
Reddit's Discussion about HN - ObieJazz
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8368a/the_value_of_downvoting_or_how_hacker_news_gets/
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jacoblyles
While I certainly think this is interesting, I also think it is dangerous to
draw their attention.

When you see a mob of unruly teenagers, you should pretend not to notice them
and walk on.

~~~
Zak
Fortunately, the mob of angry teenagers seems to find the group of slightly
older people having a quiet conversation in the library rather dull.

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anthonyrubin
I don't see any reason to discuss Jeff's ignorant article yet again.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=507948>

~~~
unalone
Agreed. All reddit's doing is calling us sterile, and circlejerking around a
few of the people defending Hacker News. There's nothing meaningful in this
conversation.

~~~
beta
As compared to the all too common Hacker News circlejerks? :(

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immad
This is the HN discussion about the Reddit Discussion about HN

~~~
igorgue
recursivity :)

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tdavis
To be fair to them, this place is really boring, can't take a joke to save its
life, and is often filled with the same sort of stories... but the major
alternatives are so much worse by comparison that it's all worth it.

To quote myself from #startups, _"HN basically has one type of person... a
much better one type of person [than] youtube has, but still."_

~~~
trickjarrett
I will disagree.

We can't 'take a joke' because the purpose of this site does not include
humor. We have plenty of other places to go to look for something funny.

As for being boring, then this means to me that the content is not your cup of
tea. Plenty of us spend a great deal of time on here reading and contributing.

And lastly, we're far from the same person. We have a niche we reach to so
people come from similar places in terms of goals and projects, we're fairly
heavy on the programming entrepreneur, but it's still not the 'same person.'
We're much closer to the same person than the much broader Reddit, sure.

But the amount of discourse and discussion on this site is quite evident as
proof that we have varying opinions.

~~~
tdavis
Perhaps boring was the wrong word... "stuffy", maybe? Look, I love HN as much
as the next guy; it's the only link aggregation / commenting site I visit. And
there is indeed a lot of good content here.

The site lacks personality and that's probably why people who are otherwise
"smart enough" (or whatever metric you wish to use) to post here don't. Since
there's no personality and usernames are deliberately downplayed in leu of
every comment being judged strictly on its individual quality, there's no
diversity. This is why I say "everyone is the same person".

Think of a close group of friends. Could you randomly interchange them without
anybody noticing? Probably not, but you could easily do that on HN. All you
are to me is "one of those guys who holds the opinion that HN is <fill in your
arguments>". There are lots and lots of you and you're all the same to me.
There are people here like me, too, and we're probably all the same to you.

I don't really "know" anyone on HN; it isn't a community in that sense. It's
just a group of like-minded people who hold the standard deviation of opinions
regarding a (relatively small) set of topics. Not that there's anything wrong
with that.

(edit: of course this isn't the _reality_ of the situation -- I'm sure
everyone here is not the same in "real life", but due to how HN is setup and
run, for all intents and purposes they are here.)

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jrockway
This "article" really says a lot, mostly how Jeff Atwood and the average
redditor are at about the same mental level. (Note how Jeff snipes at HN, and
then the rest of the sheep pile on. It is hilarious.)

StackOverflow is a nice site, but I wish Jeff would spend less time spreading
ignorance and more time programming.

~~~
codinghorror
I was just being honest. There is an element of sterility to the culture here,
IMHO. I still like Hacker News, but it's not as enjoyable to discuss things
here. Hard to quantify, exactly, but it does feel a bit stilted and
artificial, dry and academic, like everyone is trying extra hard to perform
and please their peers.

(This is probably exacerbated by the fact that pg has gone on record stating
that your Hacker News karma score is factored into any Y Combinator
submissions you make. Nothing wrong with this, but it turns this site into a
sort of proxy startup / investor pitch for some folks.)

On the whole, I'm more of an advocate of saying what you feel, while being
_reasonably_ civil. That said, I do not support 4chan style anarchy, or what
the broad Reddit/Digg has turned into. I still think prog.reddit is pretty
decent though.

~~~
jrockway
I don't think you've seen enough of Reddit or HN, honestly. I have spent wayyy
too much time on both, so I feel uniquely qualified to comment ;)

Most discussion on Reddit consists of short attacks (or attempts at jokes).
There is plenty of that on HN, sure, but a lot of comments are pretty long
explanations of what the poster thinks. I don't find this to be sterile (and I
enjoy not knowing about Internet memes anymore).

Interestingly, most of your comments here are significantly longer (and more
insightful) than those at Reddit. I think it's because you are replying to
comments here with actual substance, whereas on Reddit most of the comments
are mindless and don't leave much for you to say. I think this is a sign that
HN is doing well, or rather, that it works the way I like. (That's why I spend
my time here now, rather than on Reddit.)

~~~
codinghorror
I think they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I am a fan of both, but
there's a certain fun factor here that is missing.

The idea that fun and "serious discussion"/work are mutually exclusive is the
biggest disappointment, to me, of the HN culture. It's just not true. You can
have it both ways. In fact, you should demand it. Remember, this stuff is
supposed to be fun!

<http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000979.html>

And given the fact that a flirting article (WTF?) is on the front page,
perhaps this part of the HN culture is changing. Unlike the stultifyingly
boring drug war article, at least that's _sort_ of fun..

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biohacker42
Navel gazing much. No wonder that how to flirt article is so popular. Jeez
people, go out smell the flowers.

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chrisjhatch
I moved from reddit to hacker news for the sole reason that this place is a
bit more...er, sparse. Every other article on reddit is either "upvote if..."
or a long pun thread.

It's a nice change to come here and get away from the 4chan-ness of other
sites.

They can hate on the boring-ness of HN all they want, the simplicity of the
website, and the inability to downmod for absolutly no reason is a just reason
for coming here.

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geuis
And that is _exactly_ why I have never even signed up for reddit, stopped
using Digg, and get anxious/annoyed when its a slow news day on HN and my
frequent refreshes don't provide new, interesting information.

