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Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

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Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#111

Post by jiggy2011 »

VMG wrote: post #17
thaumaturgy wrote: post #8

I have a somewhat radical, sadly not novel suggestion: build what you're looking for. I now have a semi-private "HN Reader" which has completely broken my HN habit while still feeding me stuff I might be interested in. Because I built it, I can make it do anything I want. I've started to turn it into a slightly broader search engine so that I can find the things that I'm looking for; I got sick of seeing search engin…

And if you build the next HN, please add an API

Also, make sure that every time someone performs an action on the site, you generate a random number. Add that random number to the number of seconds since their last performed action. If that number exceeds a threshold (that is assigned randomly and valid for a randomly assigned amount of time) delete a random part of the session.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#112

Post by btilly »

VMG wrote: post #110
btilly wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About a decade ago I noticed this phenomena. Worthwhile communities need to be maintained by barriers. The kind of barrier that I personally enjoy most is, "Crappy enough interface that only people who really like the content will be motivated to show up."

I think it just correlates with the presence if images. Also StackExchanges have excellent UIs, APIs and still very good content. StackOverflow itself could also be worse.

That is a good comparison. StackOverflow has a good API, but maintains itself with carefully thought through and zealously enforced moderation rules.

I grant the existence of useful content there and a good API. However after one too many brushes with how differently moderators think about stuff than the people who I liked talking to did, I have demonstrated the truth of my comment by choosing to leave.

StackOverflow works for a lot of people. But for me, personally, a stripped down interface and less moderation is a better experience.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#113

Post by mehrzad »

DanBC wrote: post #84
mehrzad wrote: post #78

4chan's /g/ board is pretty good, but at times brutal.

I couldn't cope with all the "LOL WOODSCREWS!!!1!" type trolling. There's a lot of partisan stuff, and meme-spewing. And while there are plenty of people who really know what they're talking about (to the level the OP wants and above) there are also arrogant but ignorant 14 year olds ranting stuff. The text /prog/ board has some interesting discussion, but there's a lot of "Have you read your SICP today?". And both t…

>And both those boards have some deeply NSFW content. Rarely, /g/ is supposed to be SFW. >there are plenty of people who really know what they're talking about This is why I recommend it; a while back some guys were discussing how to build the low level functions of an OS.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#114

Post by kungfuton »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #8

I have a somewhat radical, sadly not novel suggestion: build what you're looking for. I now have a semi-private "HN Reader" which has completely broken my HN habit while still feeding me stuff I might be interested in. Because I built it, I can make it do anything I want. I've started to turn it into a slightly broader search engine so that I can find the things that I'm looking for; I got sick of seeing search engin…

Yes, I agree, build it.

However, please do not make it like HN or you will fail.

Be different. Brand it. Have a personality.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#115

Post by jamesbritt »

zalew wrote: post #18
stock_toaster wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is slower paced, for sure. I kind of find that pleasant though (like drinking a coffee and reading the paper). Seems to make me focus more on the linked content, and less on the discussions.

but then it's not a community, it's more of a link aggregator.

There was a (surprise!) meta-thread about that, seems some people are happy using the site as a link resource.

Me, I prefer to have discussions, but it's been tough going. I'm optimistic but it may take a while.

Last time lobste.rs was mentioned on HN there was an influx of people, but the only noticeable effect was that there were more submissions and slightly higher average submission up-vote numbers. Commenting seem to stay about the same.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#117

Post by harpb »

btilly wrote: post #96
artursapek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like that HN still has such an old, simple interface. It's one of the reasons I haven't left yet.

About a decade ago I noticed this phenomena. Worthwhile communities need to be maintained by barriers. The kind of barrier that I personally enjoy most is, "Crappy enough interface that only people who really like the content will be motivated to show up."

Or just create one themselves: http://harpb.com/static/news/news.html#/featured/p1/100

Presentation, along with content, is a better experience than just having good content.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#118

Post by theorique »

zalzane wrote: post #97
michaelochurch wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit's voting system has two issues: (1) Lots of strategic downvoting. That's why no thread stays above 75%. It happens to comments as well as threads. Some of it is spammers trying to improve their own ranking, and some is probably just trolls. (2) "Stalker" downvoting, which is when a person retaliates to a comment by downvoting that person's contributions en masse . I wonder if they've put any machine learning m…

The entire concept of the downvote is flawed and is very likely to be the absolute worst part about reddit. In theory it may be a good idea, but in practice it's essentially a "CENSOR THIS POST" button that people use to get rid of content they don't agree with. I've also noticed that negative points on a post completely destroys credibility despite cited evidence or a well thought out argument. I've seen identical c…

Each subreddit has different character, depending on the mods and the community that it attracts. Some skew one way, some skew another.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#119

Post by bherms »

michaelochurch wrote: post #74
personlurking wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and you're more likely to have a good comment downvoted." This has never made sense to me. On some subreddits that focus on disciplines (like AskHistorians among many others), you can easily get downvoted (ie "dissapeared") just by asking a question, let alone answering one. Other times you'll won't get upvoted nor downvoted when you've actually contributed to the discussion. In these instances I lurk even when I ca…

Reddit's voting system has two issues: (1) Lots of strategic downvoting. That's why no thread stays above 75%. It happens to comments as well as threads. Some of it is spammers trying to improve their own ranking, and some is probably just trolls. (2) "Stalker" downvoting, which is when a person retaliates to a comment by downvoting that person's contributions en masse . I wonder if they've put any machine learning m…

Also keep in mind that Reddit throws in spurious downvotes as part of their spam prevention. For example, you may have a comment with 100 upvotes and 50 "downvotes", but in reality, most of the downvotes may be fakes generated by their spam prevention mechanism.

Re: Ask HN: A place like HN but with more nerdy stuff and less social stuff?

#120

Post by scott_s »

antidoh wrote: post #93

Disrupt Hacker News! Come help change the way that we Hacker News Hacker News! :) I'm not near as focused as you are, but I understand your discontent. I have two suggestions. One, the easy thing (easy as in less work and commitment), which a few others have suggested. Help make HN better, make it what you want. It's probably already closest to what you want, among the alternatives. Read /newest and upvote good conte…

But mainly, get good at ignoring what you don't like. There's still a lot to like.

I think this advice is crucial. I try to follow it.

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