Comment by kradeelav | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kradeelav | Hacker News Reader

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Not the OP, but I don't consider HN to be in the same category as say, facebook, CNN, twitter, anything with a feed for a few reasons. One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way. Upvoted content, while not always pristine, tends to be better quality on average. Two, while HN is a great spot for "tech news", it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do.

Lastly, this is a little of a life hack, but in the mornings I tend to glance once at the top 3 HN headlines; if there's no major "news-news" (ie not tech news) in the top three slots, then it's pretty safe to say that nothing historic like September 11th happened that day. It's a pretty peaceful way of checking that the world's continuing to keep on spinning. :)

> One is the lack of algorithms and dark patterns shoveling engagement-bait towards our way

HN front-page is certainly algorithm driven, it might not be individualized, but stories that displease the algorithm are down-weighted which, in effect, is a tacit promotion of stories the algorithm chooses not to penalize.

> it pretty rarely has the "if it bleeds it leads" shock-bait type of articles that the alphabet networks do.

I don't agree. HN stories are often baity, inflammatory, and contentious, it is not uncommon to see dang warning the comment section to keep things civil. The type of stories that hit HN aren't always the type we see in the wider media, but the level of toxicity is on par with every other social media site, if only mitigated by careful and rigorous moderation.

I love how peaceful of a life you live haha if September 11 or such hasn’t happened, it’s going to be a good day

Very inspiring

I also don’t consider HN to be in the same category as Twitter and Facebook. Another reason for this, on top of those you mention, is because identity is very weak here. I don’t have any persistent relationship with any HN commenters - I have no idea who you are or if I’ve replied to you before! That cuts out a lot of social dynamics that breed long-term feuding behaviour on other platforms.

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