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Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

#71

Post by dotancohen »

Kaibeezy wrote: post #48
jillesvangurp wrote: post #19

It keeps me informed but it definitely has a few negative qualities. - I seem to spend too much time on it. Obsessively checking it. Reading the comments. I recognize the behavior from when I was frequenting Slashdot back in the day. It definitely has some addictive qualities and I need to force myself to stop reading it so often. - The debate is a lot less fun than Slashdot used to be. I kind of miss the silliness.…

I find the lack of humor disturbing. I’m told/observe it’s due to the plethora of native tongues, neurodiversity, timezones, caffeination and other variability hereaboots. Idiomatic expressions and deadpan, in particular, seem to set off the kerfuffles, ke? In my experience, forum moderation is Sisyphus-complete and utterly thankless. The fact we have had this refuge that functions as well as it does for as long as i…

  > I find the lack of humor disturbing.
I'm split on this. The occasional Monty Python reference in an otherwise informative post is terrific. But I don't want to see memes here all day, too many great Reddit subs were ruined by that. I don't know where the slippery slope starts, but I prefer the conservative approach.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

#72

Post by dotancohen »

slyall wrote: post #49
robertlagrant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN definitely has a techbros vibe. I guess that's by design but it's not very inclusive. What does this mean?

It means the stereotypical commenters are 20-30 year old, white, male, single, programmers, living in the Bay Area and making $400,000 per year. Which is good if you want to know the latest Google gossip or many tech questions. But not as good when we are talking about topics that are less directly in the experience of the above people. As an example when you are talking about public transport they have experience th…

  > It means the stereotypical commenters are 20-30 year old, white, male, single, programmers, living in the Bay Area and making $400,000 per year.
I'm 2/6 on that scale, but I feel like a rather average commenter here. I suppose that the standard deviation is huge on this.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

#73

Post by throwaway22032 »

tyropita wrote: post #46
throwaway22032 wrote: post #13

I browsed a lot prior to 2019 and recently again. I used to work in software development but have moved out of the field recently. I love HN and derive a lot of benefit from it, unfortunately during the Great Scare I found it impossible to stay away from the associated threads. That sort of stuff seems to have died down now though, so we're good. If I could just censor any mention of it I'd be much happier, I'd add i…

What was the Great Scare?

That time when there was a big propaganda campaign to get everyone to hide inside for a big scary virus.

We probably maybe not really sure saved 0.5%-1% of the population, so it was worth 2-3% of our lives worrying about it, 10% inflation, public transport becoming financially unviable, various career paths literally disappearing, an irreparable political split, education being deleted for a bit, etc.

Thankfully, slightly later on, ~all then got it anyway so now there's at least a critical mass of people who realise this was all a load of shit and I don't have to adblock it by self excluding from all social networks.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

#74

Post by SwiftyBug »

dotancohen wrote: post #71
Kaibeezy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the lack of humor disturbing. I’m told/observe it’s due to the plethora of native tongues, neurodiversity, timezones, caffeination and other variability hereaboots. Idiomatic expressions and deadpan, in particular, seem to set off the kerfuffles, ke? In my experience, forum moderation is Sisyphus-complete and utterly thankless. The fact we have had this refuge that functions as well as it does for as long as i…

> I find the lack of humor disturbing. I'm split on this. The occasional Monty Python reference in an otherwise informative post is terrific. But I don't want to see memes here all day, too many great Reddit subs were ruined by that. I don't know where the slippery slope starts, but I prefer the conservative approach.

I agree. I don't know where to draw the line either, but I notice some kinds of posts allow for more irreverent comments than others. I think it goes by the "seriousness" of the topic.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

#76

Post by mikewarot »

I think that HN has a long term value that I've yet to tap. I've been tuned in to the conversational aspect of it, but if you need to know about subject X, the search feature will pull up a ton of informative discussion about it with pretty much all of the important aspects and gotcha's covered.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

#77

Post by mooreds »

Yes, I consider it to be a positive use of my time. Here are some benefits:

   - keeping aware of latest tech trends
   - deep deep knowledge in some of the comments about tech stuff and other stuff. I like to learn so this is helpful
   - the ability to shine a spotlight on things I think are interesting, either what I've written (occasionally) or what others have written
   - the monthly jobs post is helpful for keeping an eye on the tech hiring market
You can definitely waste time on HN, just as you can on some of the other sites you mentioned. I occasionally find myself cycling between HN, Twitter, LinkedIn and email, waiting for that hit of dopamine with an interesting comment or reply. When that happens, it's time to go to bed, go for a walk, or read a book.

Re: Ask HN: Do you consider Hacker News to be a positive/useful use of your time?

#78

Post by rcarmo »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #19

It keeps me informed but it definitely has a few negative qualities. - I seem to spend too much time on it. Obsessively checking it. Reading the comments. I recognize the behavior from when I was frequenting Slashdot back in the day. It definitely has some addictive qualities and I need to force myself to stop reading it so often. - The debate is a lot less fun than Slashdot used to be. I kind of miss the silliness.…

I regularly get downvoted for being humorous. I don’t care, life is too short.
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