Hacker forums are a lot like indie rock bands.
Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
11–20 of 68 posts
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#12http://twitter.com/newsycombinator only posts pages that appear on the front page. An RSS feed might get a little noisy.
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#13Hacker forums are a lot like indie rock bands.
Are you saying that indie rock bands get louder and louder the more popular they get?
(Serious question -- I don't listen to rock bands, indie or otherwise, so I don't know how the time- and popularity-dependence of their volume.)
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#14There is more noise by quantity because there are more links than ever, but the average quality hasn't gone down. It only seems like it sometimes, because the site has good and bad days. Also, if you just want programming links, read http://hackerhackernews.com/ . The topic here is much broader than only technical things.
It hasn't been updated since July 7th. Unless nothing else that's been up lately has been about programming...
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#15Hacker forums are a lot like indie rock bands.
Are you saying that indie rock bands get louder and louder the more popular they get? (Serious question -- I don't listen to rock bands, indie or otherwise, so I don't know how the time- and popularity-dependence of their volume.)
No, he's saying that the quality is variable. Sometimes they have one great album and the rest are poor, or an album has a few great songs and the rest sounds like filler.
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#16Yes, I agree. HN has many interesting stuff, but I have problems to follow all news, because it's just too much.
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#17I'm not sure all of us here are hackers and we don't always come here for programming articles. I read hacker news as an alternative to google news or watching tv. For me, it's mostly entertainment that alleviates my boredom with a weighting toward improving my skillset and keeping up to date in my industry.
If there were only code articles or technology articles, it'd get boring and I'd probably come back less often. I probably spend way too much time here really, but I probably click on 75% or more of the articles on the front page. I click on them because they are interesting, not necessarily because they are about programming or technology -- they expand my mind.
I think mind expansion is good for hackers.
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#18I was going to comment last night on the post on how to sleep better in the Summer, but I didn't in hopes that sort of thing would stop itself. But all-in-all that sort of stuff doesn't belong on Hacker News, after all the site is Hacker News.
What solution do you propose? I don't think merely saying "let's keep things topical" is going to work. People are going to keep submitting articles they find interesting, and upvoting articles they find interesting, regardless of the topic.
In the interests of full disclosure, I was the one who submitted the "How to Sleep Comfortably on a Hot Night" article. Yes, it's not topical. However, I'm not ashamed! I thought it was interesting, and clearly so did the 44 other people who upvoted it.
I'm quite pleased with the community that's developed here, who are discriminating enough to pick out many articles I find interesting.
However, HN could definitely be improved, so that people who are only interested in certain topics (such as only computer/hacking related articles) or not interested in other topics (such as off-topic, or political, or venture capitalist articles) could more easily filter through what's becoming a firehydrant of links.
I think the best way to do this is by implementing tags.
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#19I think there's definitely a lot of noise. Having categories (or tags) would be a good aid to sorting through it all.
Oh please don't let this turn into reddit.
Re: Too much noise in HN? (Open question)
#20I think there's definitely a lot of noise. Having categories (or tags) would be a good aid to sorting through it all.
Oh please don't let this turn into reddit.
It's not tags which would turn HN in to Reddit. It's the community. If HN's community was identical to that of Reddit, HN would turn in to Reddit (minus the tags). But HN's community is not the same as Reddit, which is why the articles which are submitted and upvoted on HN generally differ from Reddit (with some overlap, of course).
I don't see how not having tags helps anything or anyone. It just keeps the article space flat instead of organized by topic.
Of course, the articles still have different topics. They're just not easily distinguishable from one another by automated means.