well, I don't make any secret that I'm an asshole, but if you got this far... I'm ticked off at HN for:
1) being exactly the hollow echo chamber that leads to bubbles, because amidst the "We're just connecting investors to founders" is the networking, smiling, and meaningless business-talk that leads to Color (Remember Color?) getting funded. And HN would like to distance itself, saying it, too, was skeptical of Color, but Color at least had some hint of being innovative and all too many startups I see here are bad ideas _and_ bland ones.
2) This account got hell-banned, probably because I drunkenly chewed out an asshat. Now, I have two things to say on that score: d'ya think I wouldn't notice? A pathetically childish technical "crowd management" technique that I get around by going to my other account on any other browser I have open for my various Reddit names. I'll give it one credit, though, it spurred me to leave for good for Android+technology+buildapc+programming+javascript. I make a habit of checking back here every so often. Quality's crap. And the actual quality articles get complaints about being poor quality.
Also on that score, I'm not really sure I regret going off on that guy. I don't really disagree with anything I said, but at the same time I'm faced with the fact that I'm not at all a nice person. But HN doesn't let you delete comments, which is some sort of redneck backwards, and the way I see it it's not fair to the dude or to me to have that moment enshrined forever. Best I can do is camouflage it a bit.
3) Along the lines of hell-banning, the meta-awareness of this place is so stuffy and clueless. Policies do not constitute meaningful group decisions. Reddit has what, fifteen metacirclebrokes? HN just has occasional rabid debate about problems and whether or not they are problems and then pg does whatever, as well as a constant barrage of "We're not reddit" and various other pretentions. Now I'm a pretty damn pretentious person, but that also comes with a fair amount of self-loathing--and granted, HN has that too (what else is that but this?), but not in any meaningful, sculpted way.
4) My Backbone tech article and in fact all my articles get ignored here. And I'm not being sour grapes about that: I was in fact quite pleased that my first WBH got a handful of HN views. But that Backbone article did _great_ in /r/javascript, and maybe HN has a noise/signal problem, but if so, it's one that means you have to be somebody or you have use friends to be seen.
HN is already being gamed. And I don't think it has the capacity to deal with that. It comes with being a part of the Networking Circlejerk.
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So, HN, enjoy your startup launches and your occasional gender-war debacles and your considered harmful considered self-referential.