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Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

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Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#31

Post by m101 »

vid wrote: post #26

I don't like the word "karma" because it's often, for better in worse, group affinity (and we are most often trajectories rather than pure insight). I often find minority views and unexplored paths interesting, even when they're obviously wrong. One time I made a negative comment about Lord of the Rings, and I think I lost a thousand points. Does it really make sense that my karma as a complete user drops so much bec…

My karma gets hit for having views against green energy and conservative leaning economics. There is a problem here with high karma correlating with being in the same echo chamber as everyone else.

I mainly want to get to the downvote threshold so I can also exert an alternative influence (as I'm in the minority I think). It's been many years...

Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#32

Post by Nemi »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #24
matheusmoreira wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussion here is generally of higher quality because of the people who come here. Lots of developers of all kinds, tech company employees, insiders, people who invented the algorithms you read about in the books, people who invented the programming languages we use. I for one ignore the articles and go straight for the comments. I care a lot more about what smart people think than the articles themselves. The news…

Reading the comments on non-tech submissions that a person has some basic knowledge of should make them aware that the vast majority of comments are simply confidently pronounced ignorance. (This is particularly evident on medical and health related submissions.) Then they should start to notice that, to almost as high a percentage, the comments on tech are just as much confidently pronounced ignorance.

You see, I disagree. In all fairness, I am not in the health care industry but I have had a lot of bad experiences trying to get subtle health problems diagnosed and have done a ton of personal research that has greatly improved my life, despite the healthcare industry not helping me. Hearing about the research that other smart, determined individuals have done is always interesting to me. As a matter of fact, it was a random comment from someone on HN that pointed me in the right direction to help with my problem.

I have learned that a determined laymen can sometimes outperform an average industry professional in all kinds of areas.

Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#33

Post by matheusmoreira »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #24
matheusmoreira wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussion here is generally of higher quality because of the people who come here. Lots of developers of all kinds, tech company employees, insiders, people who invented the algorithms you read about in the books, people who invented the programming languages we use. I for one ignore the articles and go straight for the comments. I care a lot more about what smart people think than the articles themselves. The news…

Reading the comments on non-tech submissions that a person has some basic knowledge of should make them aware that the vast majority of comments are simply confidently pronounced ignorance. (This is particularly evident on medical and health related submissions.) Then they should start to notice that, to almost as high a percentage, the comments on tech are just as much confidently pronounced ignorance.

> This is particularly evident on medical and health related submissions.

HN users, tech people in general, are biased against doctors and medicine. I don't think that can be generalized to technology discussion.

I've seen a few doctors posting here on HN. I'm among them. Medical discussion is useful to me since I can gain perspective on how medical practice works in other countries.

Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#35

Post by maxbond »

lapcat wrote: post #25
ipnon wrote: post #2

The best comments are at the bottom. I’ve been twaddling here long enough to know what the most upvoted take will be, so unless it’s a personal anecdote it’s not worth reading. The real juicers are usually buried near the bottom of the page, a few comments above where the apathy and sarcasm start bleeding into grey.

> The best comments are at the bottom. You clearly don't have the showdead option enabled. ;-)

That was my first reaction but they did address it in their comment.

> The real juicers are usually buried near the bottom of the page, a few comments above where the apathy and sarcasm start bleeding into grey.

Emphasis added.

Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#36

Post by reaperducer »

m101 wrote: post #31
vid wrote: post #26

I don't like the word "karma" because it's often, for better in worse, group affinity (and we are most often trajectories rather than pure insight). I often find minority views and unexplored paths interesting, even when they're obviously wrong. One time I made a negative comment about Lord of the Rings, and I think I lost a thousand points. Does it really make sense that my karma as a complete user drops so much bec…

My karma gets hit for having views against green energy and conservative leaning economics. There is a problem here with high karma correlating with being in the same echo chamber as everyone else. I mainly want to get to the downvote threshold so I can also exert an alternative influence (as I'm in the minority I think). It's been many years...

There is a problem here with high karma correlating with being in the same echo chamber as everyone else.

I think it depends.

My observation has been that people on HN value facts and first-hand knowledge, and reward such.

Because of that, I believe that someone who has been on HN for a long time with a lot of karma must know something, or have lots of experience.

Someone who has been on HN for a long time and has low karma makes me think that they don't have much knowledge to contribute and I view them more skeptically.

Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#37

Post by qwertytyyuu »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #33
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the comments on non-tech submissions that a person has some basic knowledge of should make them aware that the vast majority of comments are simply confidently pronounced ignorance. (This is particularly evident on medical and health related submissions.) Then they should start to notice that, to almost as high a percentage, the comments on tech are just as much confidently pronounced ignorance.

> This is particularly evident on medical and health related submissions. HN users, tech people in general, are biased against doctors and medicine. I don't think that can be generalized to technology discussion. I've seen a few doctors posting here on HN. I'm among them. Medical discussion is useful to me since I can gain perspective on how medical practice works in other countries.

He users and tech people are biased against doctors? Wha? That doesn’t sound right

Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#39

Post by dang »

skulk wrote: post #27
vid wrote: post #26

I don't like the word "karma" because it's often, for better in worse, group affinity (and we are most often trajectories rather than pure insight). I often find minority views and unexplored paths interesting, even when they're obviously wrong. One time I made a negative comment about Lord of the Rings, and I think I lost a thousand points. Does it really make sense that my karma as a complete user drops so much bec…

I thought HN caps negative score at -4?

It does, and has for many years.

Re: Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News

#40

Post by lapcat »

maxbond wrote: post #35
lapcat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best comments are at the bottom. You clearly don't have the showdead option enabled. ;-)

That was my first reaction but they did address it in their comment. > The real juicers are usually buried near the bottom of the page, a few comments above where the apathy and sarcasm start bleeding into grey . Emphasis added.

> a few comments above where the apathy and sarcasm start bleeding into grey.

I wouldn't call the dead comments apathetic and sarcastic. They're typically vile and humorless.

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