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HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

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Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#171

Post by ims »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #154
dylangs1030 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you that all of those things are ridiculous (and I was vocal in arguing against them), is it fair to characterize the entire forum as being so easily swayed by ant-state sentiments? During the two week "freak out", I saw a lot of linkbait about the NSA having massive conspiracies, but I saw relatively fewer actual comments where people were clearly being swayed by anti-government sentiment. For eve…

> For every comment I read that was outlandish, fallacious and clearly media spoon-fed, ... If you look at the timeline, the CIA had such a spectacular failure that an ambassador was raped to death and Hilary Clinton kicked to the curb. Almost simultaneously the IRS was caught embezzling money from anti-statist campaigns. Every time those stories threatened to gain traction, every leftist organ would run another 48 p…

> If you look at the timeline, the CIA had such a spectacular failure that an ambassador was raped to death

That's doubtful. http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/stevens.asp

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#172

Post by onebaddude »

tptacek wrote: post #114
deveac wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We have simply discussed the surveillance scandal enough. There's just nothing more we can say or do that will matter right now. The opposite is true. For too long the minimal to zero reporting these issues have received in the majority of news outlets was met with an abundance of silence and indifference. Outside of a few communities on the net (and fewer offline), there hasn't been discussion on these issues. The…

That's not true. In fact, this site has been embarrassingly bad about the technical issues of surveillance, for reasons ranging from gullibility to capriciousness. Witness for example several weeks of intense belief that Google had allowed NSA logins to its own servers in order to pull information off of them, the certainty with which people argued that NSA must have been helping the FBI track pressure cooker searche…

>Witness for example several weeks of intense belief that Google had allowed NSA logins to its own servers in order to pull information off of them

At least HN is a place where (presumably) there are users informed enough to set the record straight, rather than having the theories perpetuate. As someone who frequents Reddit, I appreciate that much.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#173

Post by oscargrouch »

gonehome wrote: post #105
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #57

I agree completely. I've been on HN for almost six years now (sidenote: wow!), and I'm in the top 40 users on the site by karma. And, despite the exhortations to not think that the site is becoming Reddit, the community is absolutely changing for the worse. There are a few things that I've noticed that I never used to see: * More politics. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a crazy flaming liberal, and I still d…

I think it'd be interesting if any account less than a year old had their comments put into the 'pending' state pg has been talking to.

newscomers will stop comming because they wont fell welcome, and that space is not really democratic..

this will eventually degrade to more elitism, like (now just people with a big karma)

HN is like a collective mind.. more pop ot gots, more of the average mind it will represent.. its something i fell about facebook too.. with the first open-minded friends, it was a good environment.. than.. the thing get popular, and your news feed look like a toillet flush..

i think whats bother some, its what attract others.. for me particularly i dont mind some political biased posts.. more than i do for the startup mentality stuff..

but then both of them get they fair share of the HN front page.. i think people here at HN do a very good review of things that are important, also for the moment, for the modern times.. live in broaders and bigger communities is this.. the average collective IQ gets lower.. but it make sense to say: "i dont want to grow anymore if thats whats grows means?"

should we kick off the average and make they fell unwelcome?

maybe i am the average, how can i possible know that?

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#175

Post by snowwrestler »

The thing about political topics is: anyone can talk about them. All politics requires is a difference of opinion, and we've all got opinions.

On the other hand to really talk about product engineering, software innovation, business management, etc., you have to have experience and expertise.

So as technical forums grow, they trend toward political topics.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#176

Post by irishcoffee »

tptacek wrote: post #114
deveac wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We have simply discussed the surveillance scandal enough. There's just nothing more we can say or do that will matter right now. The opposite is true. For too long the minimal to zero reporting these issues have received in the majority of news outlets was met with an abundance of silence and indifference. Outside of a few communities on the net (and fewer offline), there hasn't been discussion on these issues. The…

That's not true. In fact, this site has been embarrassingly bad about the technical issues of surveillance, for reasons ranging from gullibility to capriciousness. Witness for example several weeks of intense belief that Google had allowed NSA logins to its own servers in order to pull information off of them, the certainty with which people argued that NSA must have been helping the FBI track pressure cooker searche…

I am so fucking happy someone people may listen to has been able to articulate visibly what I've been thinking for months now.

>The site isn't merely the boy who cried wolf; but rather a boy with a wolf-oriented case of Tourette's.

I almost hate coming here now, for that reason. Which makes me sad.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#177

Post by grogenaut »

zalew wrote: post #35
nerfhammer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SOLVE IT WITH TEH TECKNOlOGIES!

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#179

Post by unimpressive »

joelg236 wrote: post #130
CoolGuy420 wrote: post #122

I know roughly a dozen people who frequent HN. Some of them are friends, some of them are family, some of them are coworkers. Some are involved in network security, some are programmers, some are involved in web design, and some are merely interested in tech news. Some are them male, some of them are female. Yet, without exception, they have all expressed to me that they think that the site has substantially lowered…

Sorry, I agree with a lot of your sentiments, but I have to nitpick. I think it is our duty, as older members of this website, to fix this problem. Is this a throwaway account is 1 hour a very long time?

>Is this a throwaway account is 1 hour a very long time?

That's what I would assume. The man would have to be insane to try and claim seniority with an hour old account.

Re: HN is Becoming 2005 Slashdot

#180

Post by jjindev »

[buried my lede: the front page algorithm]

I'm new, pointed in by the coursera startup engineering course. I have no idea how large that cohort is, or how uniform it is.

I certainly scan the headlines for startup themes (tech and other practices). I have found a lot of great things. My humble thanks for all it.

If I'm curious about one thing, it is the idea that people visit many times a day, and then expect many new high quality threads. If I understand the purpose, shouldn't visits be less frequent (to sync with startup world) and the front page less changing? Because if the front page "must" have new items, it must go further afield. The algorithm, which seems to [be] based on "velocity" of new items rather than strict rank, may favor the "topical" at this point.

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