61–70 of 264 posts
In comparison, HN is more emergent, less filtered, and fueled more by dopamine than by any other kind of motivation.
These posts were typically defended in two ways: "politics affects nerds, therefore it is a legitimate topic" Bogus in my opinion, because I can go anywhere to get general politics talk, Slashdot derived value from being nerd/tech-specific; and second, "the motto is news for nerds, stuff that matters--politics matter, therefore it is on-topic"--for crying out loud, it was joking on the fact that gadget news or who is in the new sci-fi movie is largely inconsequential. The latter may not apply to here, but the former can, reframed as "this affects the tech/VC/whatever community, therefore it is relevant." It might be, but if you let it become the focus of the site, it will attract posters who would rather generate heat, and they will overwhelm the posters who generate light and would rather not spend their time arguing.
I don't exempt myself from this, I am a relative latecomer to HN. I catch myself many times resisting posting because I don't want to help this place to become another Slashdot. I know I'm doing it right now and I'm sorry :-(
I find this doom-mongering a bit over the top. Slashdot basically was a troll culture at its very core, and while it could be funny at times, it never really elevated itself to a place for serious discussion. Just look at the front page of HN today - 3-4 stories somewhat about law (but relevant computer related law), the other 26 a hugely diverse array of links to interesting topics. Even if the discussion can be a b…
Even though the quality of discussion on HN might ebb and flow, or there might be more negative comments than positive at times, the culture here isn't ever going to tolerate Natalie Portman, hot grits, or image macros.
So great.
Couldn't agree more.
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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.
I just have to point out that your username is only 4 months old. Maybe you used HN before signing up... but if not, then I'd assume you don't have the proper context as to why this community considers this a negative change.
Having said all that, This is the one site that I visit >20 times a day.
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
Hacker news has never been 100% technical; part of why I'm here (and involved in the Hacker Dojo) is to hang out with those skinny-jean wearing hipsters who have, you know, social and business skills, as well as some technical skill. Broadens my mind, you know? but the thing is, there is something of a filter there; you need to be 'this technical' to enter, as it were. How do you enforce this? I don't know. It seems…
If you don't reflexively agree with knee-jerk libertarianism you are persona non grata here.
A good way to ensure that new facts are not discovered, that new scientific discoveries don't happen, and that people don't listen to you, is to make things political.
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…
(Normally, meta is discouraged, but since the initial question is meta, an I think there's a signal to imply there's a real shift, I'm commenting on this. More is needed, perhaps a dump of topics to determine of politics has really taken an unusually strong signal here, perhaps using the Bayesian methods described a week or so ago...)
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The problem for me is that the political stuff has perfect substitutes that I can easily go to, but I don't know of any alternatives for the skeptical, intelligent tech+business discussion.
HN needs tagging or even general categories, so we can filter topics out.