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HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#11

Post by taproot »

anigbrowl wrote: post #4

Some of this is because the HN demographic is young enough that many readers have never seen anything like this before, and thus think it's the Worst Thing Ever. I base this on the numerous counterfactual statements showing a lack of historical awareness in discussions on contentious topics. Of course, I think this is partly the result of not teaching civics in schools.

Which recent topics do you have in mind? I agree in respect to quite a few namely the nsa spying and aaron situation to name a couple.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#12

Post by Osmium »

One suggestion is to reduce the influx of new users. Maybe keep new registrations closed except for a few days every month or so. It allows older users time to help the new users adjust to the community, and prevents opportunistic/anonymous-trollish comments. Just an idea.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#13

Post by mynegation »

I left slashdot for exactly the same reason. That and I was tired to sift through trolling and countless slashdot memes like "imagine a Beowulf cluster of these".

HN still has a share if engaging technical news that is big enough to keep it interesting for me. But another thing that differentiates it from slashdot is that discussion is intelligent and no nonsense.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#14

Post by redschell »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #3

I do not think anyone will disagree with you, but what do we do about it? If you look through PG's comment history, you will see that it is indeed on his radar [1, 2], and as recently as a last couple months. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5935190 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5926081

How about a designated "policy" section, up there with "ask" and "jobs"?

It might be nice place to discuss the legal ecosystem for startups, too.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#15

Post by mtowle »

Only forums on which there is no point in activism, of either sort(1), can survive their own prosperity. Forums are conversational; activism is the antithesis thereof.

PG is trying, and you have to tip your hat, if the 4-hours-per-day stories are true, but talk about Sisyphean.

(1) "I" or "We"

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#17

Post by lsc »

taproot wrote: post #6

Im tired of sentiment like this. I havent been here long but ive had the same feelings about multiple communities as they mature. Its part of them growing up and has a lot to do with the members growing up. In this situation however i get the feeling it has more to do with the industry than anything else. I dont think tech can be what it was or at least ever will ever again. On the sidelines you see the news changing…

>Tech computers and internet going mainstream is exactly what we all aimed to do.

Do you remember the first dot-com boom? In 1999, it sure seemed like we were going mainstream. Nerds were cool!

Of course, once the money stopped, we were thrown aside like a sticky sock.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#18

Post by m1k3yboi »

m1k3yboi wrote: post #2

Totally agree. HN is kinda like Digg in the early days, but the signal to noise ratio is on the up and the 'New' section is almost shambolic.

After reading a few comments, just have to clarify that this is not necessarily a bad thing. HN is the only site that i sit on all day. It used to be Slashdot, brief flirtation with Digg and Reddit. But now it's HN.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#20

Post by rayiner »

As far as I can tell, this is the third major shift in the tone of the site. When it first started out there was a lot more technology discussion, but quickly the whole VC/fundraising aspect became very prominent. Recently, legal issues have become very prominent.

I think this reflects a real-world trend in what's relevant to "hackers" right now. The financial aspect of the whole technology industry really seemed to take off after the Wall Street meltdown, after other financial avenues darkened (remember all those articles a couple of years ago about "why we're in a bubble/are we in a bubble?"). Right now, a number of legal issues are impacting technology (software patents, NSA spying, etc) and hackers are unsurprisingly interested in discussing them.

I don't think these are necessarily bad trends. I think you're seeing a bit of the maturing of tech industry and you're seeing that reflected in the discussion. But there is still a lot of great technical discussion on the site (the front page right now has a great story on a scanner bug, a compilers blog post, a theorem-prover as programming language article, etc).

And at the end, what happened to Slashdot is that reddit happened and all the smart people left, and what happened to reddit is that Hacker News happened and all the smart people left. Until there is a credible alternative to HN, I think you'll still see a lot of signal, even if there is more noise than there used to be.

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