
Ask HN: Other communities like HN? - espitia
I am always impressed by the quality and depth of the commentary on HN. After having read the articles posted, I gain a lot of value by having my perspective challenged many times over in the comments.<p>As HN is focused on tech only, do you guys know of similar communities (quality of commentary&#x2F;discussion) around the web that focuses on other niches?
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zacmps
Parts of reddit are good. They're probably the closest thing you'll find to HN
though many here would have to admit it.

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sebleon
any subreddits in particular you recommend?

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Cyph0n
It really depends on your interests. Most mainstream programming languages
have dedicated subreddits, so that's a good place to start. /r/programming is
a great place for general programming news, but it usually overlaps with HN.
/r/netsec is another excellent subreddit with general security-related news
and content.

I think the beauty of Reddit is that it's all up to you to curate the content,
which obviously makes it hard to recommend things to read for others :P

Here is a list of my favorite subreddits for anyone who wants an idea of
what's available on Reddit:

Tech-related:

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/)

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/](https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/](https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/)

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/](https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/)
(programming jokes)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/)

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/)
(video game emulation news and discussion)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/](https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/)

Non-tech:

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/)

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/) (a
better version of /r/BestOf)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencefiction/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencefiction/)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyaskscience/](https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyaskscience/)
(the opposite of AskScience)

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/VXJunkies/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VXJunkies/)
(try to figure this one out :P)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bertstrips/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bertstrips/)
(beware: offensive content)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/totallynotrobots/](https://www.reddit.com/r/totallynotrobots/)

~~~
kungtotte
I'd like to point out that the less general the subreddit, and the fewer
visitors it has, the better the content (both submissions and comments) is.

There are some exceptions, and technical subs are generally better than more
mainstream ones.

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emmelaich
If you're of a rationalist / philosophical bent you might like
[http://lesswrong.com](http://lesswrong.com)

"Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human
rationality."

~~~
elevenfist
...just be aware there isn't much evidence supporting most of what's on
there...

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dotancohen
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned /. yet.

[http://slashdot.org](http://slashdot.org)

Chips&Dips, er Slashdot, was the original high-quality tech forum on the
internet. In recent years it has gone to trash, but it is still the model
community-driven tech news forum and occasionally has very good commentary.

~~~
khedoros1
I left there for SoylentNews a few years ago. Both of them seem to dip deeper
into toxicity than I like. HackerNews is refreshing in that respect; things
stay very civil here.

Slashdot's a classic, but I don't think I can really recommend it as "another
community like HN". Maybe I could've, some years ago.

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ctrlrsf
Investing advice inspired by Jack Bogle:
[https://www.bogleheads.org](https://www.bogleheads.org)

~~~
movedx
Great advice on here. Index ETFs all the way.

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lolptdr
These Hacker News clones seem like good candidates for decent communities:

[http://www.datatau.com/news](http://www.datatau.com/news)

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

~~~
sillysaurus3
Looks like DataTau has an average of one comment every few days, though.

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derrekl
For beer:
[https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/](https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/)

That links to the forums where you see some good discussion. Also the reviews
of beer on the site are quite extensive.

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vinylkey
The founders of beeradvocate are jerks (to put it lightly). I try to stay far
away from that site.

Small example here: [http://beerstreetjournal.com/tweet-from-beer-advocate-
founde...](http://beerstreetjournal.com/tweet-from-beer-advocate-founder-gets-
bad-feedback/)

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mooneater
[https://feedit.agfunder.com/](https://feedit.agfunder.com/) for agriculture
and food related technology and investment.

~~~
simonrobb
Early days yet for #feedit, but if enough people join the conversation it's
going to be a great community.

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sova
Full disclosure: this is a project I'm working on, and comment functionality
is coming.

Nonforum.com is for sustainable / resilient agriculture+composting+earthships,
alternative lifestyles, personal experiences, and forward-minded things that
would otherwise not really have a home on the 'net.

There's a small write-up of things we are trying to foster at
[https://nonforum.com/about.html](https://nonforum.com/about.html) (or just
click on the (non) logo card on the front page)

Still pretty nascent, and I haven't submitted a show HN yet because there's no
commenting functionality up yet. On the bright side, nonforum functions as a
nice link-sharing platform, and votes and submissions show up in real-time (no
page refresh required).

Currently in semi-open beta (one needs an account to submit new links/write-
ups and to vote on things), you can request an invite code by providing your
e-mail, or, at the moment just asking me to send you one.

[https://nonforum.com/](https://nonforum.com/)

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mendeza
Indie Hackers ([https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/))
in my opinion is an up and coming badass community.

Not much content on there, but the content thats there is nothing I have seen
anywhere else

~~~
yitchelle
Their podcast is pretty good. I like their interviewing style.

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ThrustVectoring
slatestarcodex has a great community following it and good moderation.

~~~
thedudemabry
I was introduced to this site by a colleague, and it is indeed a good place to
see thoughts explored. While I sometimes disagree with the conclusion reached
by the author, the tone puts a great deal of emphasis on humility and empathy.
It's a very welcome place to immerse myself in alternate views to my own.

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luord
One I frequent is [https://hashnode.com](https://hashnode.com)

It's still not very big but seems to be growing. And it's completely bereft of
political talk, which I find refreshing.

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paulshapiro
MetaFilter still kicks ass.

~~~
sien
The politics seem to have gotten heavier on MeFi in the past few years. Now if
you're not firmly on the Left you're really not welcome there.

It's still good for some culture stuff though.

HN is probably better on politics because there is real diversity of opinion.

~~~
digitalzombie
> HN is probably better on politics because there is real diversity of
> opinion.

Uh.. it's a little lean to left and then there are random hard right comments
though. To be perfectly honest, I think the hard right see anything that isn't
hard right is left tbh, that include moderates. And the demographic for HN
especially programmers are liberal iirc. There were articles on how big tech
companies employee voted and also the fact that silicon valley is situated in
the most liberal of California.

The threads that have some sort of discord seems to disappear in an hour. Like
the recent basic income one. Politics are kept to a minimum or hardly any at
all.

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notaplumber
There's [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/) it's invite-only to comment,
but not hard to get.

~~~
aryehof
I also hate to ask it here, but would really appreciate an invite.

~~~
aryehof
Many thanks stephenr for the invite.

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zerr
I wonder if there are similar sites but more bootstrappers oriented (rather
than investors' pocket burners).

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BadassFractal
I've had a very conflicted experience with SomethingAwful in the past. Parts
of it feel like a quality and tight community, others are just endless
shitposts. They might have severely dipped in activity as well over the past
few years.

~~~
DannyBee
The problem is that for some forums, shitposting is considered quality ;)

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kumarski
I've built several fb groups I built from the ground up, but cap membership at
200 members.

Still want to build out cronofy.com integration to help members connect/meetup
in person.

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kriro
For (online)poker there's forumserver.twoplustwo.com

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evolve2k
[http://designernews.co](http://designernews.co) for well, Designer News.

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Harkins
This site isn't only focused on tech, there's also a lot of tech
entrepreneurship - particularly the VC-funded Bay Area variety, and also a bit
of gossip about that community.

For tech, [https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs) is decent. There's more
interest in papers and proofs-of-concept than here. (Give a link to your
profile on Twitter/GitHub/here in #lobsters on Freenode and someone will give
an invite pretty quickly.)

For bootstrapped entrepreneurship, [https://barnacl.es](https://barnacl.es)
(my site) is small but welcoming and growing. (No invite needed.)

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skdotdan
Reddit. For instance, the programming subreddit.

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tschellenbach
My favorite is Lobsters: lobste.rs

~~~
saiprashanth93
I would like an invite, if you have any. Thank you!

~~~
swah
Not sure if you already received, sent another one anyway.. cheers

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frgtpsswrdlame
metafilter.com is a good general/link-aggregatey site. It's got a strong "SJW"
contingent though, so take that into account.

