Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit

Posted by cjc on Thursday May 14, 2009 @11:52AM
from the self-post dept.

Dear readers who are deluding yourselves into believing Hacker News is the last bastion of social news hope,

It is not. HN has become another cesspool of useless ego-boosting linkbait.

As evidence, here are 4 headlines currently on the front page that literally make me STUPIDER:

  Vitamins Found to Curb Exercise Benefits 

  College grad: ‘I wish I’d gone to prison instead’

  Steve Jobs allowed to tear down his home

  TECH CRUNCH TECH CRUNCH STUPID ARRINGTON BS*

*This last example not an actual headline, but instead an educated guess.

SERIOUSLY? How does any of this "gratify one's intellectual curiosity"? (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

It does not.

Hacker News failed. Does anybody have a better hangout spot?

( 31 comments | 13 points | on HN )

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by kyro on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:02PM (#608996)

You've only made 3 submissions yourself. HN isn't a service being provided to you, whereby you sit and expect it to present you with interesting stories.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by cjc on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:17PM (#609043)

Please do not make this a personal attack on me, one member of the community.

I argue that submitting nothing is better than submitting garbage links. Additionally, I am not bringing the site down by voting up egregious headlines.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by chaostheory on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:32PM (#609084)

I think what kyro is trying to say is, if you don't like what you see on HN - why not submit the type of articles you'd like to see, hopefully starting a trend?

imho it doesn't help that your post sounds more like whiny bitching than constructive criticism

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by cjc on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:40PM (#609103)

Fair enough, and I agree with that.

but look at the behavior of the community right now. The highest voted comment on this post is basically a "screw you dude" and all of my responses are downvoted without any reasons given.

Below in comments I stated what I personally would like to see change, but that too is downvoted without explanation.

These reactions are reinforcing my original point: Though many precautions were taken, Hacker News is no more immune to large group behavior than were Digg and Reddit. The community has reached a tipping point.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by jemmons on Friday May 15, 2009 @10:34AM (#610646)

You essentially just called a community stupid. When provoked with such nonconstructive criticism, I'm not sure why you would expect said community to respond with anything but "No, you're stupid."

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by noodle on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:36PM (#609095)

and are you helping the site out by flagging down the articles you have problems with?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by cjc on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:33PM (#609087)

Can the downvoters please explain why you are voting me down?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by colins_pride on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:38PM (#609099)

If they could vote your submission down, they would. They can't, so they're voting your comments down.

If that doesn't make sense to you, just give it a few more minutes and the submission will probably be flagged dead.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by dbul on Thursday May 14, 2009 @01:43PM (#609230)

This is exactly one of the problems. People downvote because it is how they feel not because there is any logic to it. Unless the negative points reaches threshold, it is suspect. Downvoting should also consist of a comment as to why. When a professor marks your paper wrong, does he not place things on it like "W.C." and so on? How are people supposed to learn from their mistakes if they think what they wrote was reasonable yet some HN user comes along, misunderstands what was written, and just votes it down?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by jemmons on Friday May 15, 2009 @10:30AM (#610639)

I downvoted you because you quickly played the "personal attack" card in the same breath as you laid all the blame for what you perceive as a slide in HN quality at the feet of those who upvote different stories than you would -- which amounts to a personal attack. The obvious loop in your argument makes your comment uninteresting.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by cjc on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:20PM (#609050)

And actually, for all intents and purposes, HN is a service being provided to me, whereby I sit and expect it to present me with interesting stories.

How is it any different for you?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by noonespecial on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:08PM (#609013)

Whenever I think HN is becoming too reddit-like, I go spend some time on reddit. I always feel better after.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by jey on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:49PM (#609124)

"We aren't catching up to reddit" isn't very reassuring. A downward slide is still a downward slide.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by stcredzero on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:53PM (#609131)

That this headline got so many upvotes on reddit is, to borrow a word, "mind-blowing" to me.

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/8k9f2/dear_reddi...

Are basic electromagnetic principles big news to such a large segment of the populace? (A segment that is internet-savvy and fancies itself as being more sophisticated somehow.) Unfortunately, when basic physics comes up with my Stanford-educated girlfriend, I see more evidence of how far the US education system has degenerated. (When I explain, she gets it, but the education system simply didn't effectively equip her with the knowledge.)

Not only do they not know, they don't even have a framework for knowing the magnitude of their ignorance.

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/8k9f2/dear_reddi...

Or is that a troll? Please, God, let it not be real and be a troll!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by wkdown on Friday May 15, 2009 @05:40PM (#611424)

Unfortunately, Digg users found 4Chan, who found Reddit, who found HN. It's going to happen.

As a former Digg and current Reddit user, I'm happy to have found HN. The comments are (for the most part) well thought out and intelligent here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by mtinkerhess on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:37PM (#609098)

Each of the posts you mention satisfied my intellectual curiosity way more than this one does.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by cjc on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:40PM (#609107)

my point exactly.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by coconutrandom on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:34PM (#609091)

let me fix that for you:

SERIOUSLY? How does any of this "gratify [my] intellectual curiosity"? (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It does not.

Hacker News failed [me]. Does anybody have a better hangout spot [for my narrow definition of interesting]?

[update: removed pre]

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by effektz on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:26PM (#609058)

And the cycle continues. Diggeres move to reddit and complain about digg all day. Redditors move to Hacker News and complain about Reddit all day. You will all be bitching about HN as soon as you find another home, I'm sure.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by stonemetal on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:40PM (#609105)

Have you flagged the stupid stuff? It is only because users don't flag it that it stays around.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by bbuffone on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:30PM (#609075)

Hacker news is becoming digg.com with all the Hacker News related content. This is one of the reason I stopped going to digg.com. It was becoming annoyingly self serving and distracting to the original purpose of the site.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by yaj on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:43PM (#609112)

What you can do is filter the results using searchyc. If you are only interested on start up reviews search something like "ask hn review" and grab the rss.

http://searchyc.com/ask+hn+review

Hope that helps

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by noodle on Thursday May 14, 2009 @11:55AM (#608976)

what would you prefer?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by cjc on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:23PM (#609055)

Glad you asked:

* more news about Startups, less news about things tangentially related to startups

* less churn on the homepage

* a community made exclusively of people actually building websites

* a limit on accepting new members

* less talk about useless academic subjects

* more "review my new project" submissions

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by brk on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:31PM (#609079)

a community made exclusively of people actually building websites

Do you actually believe that "Startups" and "Hackers" ONLY build websites?

Assuming that you yourself "actually build websites", this seems like a good project to take on. The HN code is open source, it would be neat to see someone make an adaption of HN that fits the spirit of what they believe the site should be about.

I'd be very curious to see what the community and activity level around such a site would look like.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by hvs on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:31PM (#609078)

That doesn't sound like "Hacker News" at all. That sounds like "Startup News". Why are people building websites the only ones you find helpful? Why are academic subjects bad?

I agree that there are more than a few links that don't interest me, but that doesn't mean I throw up my arms and say, "Well, that's it! This site has jumped the shark!"

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by chaosmachine on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:54PM (#609133)

Hacker News was originally called Startup News.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by pg on Thursday May 14, 2009 @02:07PM (#609269)

I think you're just at the wrong site. A community made exclusively of people building websites would exclude a lot of smart and interesting people. That's only a small subset of hackers, even in the narrow sense of the word.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by app on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:27PM (#609067)

* less Erlang posts

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by noodle on Thursday May 14, 2009 @12:26PM (#609061)

would you be willing to post up a membership fee for something like this?

or, perhaps you'd like a much more heavily meritocracy-based community?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: Hacker News is almost reddit by dbul on Thursday May 14, 2009 @02:01PM (#609262)

In the end, what it comes down to is that you want something (which I also want, except for limiting new members) which is personalized. I couldn't agree more. HN is too general. There needs to be a way to customize, and only a client-side script won't do.

[ Parent | on HN ]