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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

#231

Post by isamuel »

I started reading DF when I was a college student, probably in 2002 or 2003. I listened to every iteration of The Talk Show that I can remember --- both runs with your former host, and the current edition from the very first episode. When I moved to Los Angeles and had no friends and felt lonely as hell all the time, I used to put on the keyboard episode of The Talk Show to give me something pleasant to fall asleep to.

But John, your cheerleading for Israel's genocide --- man. Way before the election of the current cheerleader-in-chief for that effort, you were ahead of the game.

You said that students who protested this genocide should be expelled from college (you've got a friend in the White House now, John!):

> These students should be expelled from college, not placated.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/10/19/violence

And, most sickening of all, you cheered the indiscriminate pager attack that maimed children, which your friend in the White House has now got a golden pager memorializing:

> This whole operation sounds like it would make for a great movie.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/09/17/israel-hezbolla...

I could go on, but the effect was heartbreaking. My old friend, the voice in my little Pasadena apartment all those years ago, clapping for the maiming of children and howling for the expulsion of students who disagree with him? Who was this guy? Who is this guy? Had I read him wrong the whole time? Had I changed --- would I have loved those blown-up Lebanese kids back in 2002, and now I'd gone soft? I don't know. But if I'd visited DF for the first time in 2003 and found content calling for the expulsion of Iraq War protesters, I don't think I'd have made a second visit.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#232

Post by mturmon »

steveBK123 wrote: post #178
js2 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must work that way. When I flag articles and they don't immediately show as `[flagged]`. I would guess the number of flags is weighted by upvotes, maybe (but less likely) by the karma of the person flagging the article. The software must track who flags articles since you can lose flagging privilege if you do it frivolously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173809 As far as I know, once an article is flagged…

I think from the way stuff is getting flagged & the comments, it's really a change in the user base becoming slowly less techo-anarchist/libertarian and more rightwing/authoritarian curious. Something really in the water the last few years in tech circles. Or maybe just disgruntled as the stock compensation infinite money printer has ended.

> ...change in the user base...

Agreed. (Change in the user base, or in the sentiments of the user base.)

That user base, and its apparent coordination (directed, or emergent), is the main reason I don't engage as much here any more. It's a dirty pool.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#233

Post by mturmon »

proline wrote: post #223
JohnBooty wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked into the linked article? That's not what gruber is questioning. 1. Obviously, a political article on DF is a poor fit 2. But DF's non-political articles are also seemingly pooplisted, even ones that are clearly relevant to HN's audience 3. There have been quite a few political articles from other sites that have gotten traction on DF without being pooplisted yeah I dunno it doesn't add up to me. i'm n…

My question was, has Gruber written enough non-political articles to know? Like if the number of high quality, original (many DF posts are just links to content elsewhere), about tech articles is down 90%, then of course his article performance here will be down 90%. And that's before considering that Apple itself may have become less interesting and his writing skills may have slipped (reading too much politics on s…

This was an outstanding article and its time on the front page was limited:

https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_th...

You're "just asking questions" and inventing percentages. The above example is pretty clear.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#234

Post by inatreecrown2 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #216
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…

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. This is most definitely true but he, and Apple, have always been very polarizing. I don't think either one has become more polarizing? And if so, certainly not in some extremely sudden way that would explain DF's popularity on HN falling off of a cliff. HN's cro…

He did start to write a lot about US politics, which for me is enough to stop reading his blog.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#235

Post by Karrot_Kream »

steveBK123 wrote: post #178
js2 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must work that way. When I flag articles and they don't immediately show as `[flagged]`. I would guess the number of flags is weighted by upvotes, maybe (but less likely) by the karma of the person flagging the article. The software must track who flags articles since you can lose flagging privilege if you do it frivolously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173809 As far as I know, once an article is flagged…

I think from the way stuff is getting flagged & the comments, it's really a change in the user base becoming slowly less techo-anarchist/libertarian and more rightwing/authoritarian curious. Something really in the water the last few years in tech circles. Or maybe just disgruntled as the stock compensation infinite money printer has ended.

I disagree. Some cursory searches on Clickhouse show me:

1. There was an exponential increase in people talking about FOSS, leveling out in 2021.

2. There's been an exponential decrease in people talking about startups, leveling out in 2021.

With that in mind, remember that there are karma gates to flagging and that you need many fewer flags than upvotes to sink something. My suspicion is that HN had a pretty big culture shift starting around 2016 but really peaking by 2021 that shifted from the old startup, builder focus to its current FOSS, anti-authoritarian mood. In other words the culture that used to be on Slashdot and technical subreddits found its way back onto HN. While the older HN was more homogeneous in its makeup and narrower in its topics it was also a lot less contentious than today's HN is, mirroring the culture found on Reddit and comment sections of tech-focused publications like The Verge. Today's HN is broad, unfocused, and a lot more like a mix of r/technology and r/programming than it used to be.

Flaggers, I suspect, have older HN values. They preferred the narrower focus of the old site and really dislike the highly contentious big comment threads that are on today's HN. It's hard to have proof of this since flaggers only interact by flagging, but it certainly is the opinion that I have as an older user well over the karma threshold to flag. As such I suspect we're seeing a culture clash play out where the flaggers are trying to hold onto older HN values while commenters here are engaging with HN in the way it's considered in the zeitgeist today, namely an alternative to tech subreddits.

Maybe the flaggers will keep the site balanced between the two perspectives but I suspect either the flaggers will get tired and churn.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#236

Post by BobaFloutist »

toasterlovin wrote: post #218
apple4ever wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's possible, but the problem is his take on Apple's customer unfriendly policies is not nuanced at all.

That’s exactly a topic that I think HN is collectively unhinged about, so I don’t even bother commenting. But I spend a lot of money with Apple and I like everything about their ecosystem, especially the locked down, Disneyland-esque sterile experience on my phone.

I think most people would probably consider that acceptable as a specialty product, but chafe against it being half of a duopoly. And I think it's also grown less and less acceptable to people as Google (and Microsoft, for the other duopoly Apple contributes to) have also become increasingly anti-consumer.

I don't resent the existence of Disneyland, but I probably would if 90% of all outdoor parks I could visit were either Disneyland or Facebookland.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#237

Post by mturmon »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #110
spiderfarmer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case I agree with Gruber. Responding by blogging and citing is better for both websites.

Seems hypocritical to me. He admits wanting to see the comments here while not supporting them on his own site.

I see your take, but I disagree.

DF is a blog and was conceived that way. HN is a discussion site. The two forms (blogging and internet discussions) are different. They serve different purposes and require different management styles.

The discussions here do seem to be tamped down in some ways, and as a user, that takes something away from the experience.

Relatedly: in general, I think "hypocritical" is not a big gotcha that ends discussions. Different things serve different purposes.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#238

Post by tiltowait »

js2 wrote: post #207
alsetmusic wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But overall the algorithm has kept HN an interesting place. Any good moderation policy has side effects and tradeoffs. I don’t think so. From his follow-up: > My thesis is that the above might once have been an accurate summary of how Hacker News functions, but hasn’t been for years, and that there now exists a cabal of moderator/admins with their thumbs on the scale, and their personal predilections are the primar…

This is paranoid conspiracy-theory stuff. Or it's bait. It's also not falsifiable. Dang can disclaim it but Gruber's next step would just be to write "of course dang would say that." Frankly, I find this submission and Gruber's followup insufferable and it makes me want to read him less. I say that as a regular reader of his blog who's purchased several of his t-shirts over the years. But really, these posts alone ma…

The treatment of Daring Fireball articles does feel inorganic to me, but if it is, no one who's talking can say whether it's because of mod abuse or a group of users who really hate the site and want to punish it.

And ... while I can understand frustration and disappointment on his end, the long post yesterday, let alone a second post, and apparently now discussion of it on a podcast where he was a guest, is overboard. He often comes across as a touch full of himself, and it's on blatant display here. Don't blame anyone for being turned off.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#239

Post by proline »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #191

It's well documented that user flags affect the ranking of stories even before stories are marked as [flagged]. While flagging certainly contributes to the lack of discussion on your articles, I believe that the main reason is that, for the most part, the Hacker News audience is less interested in your take than it used to be. Case in point: In recent months, a lot of recent Trump/Elon posts have been flagged and dis…

Interesting trends! I wonder what Gruber would say? Certainly the tone around Apple is different these days. One indicative moment was when Hollywood made Tim Cook the villain of Jurassic World Dominion and the reaction was... crickets. Or should I say grasshoppers? Not good, not bad, we just didn't feel anything at all. Now imagine the villain was Elon Musk! That would make people feel something.

Re: The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

#240

Post by kemayo »

rezmason wrote: post #162
kemayo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what are his credentials? When he weighs the merits of a programming language, an API, a platform, or anything technical, I want him to speak from experience. Sure, but he doesn't actually do that very much, does he? Like, that is absolutely not the focus of the blog. He talks a lot about the business of Apple, Apple's products and their direction, and how Apple interacts with various communities. I don't think…

Apple's business relies tremendously on its developer relations. If Gruber doesn't regularly navigate that wedge of the ecosystem, then I don't think he can speak with authority on its soundness. I mean I wouldn't!

Actually, fun counterpoint. This is the current top of the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43498984

It's about Apple. It's an opinion piece, where someone's saying that Apple should do a retrenchment OS release where they just fix bugs. It appears to be written by someone who is some combination of a pastor and a professional opinion-haver ("editor in chief").

I don't think there's any metric by which this person's article should be sitting unflagged at the top of the front page, but Gruber's recent something-rotten-in-Cupertino article should get promptly flagged and hidden away.

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