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Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

whaly.io

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Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#101

Post by DenisM »

numair wrote: post #64
noduerme wrote: post #34

It would really scare me if dang wasn't the first one. But at the same time, I feel immense pain thinking about what he has to deal with on a daily basis. Literally the entire functioning of the last somewhat civil, fully moderated, independent, anon-friendly board on the internet in 2021 on the shoulders of one admin. I'd like to say how a million flowers should bloom from this shining example, but it seems more lik…

> independent, anon-friendly board on the internet in 2021 There is a lot of stealth censorship on HN that occurs behind the scenes. After I wrote a post that was critical of Stripe, all of my new posts are automatically shadow banned. This place won’t survive for much longer, I don’t think. Edit: And before dang posts some dumb response, I will tell you that he said “the algorithm” decided that my posts were “self p…

I read your comments as far back as I had the time and most are abrasive. If you tone it down you will find it easier to be heard.

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#102

Post by poulpi »

janandonly wrote: post #93

Does HN have about 10K active users? Then this entire post is more or less clickbait because we are all in here ( I just found myself in the list as well). More useful is knowing * What were 2021's most upvoted articles? * Wat were 20201's most upvoted comments?

You can find answers to the first question here: https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective

And here: https://app.whaly.io/hacker-news/public/report/3596f39c-5a56...

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#103

Post by noduerme »

caslon wrote: post #71
noduerme wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're totally right, we all see that happening as far as it goes. But how far does it go? I've only ever posted on controversial topics. Usually when I post, I'm prepared to be downranked, and I'm mildly surprised when I get upvotes. I try to stay away from the dang-hammer. And on code or business subjects, I only ever go deep into things I have obsessive opinions about, popular or not. And that seems to rank OK. I…

"The point" is because it's fun to farm points. This is the same reason people play in competitive video games, or even why people posted videos of themselves online before there was a financial incentive to. It's fun to do something inherently collaborative, like being viewed by an audience. Hacker News fills the same niche for me as competitive video game tournaments do (during a certain time of the year, an easy w…

Would monetizing points here really be worth it? Even if you had a ton of points and made the front page with your new startup for a whole day. If it wasn't actually an amazing piece of code, or truly original, you would get endless amounts of blowback. Arguably this is the worst possible place to debut anything. You have to be some kind of masochist. And if you spent a dime on farming for it, God Help you. I mean, I love seeing MBA CEOs suddenly jump onto HN to try to do damage control after launching/promoting something here that they thought would get easy hits. That's like my favorite HN sub-genre... the wildly freaked out brand-new CEO. Someone should make a compilation of those.

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#104

Post by prepend »

tester34 wrote: post #77
caslon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The formula is pretty simple: Write cool comments about things you know about in threads that aren't dead yet. If you're really trying, you can accumulate over a hundred points in a day without posting any articles. The site is basically a game if you're optimizing for points, and it's better designed than reddit because you have to actually know things to get them. Have a niche programming language you like? Talk ab…

>The site is basically a game if you're optimizing for points, and it's better designed than reddit because you have to actually know things to get them. Haha. Actually HN seems to be least technical community (when it comes to arguing) out of all those I know (reddit, forums) Discussions raaarelly *try* to go into the technical details, let alone deeply. I don't think I've seen more than 5 code snippets over year on…

I get the feeling that people here do know deep technically and code, but talk about things that don’t frequently use this knowledge.

I think this because every time there’s a coding topic, we’ll get really specific, targeted coding comments that are relevant and make sense.

I meet a lot of ex-programmers now in “higher” positions that don’t allow programming. And many times they’ve expressed that they wish they were programming and look for excuses to allow programming. It’s kind of unique in what’s been shared to me. But I wonder if it’s the same for ex-accountants and others who love a profession but grew out of it for the money.

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#105

Post by noduerme »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #95
noduerme wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one that's apolitical, anonymous, and personally moderated post by post? Some reddit subs might fit the bill, or some car enthusiast forums or something where wide-ranging conversations are banned. But this is a hard, hard thing to mod. I don't think we have anything else like it these days. That's why I'm actually here.

> Name one that's apolitical, anonymous, and personally moderated post by post? There are literally millions of forums out there. On any topic. Even simply statistically speaking, there's a ton like that.

There are a few I'm in that really moderate. One is for owners of old Datsuns. One is for pedal steel guitar players ($5 per year, just to keep out the junk). That's okay if you're running a PHP forum with a couple thousand users, a few dozen concurrents at most. Modding this thing as one or a few people? That's a whole 'nother animal.

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#106

Post by prepend »

raverbashing wrote: post #37

While I have on occasion been given a "stern talking to" by dang, I guess we can all appreciate his work. Though I sometimes wonder when does he sleep. (Though yes I should probably be more conservative with my comments)

I imagine dang has a series of scripts and programs and works on automating himself out of the need to manually do things.

While it seems like a boring manual job, it’s an interesting job if looked at as an automation problem. The need to automate in a non-stupid way would be good to apply here.

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#107

Post by peoplefromibiza »

noduerme wrote: post #105
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Name one that's apolitical, anonymous, and personally moderated post by post? There are literally millions of forums out there. On any topic. Even simply statistically speaking, there's a ton like that.

There are a few I'm in that really moderate. One is for owners of old Datsuns. One is for pedal steel guitar players ($5 per year, just to keep out the junk). That's okay if you're running a PHP forum with a couple thousand users, a few dozen concurrents at most. Modding this thing as one or a few people? That's a whole 'nother animal.

> Modding this thing as one or a few people? That's a whole 'nother animal

But does this make HN truly unique?

I don't think it does.

If the OP said "among the forums I'm in HN is the only one that ..." I'd have nothing to object.

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#108

Post by MertsA »

bambax wrote: post #23

This only measures the number of comments; it would be interesting to know the karma difference accrued in a year. It may produce the exact same ranking, as intuitively karma is probably heavily correlated with comment frequency... but maybe not?

Just looking through the top of the list I see a lot of usernames that I'm not familiar with and some of the more recognizable users further down. There is definitely a significant difference between comment count and karma.

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#109

Post by coolandsmartrr »

codetrotter wrote: post #14
coolandsmartrr wrote: post #11

I was able to garner some karma in 2021, but being in a Far East timezone seems to be disadvantageous. Basically, much activity appears to happen while North America wakes up in the morning, which is when I am already asleep. Sometimes I break my vow of online detoxing before sleeping; when I find trending topics related to my domain of knowledge, I frantically respond before the comment section gets too crowded. On…

This list is ranked by number of comments though, not by karma.

Good catch

Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021

#110

Post by noduerme »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #107
noduerme wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few I'm in that really moderate. One is for owners of old Datsuns. One is for pedal steel guitar players ($5 per year, just to keep out the junk). That's okay if you're running a PHP forum with a couple thousand users, a few dozen concurrents at most. Modding this thing as one or a few people? That's a whole 'nother animal.

> Modding this thing as one or a few people? That's a whole 'nother animal But does this make HN truly unique? I don't think it does. If the OP said "among the forums I'm in HN is the only one that ..." I'd have nothing to object.

To me it's the one thing that truly does. I've been here ten years and I think the moderation is the unsung reason it's survived and manages to keep going. It's actually not obvious at all how personal and deep the moderation is until you get on the wrong side of it. If you've never been banned, it's like the invisible protocol that keeps communication flowing smoothly; you don't ask what that protocol is if it doesn't break down. It's quite subtle, at times almost sublime in that it's capable of weighing humanity against dread/mob/internet. So in my observation over many years, I think that is definitely what has made this site unique.
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