
Tell HN: Some thoughts on ten years on Hacker News - te_platt
Ten years ago today I created an account on Hacker News. I just wanted to share some thought about what I’ve seen here.<p>1. The quality of the content, both stories and comments, has remained remarkably high. There have been times where I thought things were slipping but a few minutes on YouTube comments puts everything back in perspective.<p>2. There is just too much to learn and not enough time! On any given day there are more interesting stories to follow than I can possibly follow. Thankfully the comments are consistently good enough that I can read the comments before the actual story to check on credibility and accuracy.<p>3. I have learned to be more precise in what I say and give a little more latitude to others. Comments can get a bit pedantic. Not every comment needs to be a mathematical proof (although there have been many). I thought about creating a user named “PedanticMan” and going around harassing people about their grammar but I decided instead to try not to let the little things bother me.<p>4. There are a lot of smart, enthusiastic, knowledgeable people here. There have been so many comments with deeper explanations and links to extended content. Thank you to everyone who takes the time share.<p>5. Most topics deal with conflicting values and goals. Watching competent people argue different issues has been very instructive. For example, it’s possible to think “C++ is a horrible mess of a language” and “C++ is a powerful tool” at the same time.<p>6. Karma is strange to me. I’m a grown man with a rich life experience and I don’t care what random people on the internet think about me, there are no prizes for karma, and you can’t sell your points. Still, I notice. I get a stronger emotional reaction to it than seems rational. If any of you ever want to hack the system to get more karma try this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>. I think the best thing is to not care too much but pay attention.
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mitchelldeacon9
Since Fall 2013 I've been reading HN twice a day -- over coffee in the morning
and in the evening after dinner. I am a nomadic contractor who works in the
blue-collar basement of the IT industry, with several years experience in
Silicon Valley, Portland and Austin as a datacenter technician, service
reliability engineer, and general-purpose nuts-&-bolts computer guy. For me,
HN opened a window on an entirely new dimension of the industry: the world-
view of the elite class in venture capital and entrepreneurship. It's
fascinating to read the same articles they read, to see the world through
their eyes. I don't always agree with the ultra-capitalist weltanschauung on
HN, but I think I understand it better, to a certain extent.

Aside from the politics, I have learned a great deal from HN about my own
technical domain: the hegemony of the Linux operating system,
advantages/limitations of RESTful APIs, python as the (arguably) preferred
scripting language, and much more. But the best aspect of HN is, in my
opinion, the continuous stream of commentary and discussion about books on a
variety of topics. It was here that I discovered Joseph Frank's magisterial
biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky, which alone was worth the price of admission.

Overall, I consider HN to be an intellectual oasis in the chaotic desert known
as the Internet. Many thanks to the women and men who develop and maintain
this remarkable web site. Bon courage.

------
IsaacL
I signed up back in 2009, so almost 9 years ago now. I've been frequently
telling myself since then that I should cut down, and quit using it for a
while. I always end up using it again.

The reason I use it is that sometimes there's a link posted to something
genuinely novel, fascinating, and/or perception-shattering. Likewise,
sometimes a comment will be deep, insightful and/or informative on a poorly-
known topic. These are what bring me back.

But, most often, the community is prickly, fad-driven, and increasingly
conformist.

It's always been a mix. I don't think it's actually gone downhill - I think
the metric of quality has changed. The new moderation team has cracked down on
overt rudeness and trolling. However, the userbase has shifted - it's larger
now and more dominated by employees than entrepreneurs. That leads to a
narrowing of opinion. The tech industry has also become much more high-
profile, and everyone is hyper-aware of the media criticism of startup
culture.

Once upon a time people would express controversial opinions and expect at
least a fair hearing - it felt like a friendly gathering of smart friends.
Now, it feels like people standing on soapboxes shouting to a hostile crowd.
People like Sebastian Marshall
([https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lionhearted](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lionhearted))
used to be top posters here, and he's no longer active -- and I doubt he'd go
down well with the current crowd. Steady changes in the userbase like that
change the vibe in hard-to-define ways, but it's definitely changed.

~~~
IsaacL
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think this is a good point to
end my Hacker News usage for good. Some thoughts:

1\. I've just come off a call with a university friend who is now a manager at
a big startup out in China, working on a really ambitious side project, and
building tons of relationships out in the Asian startup world. I used to hang
out with tons of people like that, then I had some bad life experiences, and
disconnected from many good parts of my life. At the same time I got sucked
back into HN procrastination.

2\. Even times when I'm not producing or meeting interesting people, I have a
stack of interesting stuff to read. Sebastian Marshall, who I mentioned above,
has this amazing "Strategic Review" series, of which I've only read a
fraction. There is never a single second of my day when HN is the most
valuable thing I could be doing.

3\. For the last 2 years I've had a second account under a pseudonym where I
could be more outspoken about my political beliefs. (Hopefully at least a few
people followed links I've posted from this account, or that other account,
and learned something). Aside from the timesink aspect, the reason I'm leaving
HN now is because it's become way too much of a political echo chamber.

I can cope with a place that's dominated by liberal/progressives, but not when
they take a haughty, dismissive tone towards anyone who disagrees with them.
(E.g: commenter takes a controversial stance, people who reply jump to the
worst possible interpretation of their words).

To be clear I'm not remotely any kind of alt-rightist, Trumpkin, Milo fanboy
or anything like that. I have tons of idiosyncratic opinions based on years of
living abroad and reading every thinker I could get my hands on. People like
me usually find their way into fringe communities of similar people -- and
then slowly see those communities colonised and turn conformist, and leave to
find somewhere else. It's a constant search to stay ahead of the world.

4\. HN comment threads are usually noise, but one super interesting thing to
do is read the comment history of an interesting poster. lionhearted I
mentioned above,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bane](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bane)
is another good guy to "follow". As was
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=michaelochurch](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=michaelochurch),
though he went a bit nuts for a few years. Deep in my comment history I'm in a
thread with Aaron Schwartz (on Austrian economics!), which illustrates the
unusual paths that cross on this site.

Aside from that, I'm done here.

------
jamesmp98
> but a few minutes on YouTube comments puts everything back in perspective

Facebook and Reddit work too ;)

~~~
CM30
Twitter works pretty well too, especially if the people you follow end up
focusing more on politics than whatever you actually followed them for.

~~~
jamesmp98
So true

------
Heraclite
I'm seeing diminished returns of my HN consultation.

Also, the hive mind developed here is quite strong and sometimes you can
predict the general sentiment of the comment thread.

It's still a great source of news though.

------
quickthrower2
Best way to get karma is to post a link to something on a topic that typically
gains a lot of traction. E.g. a famous company talking about an JS framework.
Or someone influential talking about lisp. Or be the first to post some
breaking tech related news.

~~~
axiom92
And anything that matches " __* Deep Learning __* ".

------
indescions_2017
Once considered hiring an expert-level virtual assistant. Solely for the
purpose of reading HN at regular intervals through the day. And preparing a
presidential style daily briefing ;)

~~~
ptio
[http://www.hackernewsletter.com](http://www.hackernewsletter.com)

~~~
nkjoep
I love hnletter! Works when I didn't have the time during the week :)

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muzani
Karma seems to hit me a lot harder here than most sites. I think a lot of the
negative ones just feels unfair, like someone didn't properly read what I
wrote, or didn't like the joke. But most of the time it's good feedback
because it means I didn't explain something properly or simply didn't bring
anything interesting to the conversation.

------
ryanx435
"In this best of all possible worlds, everything is for the best."

~Candide.

