotes the dismissive and overused quip.

> level of discussion here is amazing

The demographics is different. Reddit audience is 50% random teenagers and 90% teens + college students -- browsing on an app looking for quickly-consumed content. HN is probably majority people slacking off at work and hence more "mature"...

(It doesn't hurt that dang will just delete the content-free pun/meme comments when people get tempted to up-vote them.)