Ask HN: Why do you keep coming back to Hacker News? - user-on1
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CalRobert
It's the best community surrounding general tech discussion _as well as_ its
impact on society that I know. It isn't overrun by trolls. And it has a
simple, clean UI with no infinite scroll, and even has noprocrast in an age
when most sites are desperate for as many minutes of your life as they can
take.

~~~
amelius
> It's the best community surrounding general tech discussion

Do you mean IT, or really tech in general?

For example, I don't see that many posts here about biotech.

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CalRobert
It primarily, but interesting topics from across the spectrum pop up.

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jefflombardjr
Quality of content. If I want quantity, I go to Reddit.

And by quality, I don't just mean articles... there are some excellent
critiques and well thought out discussions here. People will actually discuss
things in a respectful manner even if they differ on opinion. (Relative to
other sites)

~~~
anarchimedes
I second this! The value of HN is in its users and community. It amazes me how
some very toxic subjects are actually reasonably (to a degree) discussed here.

I also really like that the user base, for the most part, requires statements
to be backed up by facts and sources. That is something I don't see often
enough on the web.

edit: spelling

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brandon272
Wisdom of the user base. There are many topics - some not even necessarily
related to programming that I will do a " _search term_
site:news.ycombinator.com" Google query on if I want to find some really great
information and insight.

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grandalf
Solid discussions. I learn much more from the random comment here and there
than from the articles. Not all comments are like this, but a very high
percentage compared with other discussion forums.

The best comments are sometimes tangential and sometimes may not get upvotes,
but they offer a perspective that I had not considered.

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xkcd-sucks
I'm addicted to low effort novel information-- like more addicted than I've
ever gotten to Scary Epidemic-Causing Drugs-- and this site provides lots of
low-effort information in the content and in the comments. The clean UI and
possible relevance to my job bias HN over less targeted competitors

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Yetanfou
What HN has going _for_ it is its large user base of above-average
intelligence who are willing to share their thoughts on a variety of subjects,
both within the realm of IT as well as outside of it. On the former many here
can speak from experience, on the latter this is often more debatable but the
discussion is interesting nevertheless.

What HN has going _against_ it is the ever-present phenomenon of group think
in many areas: the large crowd of Apple fans ready to defend anything no
matter how fruity, the spectre of political correctness looming over anything
related to, well, politics, the frequent killing-off of items which counter
the current narrative on some subject, etc. While annoying these factors do
not (yet) outweigh the positives.

I do visit HN through my own news aggregator, negating the popularity contest
of articles rising and falling on the front page. This is, in my opinion, a
good thing as it undoes some of the effects of the mentioned group think.

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Juan_Largearm
I don't comment here but have read for years now. I avoid commenting because I
generally have very little knowledge on the posts or have anything worthwhile
adding that hasn't been already mentioned. I love learning little bits about a
lot rather than a lot about a little and am happy with the balance I find here
between debate, information and humor.

While I'm actually commenting for once I'd just like to say thanks to everyone
here for all the wise words and pieces of knowledge you have passed on over
all the times I've been visiting and hope to keep reading for a long time to
come.

I'll also add that I'm reluctant to ever mention this place on other sites
that I do participate in out of fear of bringing in people who are more likely
to turn the place into something like a reddit comment section rather than a
very easy read of straightforward information from people who are
knowledgeable on what they are discussing, rather than a race to the bottom of
puns and trolling.

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j-walker
It's one of the few tech sites left on the Internet where there doesn't seem
to be an underlying narrative driven by politics.

I'm looking at you TheVerge/Recode/Reddit.

~~~
bellamystudio
Don't forget Wired, who also sacrificed objectivity and impartiality a long
time ago

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sharemywin
Aligns pretty well with my interests. I wish it was a little more social.
Also, it's difficult sometimes to contact other users about something they
submitted.

~~~
rdlecler1
It’d be nice if high karma could unlock DM capabilities.

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rootsudo
I'm addicted to getting new content, hoping to read something new, that'd give
me a high of finding quality content.

In other news, I'm very fucked up that I allow myself to fall into these
positive feedback loops that can diminish my quality of life.

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keldaris
Because, insofar as relatively large non-specialist (comparatively speaking)
news aggregators go, HN is the only one where smart, well-spoken individuals
still form a meaningful part of the user base. In fact, apart from a few
highly specialized subreddits, this is the last major site where I still read
comments at all, and I learn something new on a pleasantly frequent basis.

Also, it happens to be the last major news-related website I know of with what
I would call "good web design". That helps more than I'd care to admit.

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interknot
It's a combination of the links that get posted, the people who post here, and
the moderation.

It's apparently enough of a draw to have me lurking on this place nearly daily
for almost 10(!!) years.

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corobo
It's my primary source of tech - news, actual code to browse, new things to
play with in downtime. I keep my skills sharp by coding and I keep my
knowledge sharp by visiting HN probably too many times a day

Edit: As to why here over other places - there's rarely any pun chains.
Nothing puts me off a discussion more than pun chains

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supermdguy
I know that I'll find something interesting to read, and I'll probably learn
something new at the same time.

~~~
r0ze-at-hn
But importantly you don't _always_ find really interesting stuff. It is a slot
machine of news that may or may not give you a dopamine hit.

~~~
corobo
I learned that random was better than guaranteed here!

Probably

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lossolo
If you are the smartest in the room then you are in the wrong room. Being part
of HN is being in the right room.

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scarecrowbob
...because it is (generally) the inverse of the "don't read the comments"
advice that works so well over the rest of the net.

I'm mostly looking at headlines, reading a couple of comments to get the gist,
and then reading articles only if there is interesting commentary.

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doall
Hacker culture preferring facts, logic and deep discussions. Bad comments go
to the bottom or get hidden and usually doesn't bother you. Thankfully great
administration by dang. And as a Lisper the service running on a Lisp dialect
is a big plus :)

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psion
One of the things I like is when I come to this site, my Ghostery icon has a
zero on it.

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champagnepapi
The reason why I come back to HN, is for the articles, and also the comments
on the articles. I find some of the articles to be quite interesting, and
informative. I also really like to read the comments on articles. Sometimes I
wind up reading the comments first. People sometimes drop interesting nuggets
of information that make HN worth coming back to.

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zedpm
Learning from topical anecdotes. Whenever some new complex deployment tool is
posted, the comments are full of people posting things like "We solve this
problem at my company with Ansible and systemd" and "If you're on AWS, you can
use

    
    
      ecs-cli compose service up
    

with your existing Docker Compose files."

~~~
dyladan
wait can you seriously do that?

~~~
zedpm
You mean the ecs-cli bit? Yes, but I don't mean to imply that there isn't a
bit of setup before you do it. Still, it's a pretty short path to set up
initially, and then updates are dead simple. Check out the tutorial [0] if
you're interested.

[0]:
[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/E...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/ECS_CLI_tutorial.html)

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lowbloodsugar
Useful information, and then informed comments about it. The comments might
inform me that what looks to me like a good idea has pitfalls; they might
propose similar products with advantages or better suited to my need; or they
might articulate a position, held by a large group, that I hadn't considered.

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sankyo
I can find some inspiration about projects, people solving problems, some that
I know about, some that I did not know existed.

I can read opinions about issues I have thought about and cared about and get
a new perspective.

I can get annoyed because someone wrote something wonderful and then a bunch
of people nit pick it to death.

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p-funk
Literally the only place I've been able to find that successfully keeps
comments sections on topic.

~~~
toomuchtodo
This is only because of the hard work of the mods (dang and sctb).

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DoodleBuggy
It usually has higher quality material, and far superior comments and
discussions, compared to the easily gamed, largely trolled, and heavily
spammed alternatives.

Also, the user base is usually data driven and fact centric, which is
increasingly rare in the post-fact era.

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rdlecler1
I like that I can get a sample of opinions/ideas/experiences from a bunch of
smart people which may uncover a hidden variable I wasn’t aware of. A big part
of that is that HN has been able to avoid a lower standard as it’s grown.

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alexasmyths
\+ It's a decent, 'curated' selection of usually non-political topics.

\+ Most comments made by people on the internet are ridiculous, emotional,
uninformative rants. On HN, people seem to be smart enough to make informed
points.

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bykovich2
Weakness of will.

~~~
Mz
"I can resist anything but temptation."

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XERQ
I lurk on here and don't really contribute (mostly due to time constraints). I
keep coming back because of the quality of comments and discussions and the
positive way people treat each other.

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no_one_ever
I'm able to procrastinate at the office and claim I'm working

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Unbeliever69
HN is a great funnel that sieves important content to the forefront. It is MY
way of staying abreast of what is new and important in the world.

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anotheryou
I like it for the non-tech part (apart from where it becomes techy again in a
technotopian delusional way of thinking tech can fix everything)

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otp124
My favorite posts are the “Show HN”, or other Github projects, launch
announcements, etc that I wouldn’t find elsewhere.

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Overtonwindow
It's a nice source of news that, for the most part, are not filled with as
much bias as other media sources.

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kichik
I use the RSS feed for interesting tech news. I rarely use or even read the
comments.

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DonbunEf7
Masochism combined with a morbid desire to know what my peers think, mostly.

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Rotdhizon
Same as others said, decent posts here. Like Reddit, just for tech. I do wish
it would live up to the name "hacker news' and post more IT security related
articles, a vast majority of all submissions have to do with coding.

~~~
seizethecheese
"Hacker" in the HN sense doesn't refer to the IT security variety, it's closer
to rapid prototype coder.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I think the blue collar meaning of the work "hack" is far more appropriate...

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kapauldo
Skews young and inexperienced but smart and focused.

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nunez
The inside baseball is super interesting sometimes

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simonsarris
Small reason, to know what's going on in tech.

Big reason: to read the comments[1], not articles (most are trash and can be
summarized in 4 sentences) surrounding interesting topics. I actually really
like when socially controversial or political topics come up on HN, though I
know some others don't, because the discourse level is so much higher than
say, Reddit or NYT comments. I want to hear smart people comment on these
things much more than I want to hear a magazine article pontificate/give a
singular opinion/blame people.[2]

I think there is huge value in this community, you guys debating, mentioning
interesting stuff, inspiring or encouraging, etc, way more value than if I
spent 30 mins a day devouring other "new content" sources.

I used to be addicted to reading the news, and for what? I think we gain next
to nothing from it. It's trash, fear-mongering, clickbait and submarines. Try
going without it completely for two months and you'll realize you missed
absolutely nothing except the crisis in X and how celebrity Y hates Z now and
you should too. It's all trash.

But good communities with commentary and solid rules? Real back and forth,
articles with instant skepticism and poignant additions? Way more valuable and
interesting. That's why I keep coming back.

Thanks for commenting, everyone.

~~~

[1] Sometimes if there is someone I think makes a lot of great contributions,
I'll go to their comments page and read the last few comments they made,
example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gwern](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gwern)

Sadly almost all the users I really liked have stopped commenting.

[2] A good example of what I'm talking about is the Boston Review article that
this article is complaining about: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/09/in-
favor-of-futurism-be...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/09/in-favor-of-
futurism-being-about-the-future/) (I think the whole SSC article is worth
reading)

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salqadri
Has the right frequency of news rotation.

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drharby
Good question - i perceive quality of OPs are dropping but the discourse in
said posts are pretty gud

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athrowaway987
I like reading people's opinions from the bubble that they live in.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It's even more fun to share an opinions from outside that bubble and they're
forced to actually have actual discussion about it (because that's how this
site works) rather than just name calling and down-voting.

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Abdur91
due to the content related to tech stuff

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i_r7al
looking for a side project

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djhworld
I don't think there's another site out there that really encapsulates what HN
offers, maybe lobste.rs

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tomasgonz
I don't know

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alexnewman
I like tech talk

~~~
alexnewman
Why down vote me?

