If HN died then maybe lobste.rs would become more popular. I think Lobsters does some things better (tags you can filter) but posts currently get very few comments. However, the invitation requirement might be too much of a barrier for many people.
Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
51–60 of 75 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling up Dang actually points out the one major weakness of this site from the outside. I don't know what his succession plan looks like, but if he gets hit by a bus, this site could change dramatically (for the worse) and almost immediately. When one person is your linchpin, you have one major, and guaranteed source of failures unless you take steps to mitigate. So it would be interesting to know what kind of succ…
I'm not the only moderator who knows how HN works. Just the only one who posts publicly these days.
I'm certain you already have the dataset necessary to create an AI replacement of yourself as the moderator, even with the existing available models.
If this isn't already in the works, it should be as a key-man insurance policy.
I'm sure the other moderators would be fine, but they couldn't ever carry that dang weight.
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#53Just let it go, but keep the memories (perhaps save some interesting content somewhere). Every user generated content platform has a finite life and lives with no way to replicate it as-is elsewhere. People have attempted to replicate many communities with varying degrees of success, but it’s just not the same (that doesn’t mean it’s always worse when replicated…it’s just not the same anymore).
One of the hardest but useful lessons in life is to move on (and figuring out when and how to move on).
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
"People could attempt to replicate something close to his methodology, guidelines and levels of engagement" I wonder how close are we to getting an AI to do this kind of work? Pretty far I would guess?
Managing a community requires the uncountable efforts of the human soul. As of the current date, large language models do not possess one.
That's rather eloquently romantic, but doesn't actually seem to mean anything beyond "it requires some ineffable quality of vague goodness that just FEELS right to me, I know it when I see it."
What can be done besides "emotional feedback subjective gut check on how it makes me feel" when we propose to analyze the scenario?
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling up Dang actually points out the one major weakness of this site Semi-related fun side note: In my former workplace a coworker coined the term "Single point of success" after management said he was being negative by calling things a single point of failure. Such bottlenecks can't be solved by one person. It takes a village. That's why I suggest everyone here could take notes and at least try to do the same thi…
This problem has recurred throughout history. The issue with the "study this person who does it well, take notes, it takes a village!" approach is that that quicky ossifies into a bureaucratic morass of petty tyrants who don't actually understand (or care about) the principles behind whatever that person did. They instead engage in endless rules lawyering about technical minutiae. Some do it simply to feel powerful;…
approach is that that quicky ossifies into a bureaucratic morass of petty tyrants
Agreed, I see that happen all the time, especially with chat platforms for some reason. That's why I also said discipline. Having run large forums the temptation to make rules and power-trip is human nature. The biggest battle is with ones self and not letting others help moderate unless they share the same discipline. Finding people that share the same values and are not at risk of power-tripping is hard. Assistant mods would have to know up front they would be booted as soon as they exhibit such behavior.
I would suggest people first start up some little just-for-fun thing and learn the hard way what the biggest struggles are before creating something they truly are passionate about.
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#56I worry about this myself. I feel like HN is the last refuge of what the old Internet was supposed to be like. I'm not sure it can be replicated. The future of the Internet seems to me to be small private "hidden" communities and mega platforms filled with garbage. No room for a middle Maybe a paid platform?
The tildeverse? SDF? Mastodon? Slashdot? The chans? Lobsters? Gemini? Superhighway84 (not sure if this one's still alive?) Undernet or Libera on IRC?
I guess it depends on exactly how picky you are about pattern matching to "the old Internet," but a lot of that stuff feels like a throwback to the early Internet or even BBS era... none of it is mega platforms and most of it isn't really hidden... all of it is pretty cool... HN fills a great niche to be sure
Hold your nose and throw in a few of the better run subreddits until Lemmy takes off...
And WordPress is now paying a guy to work full-time on ActivityPub integration, hold on to your hats ...!
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#57Change is inevitable, and going to extreme lengths to preserve the current status quo is almost never worth it. Consider the recent death of Twitter, which seemed so real that tweets were being routinely embedded in news articles. I personally spent a lot of time there, but when it became unusable for me I moved on, to discord communities and bluesky. These are not the same, they are not a twitter-replacement per se,…
Twitter is not dead; it rather caters to a different and broader audience segment now.
What happened is that it is no longer an institutionally governed "safe space" where only leftist progressive views are allowed to be voiced in public, and any dissenting views were censored.
The segment of people who think that applying that sort of leftist ideological purity filter on all public discourse is a good thing are leaving, while another (and ultimately much larger) segment of the public who highly value free speech are joining.
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#58Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#59I have been part of many online communities. To name a few, the old Usenet, Slashdot, IWETHEY, Perlmonks, and HN.
I long ago accepted that all die at some point. And something new will be created. The new will never be the same as the old. But the fundamental problems are social, not technical.
Your mirror platform is an idea that I've seen tried multiple times, and I've only seen work once. That was when the InfoWorld Electric forums broke, and the core participants moved to IWETHEY as a replacement.
But, generally, the technology isn't what breaks, it is the social dynamics. Usenet, Slashdot and Perlmonks are still out there. They just don't have the same social dynamics that they used to. People enter, others leave, and the community changes. Those who are motivated may agree to meet over there when this goes. But they are always more motivated to be here here now. People who leave here, don't go there because there is nobody there to attract them. And they don't want to form a community over there for a future mass migration because they (probably accurately) project that the people they don't like here will just be part of that migration.
I'll cry a tear if HN falls apart to the point I don't want to be here. But I'll also accept it as just how online communities work. Maybe I'll see people I know in my next community. Maybe not. I'll keep a few personal friends, and I'll move on.
This is just how things work online. And there is no technological solution for what is fundamentally a social problem.
Re: Ask HN: Should we plan for a life after HN?
#60No. Hacker News is a distraction, nothing more. It shouldn't define your life or identity to the point that you need to plan for its absence like the death of a parent or sibling. Go touch grass, nerds.