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The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

daringfireball.net

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Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#31

Post by e_ »

I suspect it may be a mix of various factors:

1. The HN audience’s preferences have changed over time

2. There’s way more competition – the amount of great content to share and discuss has increased a lot

3. Gruber apparently does not write as much or as well as he did a decade or so ago (at least according to many Daring Fireball readers I know)

4. Yes, many readers don’t like him, but I would also say that many readers, especially younger ones, simply don’t care about him (related to point number 1)

5. Related to all above, Gruber’s influence and relevance in tech debates have probably declined

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#32

Post by cptcobalt »

I would like to see more DF on HN. The something rotten in Cupertino was a shattering post—people in my circle who do not read DF were discussing and sending it around, and I work at a place where so many dang people read HN. So I agree with Gruber’s concern.

I’m surprised this post too is already flagged.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#33

Post by erickhill »

graeme wrote: post #16

It's certainly possible there's a backend flag on the site. But from the comments I see on Reddit, I suspect there may be a simpler explanation: a lot of people for some reason really dislike John Gruber and view him as someone who slavishly praises Apple. I'm a big John Gruber fan, and I don't think this is true in the slightest. I think he thinks carefully, forms his own opinions, and is very willing to intensely c…

> And hence some people will flag his articles reflexively or post reflexive dismissals.

Prophetic. The Flagaroons have attacked.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#34

Post by sedev »

graeme wrote: post #16

It's certainly possible there's a backend flag on the site. But from the comments I see on Reddit, I suspect there may be a simpler explanation: a lot of people for some reason really dislike John Gruber and view him as someone who slavishly praises Apple. I'm a big John Gruber fan, and I don't think this is true in the slightest. I think he thinks carefully, forms his own opinions, and is very willing to intensely c…

"But this means his pro and con opinions don't match typical opinions and this makes him polarizing. And hence some people will flag his articles reflexively or post reflexive dismissals. And Hacker News is heavily weighted to downrank polarizing articles."

The downranking is particularly weird since HN's professed norms go extremely hard on something along the lines of "you should take atypical opinions seriously since they're more likely to contain new information than opinions that are conventional-wisdom-with-a-few-little-sprinkles-on-top." Sometimes the HN audience is very diligent about this norm. Reactions to Gruber's writing from the HN crown often show marked deficiencies in adherence to this norm. I'm not sure what, if anything, should be done about that by Gruber or HN's moderators, but I do believe that the problem is not located in Gruber's writing.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#36

Post by erik »

graeme wrote: post #16

It's certainly possible there's a backend flag on the site. But from the comments I see on Reddit, I suspect there may be a simpler explanation: a lot of people for some reason really dislike John Gruber and view him as someone who slavishly praises Apple. I'm a big John Gruber fan, and I don't think this is true in the slightest. I think he thinks carefully, forms his own opinions, and is very willing to intensely c…

> But this means his pro and con opinions don't match typical opinions and this makes him polarizing. And hence some people will flag his articles reflexively or post reflexive dismissals. And Hacker News is heavily weighted to downrank polarizing articles.

I suspect this is it. A subset of users flag and/or downvote daringfireball on sight if it reaches the front page and the HN algorithm treats that as a strong single

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#37

Post by erickhill »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #30
throwaway_0501 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not being blacklisted or censored (see other comment with link to submissions). My suspicion: it's not relevant to the HN audience. DF is opinion pieces (mostly) about Apple. While I'm sure many DF readers use some Apple device(s), I suspect many (most?) DF readers do not care about "inside baseball"[0] for Apple. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_baseball_(metaphor)

Unlikely. “Rotten in Cupertino” was a bombshell and this forum should have been where the most insightful discussion took place. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43348891

100%. But if Gruber/Daringfireball are even shown for a split second, there's a kneejerk reaction to flag it before the flagger even often reads it. It's a shame.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#38

Post by detaro »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #30
throwaway_0501 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not being blacklisted or censored (see other comment with link to submissions). My suspicion: it's not relevant to the HN audience. DF is opinion pieces (mostly) about Apple. While I'm sure many DF readers use some Apple device(s), I suspect many (most?) DF readers do not care about "inside baseball"[0] for Apple. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_baseball_(metaphor)

Unlikely. “Rotten in Cupertino” was a bombshell and this forum should have been where the most insightful discussion took place. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43348891

a "bombshell" for the bubble of Apple-superfans, shocked that their high priest is criticizing Apple, maybe. For the rest of the world?

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#39

Post by jgruber »

minimaxir wrote: post #7

For posterity, here's a spreadsheet of all Daring Fireball submissions to HN, sorted chronologically: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A7ljmWbHtFsB4VRJ1Q0d... From first glance there's still some decent traffic on Daring Fireball submissions, even inside the times Gruber asserts deadweighting.

How then do you explain DF being #3 from 2007-2021 and #72 from 2021-2025? It’s clearly not blacklisted, but clearly is shitlisted, no?

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#40

Post by jgruber »

cptcobalt wrote: post #32

I would like to see more DF on HN. The something rotten in Cupertino was a shattering post—people in my circle who do not read DF were discussing and sending it around, and I work at a place where so many dang people read HN. So I agree with Gruber’s concern. I’m surprised this post too is already flagged.

Me too.
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