Hacker News Reader

Comment by Kiro | Hacker News Reader

Hacker News and Reddit are the worst though.

Reddit can be, but HN is IMO the best social media site there is in the IT space, because of the clear guidelines, active moderation and well thought out mechanics which for example enables both flame-war suppression and anonymity, no small feat.

Two problems I see with HN: 1. It's the most addictive social media I know. 2. Due to the "downvote if you disagree" policy you get downvoted for simple opinions and that makes you really depressed when you happen to have opinions about stuff that's not in line with the general HN crowd.

You shouldn't take the internet so seriously. Don't let any rando hurt your self esteem. If someone says you're wrong try to find out if there is some truth in their argument. Best case you grow , worst case life remains the same.

I agree HN is very addictive, maybe the most of all social media. but why ?

Because it focuses on topics rather than facebook nonversations

IMO the guidelines, moderation and mechanics all work way better on lobste.rs than here. Here the hivemind effect is pretty damn strong too, so it's going to be frustrating to try have a fruitful discussion if your opinion doesn't align with the group. Here there are enough toxic people that discussions often turn into tiresome, flamey back-and-forth between a handful of people. And here there are too many people with opinions but no expertise. So the signal to noise ratio gets really bad and you can't assume the people reading your comments can understand subtler points; if you do, it's quite inevitable that a bunch of people with opinions but no expertise will pile up on the comment and it feels like flamebait.

When I post here, I kinda have to indulge in a ton of self-censorship. Most of the time I end up not posting the comment I wrote because it feels like it won't be a worthwhile discussion. Or it'll be just another comment buried among a few hundred others; just noise, not discussion. It's not satisfying.

Why do you think it’s different there. Also, how do you go about getting an account over there?

It helps that the community is smaller and we've had the occasional meta thread discussing rules & phenomenons, with moderators and active posters alike present. We also have a somewhat tight knit community of active participants & mods on IRC. I think this makes the whole thing more human.

There are other factors, for example downvoting because you disagree isn't seen as a valid reason for downvotes on Lobsters. In fact, when you downvote, you must specify a reason (there's a list of choices). Of course people can abuse the system, but I think it sort of encourages people to go down the right path.

The invite system probably helps keep worst of the worst out.

Tags help people ignore the topics they find frustrating.

Speaking of tags, all stories must be tagged and if you can't find an appropriate tag, the story most likely doesn't belong.

We've been trying to focus on purely technical content (and by that I mean really technical and not non-technical stories that are somehow related to technology) with some art, while avoiding politics, inactionable news, opinion pieces and the like. To be fair, as the community has grown larger, it seems like we've been slipping more and more from this ideal and opinion pieces about "practices" (that's a tag) and "culture" (yeah...) have gotten annoyingly common. We can still filter out those tags.

As for getting an account... I think there's something written about that on the site.

Interesting, thanks for the info. I'll give it a more thorough look.

>Here the hivemind effect is pretty damn strong too, so it's going to be frustrating to try have a fruitful discussion if your opinion doesn't align with the group.

Entirely correct.

For fun, sometime write “I’m aware of the issues in speculative modeling, misleading headlines, and also I don’t feel like a tax solution is the correct response to global climate changes” and see what happens!

Edit: and even posting an example phrase - proves my point. Thanks for the downvotes!

I agree with the first two prhases but the last one. How tf are people gonna fix climate changes without taxes? These thingas cost money! But I think you have a point. Juts nitpicking :P

It was an example to show despite putting effort into an air of enlightenment... HN is just as basement dwelling and knee jerk downvote-y as Reddit. And I think I proved it.

I'm surprised you are not getting downvoted (more) by mentioning the hivemind.

The first rule of the HN hivemind is that you don't mention it.

Its the worst with Rust

The downvotes I'm getting are proof enough.

For that to be true you have to have one hell of a selective group of people you follow on Facebook and Twitter. Hacker News is without question the best "social media" site I read and has mostly maintained its quality over the years I've been here.

Reddit, however, is godawful.

I feel it greatly depends on what subreddits you follow. I find that limiting it to only a few (at a time) and those aren't toxic (socially, work related, or effect you emotionally) aren't bad and actually are about one of the only places to stay up to date and learn.

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