

Why isn't hacker news a subreddit on reddit.com? - nathan_f77

I mean, Reddit came out of Y Combinator...
======
tokenadult
There was an intent on pg's part to set a different forum culture. See the
original announcement of this site's founding

<http://ycombinator.com/announcingnews.html>

and discussion of that here.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=189>

See

<http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>

for the welcome message to new participants on HN and

<http://news.ycombinator.com/news>

for the Hacker News guidelines.

See

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648199>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049720>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=196751>

for some comments by pg on the history of this site.

~~~
nathan_f77
Thanks a lot, that was really informative!

------
pg
That's what I wanted originally: a startup subreddit. But (a) Steve took a
long time to implement subreddits and (b) I needed an application to test Arc
on. So I wrote what was originally called "Startup News."

------
rjd
Really? Reddit has lost all integrity with me, since digg imploded all the
problems that digg had migrated there way over and the voting system has drawn
out the very worst in the digg crowd. I used Reddit from 2006 till later this
year where I reached a level of disgust I feel no need to associate myself
with it.

Theres a terrible sense of group think there and the karma system creates a
sense of validation for bad behavior (especially considering its known for bad
moderation). And as many people use multiple sub-reddits this bad behavior has
just spilled over everywhere. Reading the comments is like a diary of a mad
man, just a pile of sycophants trying so hard to be funny (and generally
failing).

Even Something Awful and 4Chan have taken moral high ground against the
decadence going on there. I'm not sure if anyone here saw the media recently
when SA users decided to hunt out pedos in reddit and took it to the main
stream media. There is a great thread on SA covering it step by step and
Reddit really doesn't come out looking that great.

Its a site which needs a seriously clean out and serious moderation, but I
suspect it to late for that, they have created a tone and it will stick. Just
like every other community has a tone its known for.

------
theThirdMan
I came to Hacker News to get away from Reddit. I'm not even a programmer, I
just got sick of the deviation to the norm. Also, what would really be the
point. It would be akin to having a slashdot or digg subreddit.

There's no harm in creating a Hacker News subbreddit. I just don't think it
would be too popular.

~~~
nathan_f77
The real point for me is that Reddit is a far better website - it's just nicer
to use.

If not a subreddit, is there any reason why Hacker News couldn't use a forked
version of the open source Reddit code?

~~~
vorbby
Is it really better to use? HN is incredibly simple, and everything works as
expected. There's a few UI quirks with reddit that I don't particularly like.
For example: I don't think it's obvious to a new user how to submit a story.
Second (and this might be a personal preference) clicking the reddit logo in
the header should take you to the main page for that subreddit, not
reddit.com. Particularly when said subreddit has a customized logo.

~~~
pkamb
[Unknown or expired link.]

------
Kjeet
I die a little inside every time I see:

    
    
       Unknown or expired link.
    

My only issue with HN.

------
manuscreationis
There actually IS a subreddit, of sorts, for some of these kinds of posts.
/r/startup(s) - I can't quite recall if it was singular or plural.

It's a pretty barren subreddit, however. I never noticed a whole lot of new
material going through there, so I stopped checking it.

Also, completely makes sense to do this outside of something like a Reddit,
which already has an established community and sense of policy. Doing his own
project, his stated reasons aside, gives PG the ability to set whatever tone
he thinks is appropriate for the direction of the site. While that may not
have been his original intention, I'm sure it's come in handy for him more
than once.

Plus, it's fun to build new things from scratch and see if they "stick"

~~~
DanielRibeiro
There was also a hacker news subreddit[1], but people seem to have abandoned
it.

[1] <http://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews>

------
antrover
I love hacker news as well as reddit. I have noticed a trend though, and I'm
unsure if it's intentional, or just a result of how both sites are used: 1.)
The stories on Hacker News are mainly about start ups (not all, but most). 2.)
The users of /r/javascript, or /r/programming (and other programming related
subreddits) are very helpful when it comes to finding answers to programming
related questions.

I find myself pursuing reddit more often because I am not involved in a start
up, or have any interest in starting a start up. I just like to code, and
reddit fuels my interest more than hacker news does in that regard. I'm sure
I'll get "downvoted" to hell for saying that.

------
vorbby
I think this is a valid idea. There's many times where there's things I'd like
to discuss that is similar to, or related to, topics covered by Hacker News,
but that I don't post here because I don't want to dilute the topics here with
things that some people might not want.

A HN subreddit (or a subreddit with this purpose, not necessarily tied to the
Hacker News name; maybe there is one already?) could solve this.

------
Joakal
#startups is the most popular subreddit for HNers. You'll find some dislike
for HN though. Moderation/YC rejection issues mostly.

