Reddit's Discussion about HN • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#21

Post by codinghorror » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 4:01 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #19

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.

I was just being honest. There is an element of sterility to the culture here, IMHO. I still like Hacker News, but it's not as enjoyable to discuss things here. Hard to quantify, exactly, but it does feel a bit stilted and artificial, dry and academic, like everyone is trying extra hard to perform and please their peers.

(This is probably exacerbated by the fact that pg has gone on record stating that your Hacker News karma score is factored into any Y Combinator submissions you make. Nothing wrong with this, but it turns this site into a sort of proxy startup / investor pitch for some folks.)

On the whole, I'm more of an advocate of saying what you feel, while being reasonably civil. That said, I do not support 4chan style anarchy, or what the broad Reddit/Digg has turned into. I still think prog.reddit is pretty decent though.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#22

Post by jrockway » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 5:36 AM UTC

codinghorror wrote: post #21

jrockway wrote: post #19

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.

I was just being honest. There is an element of sterility to the culture here, IMHO. I still like Hacker News, but it's not as enjoyable to discuss things here. Hard to quantify, exactly, but it does feel a bit stilted and artificial, dry and academic, like everyone is trying extra hard to perform and please their peers. (This is probably exacerbated by the fact that pg has gone on record stating that your Hacker New…

I don't think you've seen enough of Reddit or HN, honestly. I have spent wayyy too much time on both, so I feel uniquely qualified to comment ;)

Most discussion on Reddit consists of short attacks (or attempts at jokes). There is plenty of that on HN, sure, but a lot of comments are pretty long explanations of what the poster thinks. I don't find this to be sterile (and I enjoy not knowing about Internet memes anymore).

Interestingly, most of your comments here are significantly longer (and more insightful) than those at Reddit. I think it's because you are replying to comments here with actual substance, whereas on Reddit most of the comments are mindless and don't leave much for you to say. I think this is a sign that HN is doing well, or rather, that it works the way I like. (That's why I spend my time here now, rather than on Reddit.)

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#23

Post by codinghorror » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 7:06 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #22

codinghorror wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just being honest. There is an element of sterility to the culture here, IMHO. I still like Hacker News, but it's not as enjoyable to discuss things here. Hard to quantify, exactly, but it does feel a bit stilted and artificial, dry and academic, like everyone is trying extra hard to perform and please their peers. (This is probably exacerbated by the fact that pg has gone on record stating that your Hacker New…

I don't think you've seen enough of Reddit or HN, honestly. I have spent wayyy too much time on both, so I feel uniquely qualified to comment ;) Most discussion on Reddit consists of short attacks (or attempts at jokes). There is plenty of that on HN, sure, but a lot of comments are pretty long explanations of what the poster thinks. I don't find this to be sterile (and I enjoy not knowing about Internet memes anymor…

I think they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I am a fan of both, but there's a certain fun factor here that is missing.

The idea that fun and "serious discussion"/work are mutually exclusive is the biggest disappointment, to me, of the HN culture. It's just not true. You can have it both ways. In fact, you should demand it. Remember, this stuff is supposed to be fun!

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000979.html

And given the fact that a flirting article (WTF?) is on the front page, perhaps this part of the HN culture is changing. Unlike the stultifyingly boring drug war article, at least that's sort of fun..

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#24

Post by codinghorror » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 7:15 AM 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…

To me, the idea that fun and "serious discussion"/work are mututally exclusive is the biggest disappointment of the HN culture. And it's just not true!

For me, if it's not fun, it's not worth doing:

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20081101/how-hard-could-it-be-th... -- For his part, Jeff says he didn't want our new venture to feel "like work" -- that if Stack Overflow wasn't fun to do, he didn't want to be doing it. If I had tried to make him play by my rules, I don't think the project would have come together, at least not as well as it has. --

Good work is fun, almost by definition. And that should come across in your comments about the work, too.

Re: Reddit's Discussion about HN

#25

Post by jbm » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 1:32 AM UTC

tdavis wrote: post #17

web3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't you find that humor feeds a positive cycle that results in it being inevitably over-represented in the body of comments made on a website? I know that is one of the reasons I can't stand reading the comments at Digg anymore.