Ask HN: What are your favorite active tech-related subreddits comparable to HN? - qz_
======
vikas0380
[http://reddit.com/r/programming](http://reddit.com/r/programming) Top Stories
are almost same

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endisukaj
The level of discussion is not as high as here though IMO.

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sotojuan
My experiences with the subreddit have been negative. For some reason, most
comments are very negative and bitter for no good reason.

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Neeek
Wait are we talking about r/programming or HN here???

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sotojuan
Good point!

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i336_
Right now the only replies list reddit and lobste.rs. That's really depressing
:/

Are there really no other decent online communities out there? I'm
increasingly disenfranchised with reddit and lobste.rs is invite-only (not my
cup of tea). I've been poking around the various *chans to see if I can brave
the noise and chaos in the hope that I'll occasionally find a similar calibre
of info as what I find on here.

~~~
ue_
Unfortunately there's not much on the chans either. The ones I used to browse
have generally been overtaken, even on tech/programming boards with threads
complaining about diversity or they are thinly-veiled alt-right recruitment
posts.

I haven't been there for a while, but Lainchan isn't all that bad. Quite slow,
though.

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crystalPalace
Lainchan is pretty good but also glacially slow. Many threads stay open for
years. The level of conversation is reasonably high as long as you stick to
specific threads. The /g/ boards of the world are almost universally garbage.

~~~
sotojuan
> Lainchan is pretty good but also glacially slow. Many threads stay open for
> years.

No kidding. There are still threads from when I first found the site (2014).

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angersock
Slowness is a feature, not a bug, right? It helps encourage thoughtful posting
and civil discussion. :)

If you want more activity, post relevant and interesting projects and
thoughts.

~~~
sotojuan
Right, which is why I like Lobsters. The pace of Lainchan though is a bit
_too_ slow, even when I try to post. It's not that the content is bad, it's
just that there's so little of it I eventually forget to check the site.

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shostack
/r/ppc, /r/adops and /r/analytics

These three tend to have a pretty high signal-to-noise ratio, particularly
when asking very advanced and technical questions.

From personal interactions I can vouch for there being many senior to exec
level industry folks from a healthy mix of ad tech companies, networks,
agencies, brands, etc. on both the buy and sell side.

Everyone is pretty friendly, so while asking basic questions might just get
you a link to go RTFM (and really the official docs are often the best
starting point...) everyone is pretty friendly and helpful.

Great for those trying to learn more about digital media and analytics all the
way up to people with questions or who want to chat about stuff in the
industry like header bidding, attribution, enterprise analytics
troubleshooting, etc.

And the best part is since we all are living and breathing advertising for a
living, we have a pretty low tolerance for blatant sales plugs and content
marketing spam like on some other subs.

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Adutude
In my opinion there isn't anything about Reddit that is like HN. It's why I
stopped reading Reddit and came here. Too many haters and trolls on Reddit.

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dorianm
There is [https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs) which is great (not a
subreddit but it's very similar)

~~~
hga
Signup by invitation only, and having retired before it started I don't know
anyone in it who I would feel comfortable asking for one.

~~~
d2p
I can send you (or anyone else) an invite if you'd like one - send the email
address you'd like inviting to blog@dantup.com.

I don't use it that much so I don't have any real opinion on how useful/good
it is.

~~~
hga
Thanks, I appreciate the offer, but 4 people beat you to it by private email,
3 within 30 minutes....

When I've peeked in on e.g. the lisp subforum, it looked to be quite good,
although that was a while ago, too frustrating to contemplate engaging without
being able to be part of the conversation (which, I again emphasize, is an
entirely legitimate method to avoid a variety of problems).

~~~
nickpsecurity
The community is mostly technical people with a large focus on programming,
operations, and hackery. Fewer people comment on articles but the comments are
lower noise on average. In a discussion on community standards, one of the
veterans explained what the site should and shouldn't be about. I think the
post represents what I've seen on the page & in the comments pretty well.
Also, we have invitation trees instead of throwaways to encourage people to
play nice. Been a few cesspools but not many.

[https://lobste.rs/c/sybvqw](https://lobste.rs/c/sybvqw)

It also illustrates there's a huge difference in priorities and culture
between Hacker News and Lobsters. Not to mention who is participating. So, I
like to read and comment on both sites as they each give me something
different. People also often repost HN articles on Lobsters, too, with the
Lobsters comments sometimes raising points I didn't see over here or vice
versa. These two are my favorite sites for technical discussion for now.

On business side, you might like the Lobsters spinoff called Barnacles. It's
open invitation right now. They're like HN for bootstrappers instead of VC-
funded startups. High signal to noise ratio with good stuff on marketing &
case studies of interesting business. Clifford's series right now is a good
reality check for people that think doing a SaaS startup will let them focus
on being paid to write code. Great opening pic, too. ;)

[https://barnacl.es/](https://barnacl.es/)

[https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/expect-everything-to-
be-u...](https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/expect-everything-to-be-
unexpected-883642c0d7c)

~~~
grzm
The lobste.rs link is fantastic. The level of discourse it reflects is
refreshing. Thanks for sharing!

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new299
Is there anywhere that covers technology/scientific development well? (Non-
software).

I'm always looking for those kinds of things (new sensor, scientific methods,
medical advances). But have never found a good forum for this.

~~~
MaxLeiter
/r/futurology, also /r/science

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hex12648430
From my experience /r/futurology contains way too much clickbait and
sensationalist bullshit to be enjoyable.

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ebbv
Literally nothing. Reddit is a cesspool and especially when it comes to
technical topics it is absolutely abysmal. Most of the people spouting off
opinions about technical topics on Reddit are totally unqualified to do so.
People who work as cashiers at Taco Bell writing diatribes about Ruby vs PHP,
etc.

~~~
bb6xt
Quite contrary to what you've written I find the Haskell subredit very useful.
The comments are usually well thought out and relevant. I daresay the people
on the Haskell subredit are the smartest and most helpful of any subredit I've
been on.

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samsolomon
Not a sub, but I'm a big fan of Designer News. I've been a daily visitor for
the last 3 years. While it's more design-focused, many Users are UI Designers,
Product Designers and people working in tech.

[https://www.designernews.co/](https://www.designernews.co/)

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pacomerh
Maybe a combination of various topics, add/remove to your interests:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Freethought+PhilosophyofScience+Som...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Freethought+PhilosophyofScience+SomebodyMakeThis+browsers+cogsci+compsci+gamedev+longtext+math+programming+shamelessplug+somethingimade+startups/)

Basically:
Freethought+PhilosophyofScience+SomebodyMakeThis+browsers+cogsci+compsci+gamedev+longtext+math+programming+shamelessplug+somethingimade+startups

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thewhitetulip
For Go, it is [http://reddit.com/r/golang](http://reddit.com/r/golang)

~~~
homarp
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13036890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13036890)

~~~
sethammons
As a summary for those who are unaware: a (now former) mod of that subreddit,
who is a major Go contributor, called for the deletion (or the discussion
there of) of the subreddit due to the actions of the Reddit CEO. He did so
believing that the subreddit was an official communication channel. Upon
learning that it was community started, he changed his opinion. Many are very
offended.

~~~
thewhitetulip
Yes, very offended. see my comments here

Just to see how friendly /r/golang is, check my experience as a newcomer on
google group and on /r/golang

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041938)

------
misotaur
/r/truereddit Just interesting stories and essays,a lot like HN but slower(and
no show my program threads)

~~~
tnone
Unfortunately that sub is as politically left as it can get. Downvotes galore
if you dare to disagree with the agenda of identity politics.

Best part: they upvoted and agreed with NPR that lefties are impervious to
fake news and can quickly spot it because of their superior reasoning skills.

~~~
bobdole1234
Entertainingly, I find that many of the "lefties" I know read widely on all
areas of the spectrum, and those of a certain timbre only read their bubble.

You'd never know that by the posturing on the part of those gentle persons of
the bubble, but you're definitely not one of those, are you?

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danso
I rarely read r/programming any more, its content rules seeming so arbitrary.
My favorites are:

\- r/python

\- r/reverseengineering

\- r/netsec

\- r/shittykickstarters (to read debunkings of why a Kickstarter is
scientifically/technically unfeasible)

------
SuperPaintMan
/g/ and /prog/ can be useful. There's tons of noise and beginner/toy threads,
but competent devs can be found.

Can't speak for the other chans but I recall a chan with a competent user base
dedicated to programming/hacking/rigbuilding a few years back. 1337chan or
something? Abused the green on black theme if anyone else remembers.

~~~
ycmbntrthrwaway
[https://99chan.org/nerd/](https://99chan.org/nerd/)

------
Inconel
I wouldn't say these are comparable to HN but r/cableporn and r/welding might
be interesting to HN posters.

~~~
hirzel
I also have a soft spot for subs that reveal high craft in unexpected places.
r/conduitporn is also on this list.

~~~
Inconel
Thanks for the heads up, I just added it to my list of subs. There are some
really great pics on there.

------
stared
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/)
by a long way

~~~
saosebastiao
Meh, it's alright. I've found it to be completely dominated by people who are
only interested in or talk about deep neural nets. That's fine I guess, it's
certainly popular. But there are vast areas of applied machine learning that
rightly use other techniques (deep learning isn't AGI!) and it's really
frustrating to try to ask questions about RF Tree Pruning or SVM kernel
functions only to get a bunch of vacuous "you should try deep learning"
comments.

~~~
stared
For deep learning quality is high (and it rarely misses important stuff). But
I share your frustration that it is "deep learning news", see this post of
mine:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/4el597/is_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/4el597/is_rmachinelearning_deep_learning_news/)
(Though, in the last month deep learning is my main focus, so it is OK.)

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palehose
[https://barnacl.es/](https://barnacl.es/) is one of my favorites, for
bootstrap startup news

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charlieirish
[https://barnacl.es/](https://barnacl.es/) (Barnacles) is a ~strong~ young
community of tech-related news with emphasis on bootstrapping and launching
products.

~~~
alexdumitru
It doesn't look that strong to me. There aren't any comments and I guess there
aren't more than a few active users.

------
spacehacker
[http://reddit.com/r/programming](http://reddit.com/r/programming)

[http://reddit.com/r/[your_favorite_programming_language]](http://reddit.com/r/\[your_favorite_programming_language\])

[http://reddit.com/r/futurology](http://reddit.com/r/futurology)

[http://reddit.com/r/math](http://reddit.com/r/math)

[http://reddit.com/r/mathpics](http://reddit.com/r/mathpics)

[http://reddit.com/r/statistics](http://reddit.com/r/statistics)

[http://reddit.com/r/probabilitytheory](http://reddit.com/r/probabilitytheory)

[http://reddit.com/r/electricalengineering](http://reddit.com/r/electricalengineering)

[http://reddit.com/r/ece](http://reddit.com/r/ece)

[http://reddit.com/r/netsec](http://reddit.com/r/netsec)

[http://reddit.com/r/physics](http://reddit.com/r/physics)

[http://reddit.com/r/emdrive](http://reddit.com/r/emdrive)

[http://reddit.com/r/artificial](http://reddit.com/r/artificial)

[http://reddit.com/r/machinelearning](http://reddit.com/r/machinelearning)

[http://reddit.com/r/neuralnetworks](http://reddit.com/r/neuralnetworks)

[http://reddit.com/r/MLQuestions](http://reddit.com/r/MLQuestions)

[http://reddit.com/r/learnmachinelearning](http://reddit.com/r/learnmachinelearning)

[http://reddit.com/r/mlpapers](http://reddit.com/r/mlpapers)

[http://reddit.com/r/computervision](http://reddit.com/r/computervision)

There is really so much out there and everyone has there own personal
interests. Just check out
[https://www.reddit.com/explore](https://www.reddit.com/explore) which will
give you personalized recommendations based on the subreddits you are already
subscribed to.

------
tvalentius
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/)
and [https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/)

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derekp7
There was a good discussion of this a while back -- one user here made a
multi-reddit of the suggested subreddits, in this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7255336](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7255336)

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kyriakos
Maybe not entirely tech related but /r/entrepreneur has some good posts (not
all of them but there's some gold here and there)

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vaibhavsagar
I enjoy [http://reddit.com/r/haskell](http://reddit.com/r/haskell)

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IndianAstronaut
Surprised /r/cscareerquestions hasn't been mentioned. It is my goto spot for
discussing cs careers and options.

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tavito
[http://www.timqian.com/my-headline](http://www.timqian.com/my-headline)

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akkartik
[https://www.reddit.com/user/akkartik/m/programming](https://www.reddit.com/user/akkartik/m/programming)

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kumarski
[https://www.reddit.com/r/chipdesign/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chipdesign/)

For all things related to chip design.

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lprubin
For bootstrapped startup talk, I like
[http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/](http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/)

~~~
coldshower
Looks like a great site for solopreneurs. Thanks. I signed up.

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tedmiston
Does anyone participate on MetaFilter ($)?

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sfrailsdev
Yep. Not under this name though.

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emadkhan
[https://hashnode.com/](https://hashnode.com/)

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aantix
The classic, slashdot.org

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DrNuke
Kaggle forums anyone for machine learning and data science?

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formula_ninguna
how can I get an invitation for lobste.rs?

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wje
* Barnacl.es * aesi.news (defunct) * DnE

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angersock
It isn't hard to get an invite if you're even partially competent. Then again,
it is invite only to keep out the sort of camp following mouth breathers that
are taking over HN.

~~~
dang
Please don't come here to diss this community while participating in it.
That's like littering in a city park while complaining what a mess it is.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050127)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
angersock
There's a difference between dissing HN as a whole, and dissing the growing
subset of the userbase that has lowered the technical content of the site and
decreased the civility and level of discourse.

That, or you mods aren't doing your job in keeping this site sufficiently
attractive to hackers--if you _were_ , threads like this wouldn't be
necessary.

The first step to solving a problem dang is _admitting you have a problem_.

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blahi
/r/backpropaganda

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wcummings
UGH REDDIT. You couldn't say forum? It has to be on reddit?

IRC is where it's at tbh.

~~~
beilabs
Where on IRC? #startups? or language specific ones? Quite a few are ghostowns
since slack picked up steam...

~~~
kLeeIsDead
Looks like somebody doesn't know how to idle.

~~~
beilabs
only idle for about 25 years...must be doing it wrong... :D

