Reddit's Discussion about HN • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#11

Post by jhancock » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 8:52 PM UTC

trickjarrett wrote: post #9

tdavis wrote: post #7

To be fair to them, this place is really boring, can't take a joke to save its life, and is often filled with the same sort of stories... but the major alternatives are so much worse by comparison that it's all worth it. To quote myself from #startups, "HN basically has one type of person... a much better one type of person [than] youtube has, but still."

I will disagree. We can't 'take a joke' because the purpose of this site does not include humor. We have plenty of other places to go to look for something funny. As for being boring, then this means to me that the content is not your cup of tea. Plenty of us spend a great deal of time on here reading and contributing. And lastly, we're far from the same person. We have a niche we reach to so people come from similar…

I agree folks should not waste space with comments that are purely for amusement. However, I have noticed that if a comment is on-topic and still adds humor, it can be taken very poorly. I agree: "we're far from the same person". Humor is often the best way to open minds in a diverse group. Alcohol works as well for breaking the ice, but its hard to induce that online ;).

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#12

Post by Zak » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 8:58 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #3

While I certainly think this is interesting, I also think it is dangerous to draw their attention. When you see a mob of unruly teenagers, you should pretend not to notice them and walk on.

Fortunately, the mob of angry teenagers seems to find the group of slightly older people having a quiet conversation in the library rather dull.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#13

Post by web3 » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 9:10 PM UTC

tdavis wrote: post #7

To be fair to them, this place is really boring, can't take a joke to save its life, and is often filled with the same sort of stories... but the major alternatives are so much worse by comparison that it's all worth it. To quote myself from #startups, "HN basically has one type of person... a much better one type of person [than] youtube has, but still."

Aside from the good stories, I like knowing that I can read intelligible, mostly interesting comments here. Sometimes I just don't want to hear quip after quip.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#14

Post by geuis » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 9:10 PM UTC

And that is exactly why I have never even signed up for reddit, stopped using Digg, and get anxious/annoyed when its a slow news day on HN and my frequent refreshes don't provide new, interesting information.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#15

Post by joshuaxls » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 9:15 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #3

While I certainly think this is interesting, I also think it is dangerous to draw their attention. When you see a mob of unruly teenagers, you should pretend not to notice them and walk on.

Unruly teenagers? Come on. I can't be the only one who gets tired of the petty, smarmy anti-Reddit talk. It's just another site; we're not cults. And we're also not the old farts telling the "unruly teenagers" to get off our damn lawns, are we?

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#16

Post by chrisjhatch » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 9:15 PM UTC

I moved from reddit to hacker news for the sole reason that this place is a bit more...er, sparse. Every other article on reddit is either "upvote if..." or a long pun thread.

It's a nice change to come here and get away from the 4chan-ness of other sites.

They can hate on the boring-ness of HN all they want, the simplicity of the website, and the inability to downmod for absolutly no reason is a just reason for coming here.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#17

Post by tdavis » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 10:08 PM UTC

web3 wrote: post #13

tdavis wrote: post #7

To be fair to them, this place is really boring, can't take a joke to save its life, and is often filled with the same sort of stories... but the major alternatives are so much worse by comparison that it's all worth it. To quote myself from #startups, "HN basically has one type of person... a much better one type of person [than] youtube has, but still."

Aside from the good stories, I like knowing that I can read intelligible, mostly interesting comments here. Sometimes I just don't want to hear quip after quip.

I fail to see at which point I recommended HN be comprised of "quip after quip". Or you've assumed that there is some sort of all-or-nothing requirement between quips and intelligible comments.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#18

Post by tdavis » Mon, Mar 09, 2009, 10:18 PM UTC

trickjarrett wrote: post #9

tdavis wrote: post #7

To be fair to them, this place is really boring, can't take a joke to save its life, and is often filled with the same sort of stories... but the major alternatives are so much worse by comparison that it's all worth it. To quote myself from #startups, "HN basically has one type of person... a much better one type of person [than] youtube has, but still."

I will disagree. We can't 'take a joke' because the purpose of this site does not include humor. We have plenty of other places to go to look for something funny. As for being boring, then this means to me that the content is not your cup of tea. Plenty of us spend a great deal of time on here reading and contributing. And lastly, we're far from the same person. We have a niche we reach to so people come from similar…

Perhaps boring was the wrong word... "stuffy", maybe? Look, I love HN as much as the next guy; it's the only link aggregation / commenting site I visit. And there is indeed a lot of good content here.

The site lacks personality and that's probably why people who are otherwise "smart enough" (or whatever metric you wish to use) to post here don't. Since there's no personality and usernames are deliberately downplayed in leu of every comment being judged strictly on its individual quality, there's no diversity. This is why I say "everyone is the same person".

Think of a close group of friends. Could you randomly interchange them without anybody noticing? Probably not, but you could easily do that on HN. All you are to me is "one of those guys who holds the opinion that HN is ". There are lots and lots of you and you're all the same to me. There are people here like me, too, and we're probably all the same to you.

I don't really "know" anyone on HN; it isn't a community in that sense. It's just a group of like-minded people who hold the standard deviation of opinions regarding a (relatively small) set of topics. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

(edit: of course this isn't the reality of the situation -- I'm sure everyone here is not the same in "real life", but due to how HN is setup and run, for all intents and purposes they are here.)

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#19

Post by jrockway » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 1:17 AM UTC

This "article" really says a lot, mostly how Jeff Atwood and the average redditor are at about the same mental level. (Note how Jeff snipes at HN, and then the rest of the sheep pile on. It is hilarious.)

StackOverflow is a nice site, but I wish Jeff would spend less time spreading ignorance and more time programming.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#20

Post by beta » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 1:31 AM UTC

unalone wrote: post #5

anthonyrubin wrote: post #2

I don't see any reason to discuss Jeff's ignorant article yet again. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=507948

Agreed. All reddit's doing is calling us sterile, and circlejerking around a few of the people defending Hacker News. There's nothing meaningful in this conversation.

As compared to the all too common Hacker News circlejerks? :(