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Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly people wishing the internet was back like it was in 2022, :D

See also, 1. Eternal September : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September 2. (and what I like to call) Eternal October : https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2000/10/google-launches-sel...

2016 was the third impact

Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#192
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang is a key factor in the success of HN, no doubt about it. Another part is the consistent website design, it helps in focusing on the essentials, i.e. the articles and the discussions. And last but not least i try to be the best I can when posting here.

The consistent design is what's holding HN back. The worst is when the top comment has so many replies, the first page is only reactions on that comment. Someone actually needs to sticky a comment saying there's a next page button with links to it. Oh and the links are unclickable on mobile.

Sure there are some tweeks that could be made. I'll take what we have currently though over having a designer decide what we really need is something like new Reddit.

Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely a contingent in the HN comments with a bit of an antisocial streak. I wish people approached comments they take issue with with more of a pedagogical approach, starting with interpretive charity and trying to help the commenter see things in another way. I'd actually use the term "welcoming" in this context.

People get paid to promote shit on HN. It's a job you can get. There's no hope for the old internet these days. You can welcome the spammers, if you want, but all you're gonna get is spam.

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Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#194
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was also here on the 1st day, the same day I decided to start-up 15 years ago! Took me 7 years to create an account though. Wish I had done it sooner! Especially ALWAYS reading the comments BEFORE the actual articles! Thanks!

how did people hear about it back then?

From PGs blog, O'Reilly's feed and/or Slashdot.

/.

Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#195

Took me a while to find out where the cool kids had gone from Slashdot back then ;) Speaking of which, let's keep HN a liberal and welcoming place also for corps/startups (but not astroturfers) where key developers, experts from non-IT, CEOs/CTOs can have a voice as that's what makes HN unique IMO.

Slashdot at the time was turning into a bit of a swamp, partly from its bad threaded commenting system, but mostly because of a constant addition of low-value "first" comments, needless attacks, and dumb links (Goatse, Rickrolling, etc.)

HN came around at the right time, and really had a better community with a good signal:noise ratio. The moderating system (flagging, up/down votes, and of course @dang and his predecessors) really helped.

One thing that's really impressed me as time has gone on is how far the expertise has expanded. I have bookmarked a bunch of users who consistently add solid insights, often with deep domain expertise sometimes from very unexpected quarters (diesel technicians, biologists, farmers, artists, musicians ...). They include @Animats @jdietrich @bkohlmann @nonbel @tptacek @zackmorris @jurassic @tamilama @patio11 @ries @nimbius @breakingcups @noduerme @300bps and many more.

Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#197
post #21

People (and myself) can rag on this website a lot but it really has changed the trajectory of my professional life. It’s where I: * first learned about CRDTs, kickstarting an interest in distributed systems * first learned about TLA+, kickstarting an interest in formal specification * first saw the book Quantum Computing Since Democritus recommended (in a post about Professor Sussman’s reading list), kickstarting an…

Hey thanks for this comment! It reminded me that I wanted to play with TLA+ some years ago. Now, for the first time, I got a couple of models checked :)

Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#198

It feels like HN still upholds the early promise of the internet (along with Wikipedia and very small number of other websites). But what will the next 15 year bring about?

What's the "early promise of the internet" to you? The Venture Capitalists and startuppers that made HN like the internet to be Free enough that new businesses and services can thrive, and Open Source for the accessible and reusable building blocks for their projects, but clearly like commercialization and being the middleman, like in the good old offline days. The headache of moderating their platforms feels more ur…

[deleted]

Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#199

The actual start was some time before that: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09

HN didn’t exist yet before 2006-10-09:

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-08

Here are all the days with posts from 2006-10-09 through 2007-02-19:

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-10

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-11

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-12

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-13

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-14

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-15

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-17

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-22

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-12-14

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2007-02-19

What happened in between? Was HN tweaked and then relaunched?

Re: Happy 15th birthday Hacker News

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I miss the old Slashdot. It took me a while to become a regular here as well. Slashdot got a bit too serious/corporate at some point and the founders eventually got out and at some point I just moved on as well. The last time I left a comment there was twelve years ago or so. I actually just logged in just to see if my account is still there. Karma still excellent :-). I like HN, but it could do with people being…

I like HN, but it could do with people being maybe a bit less uptight and a bit lighter sometimes. The comment section seems to have quite a few pedantic know it-alls taking themselves way to seriously; just like slashdot used to. That's a fair point, but at least the one thing we don't have here (for the most part) in comparison to /. is the steady stream of comments of the - GNAA - In Soviet Korea Only Old People S…

"Hot grits", obscene ASCII art, homophobia, racism, nazi jokes... The comments section on Slashdot was downright offensive. I never understood why Slashdot tolerated these things. They killed their own community.

HN was immediately the opposite: a place you could read the comments before the article.

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