
Ask HN: Reddit vs. HN - haack
Specifically &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming vs HN.<p>Is the user-base different? Is it just differences in karma&#x2F;downvoting mechanics? Am I right to irrationally dislike reddit?<p>[Disclaimer: I am an avid HNer who has barely touched reddit]
======
vinay427
I'm an avid Redditor that is migrating to HN. When I experience Reddit
withdrawal (it's a thing!) I realize that in my experience HN is a much more
intellectual community. By that, I mean that the general HN community seems
more driven to teach and learn about all kinds of topics. Reddit has its fair
share of that (with more diversity due to a larger user base) but intermingled
with a slew of cat memes, etc. that really contribute nothing to my life.
People in some demographics may use it to procrastinate doing work, but I am
working on finding more productive ways to do so. Certain subreddits such as
/r/personalfinance can be useful for life advice, however, and it seems that
many more AMAs are done on Reddit than anywhere else.

~~~
robwilliams
The comments in /r/programming are much more light-hearted, which is a welcome
break from the near-extreme seriousness of HN. I certainly appreciate having
an "intellectual community," but sometimes you want to read honest, anonymous
comments, even if there's a joke in there.

~~~
jackgolding
I totally agree with anonymous comments. I guess its not the point of HN, but
I'm unsettled by how negative users react to genuine attempts at humour. Maybe
its just me.

------
criley2
Reddit is culturally focused to me, and younger and less
intellectual/cerebral. Of course, by saying that, I'm sure there are outliers
that can be posted that show how reddit can foster the most intellectual
discussion possible! By cultural I mean it isn't much use for discussion about
work/programming, nor is it an effective news aggregator on any level, but it
is a great way to find humorous or entertaining content or discussions on
popular culture.

In honesty, reddit doesn't attract a lot of the actually-hacking hacker crowd.

I go to reddit to see what consumers think and HN to see what producers think.

Reddit is more like an unbridled 'id' of people in a similar culture to HN.
Witchhunts, trolling, nastiness, low-effort posting, are stereotypes of
reddits most famous and popular areas, and for good reason. Almost every
community of any size on reddit is a pretty intellectually barren place (shout
out to the outliers like /r/askscience).

It is what it is, but you go to reddit to talk about video games and popular
culture and cat pictures, and you go to HN to talk about coding, web
development, and the many topics surrounding it.

~~~
madez
I like how little patience HN has for off-topic, non-constructive or unfounded
comments.

Sometimes I have the feeling that even HN is bit too redditish for me. Is
there something that is to HN what HN is to reddit?

~~~
DanBC
Lobste.rs if you don't mind very few posts.

Mailing lists for the other stuff.

~~~
archagon
I've visited lobsters a few times but it never seemed like the comments were
particularly active.

~~~
DanBC
That not necessarily a bad thing if they're aiming for quality over quantity.
They might need to be a bit more active though.

------
colinbartlett
I've found quite a bit of convergence when it comes to skepticism, realism,
pragmatism, criticism, and like qualities.

Where HN differs the most to me is the lack of jokes or comments that really
aren't directly related to the post. On Reddit, jokes, in-references, and
memes are often very highly upvoted. On HN, that seems to be frowned upon and
downvoted quickly.

~~~
davidw
Jokes are sometimes ok (it seems to depend on people's moods...) on HN if
they're clever and original. Lame, boring memes are killed quickly.

------
S_A_P
In my experience, Reddit somewhat encourages snark and sarcasm, but you better
be bleeding edge and perfect in your wit, lest you be criticized into reddit
hell. Hacker news does a pretty good job of squashing most snark, sarcasm and
humor which gives it a clarity of focus toward helpful discussion.

I think that this generally makes HN a much more pleasant, if slightly sterile
place to hang out. In my opinion, that is a worthy trade off. I think the main
critique I have of HN is that sometimes comments that are critical, but not
necessarily mean get downvoted. Its a tough problem to solve though, so I can
give it a pass. Maybe I should create a biometric mood ring that attaches your
mood context with a post...

~~~
chupy
I too have this problem when commenting on HN vs Reddit. When a badly phrased
comment would be actually taken lightly on reddit here it gets easily
misunderstood. That is one of the reasons I do not comment as much as I wish.

I honestly think a small part of all this is linked to the cultural
differences between different generations and peoples.

------
joshstrange
I see HN as a more professional version of tech subreddits with a higher
standard in both content posted and discussion. I still use reddit to find
some stuff but reddit is a lot more laid back and intelligent discussion is
less likely to happen on that platform IMHO.

------
davidw
HN has always had a bit more spirit of being friendly to the next person even
if it's not always evident. The "comic book guy" tone is stronger on reddit.

~~~
nkohari
Are we browsing the same version of HN? This is not my experience at all. The
amount of blind judgement and "well, actually..." thrown about here is
incredible.

~~~
maze-le
I know what you mean, but I think the troll-density here is lower than on most
newsboards...

~~~
fapjacks
Until you get to social issues here on HN. This is like flushing quail and the
sky blackens with all the trolls.

~~~
davidw
Which is why those things are mostly off-topic, and should be flagged.

------
jos
My activity on Reddit has always been extremely minimal -- I have found the
toxicity of interactions between peers to run rampant in most situations. I've
only been an audience member in such situations (i.e., I was not involved in
generating said situation, they are situations I've happened across -- often
too late to make a difference).

The disheartening part, to me, was that certain individuals participating in
/r/learnprogramming tended to be outright aggressive towards individuals who
had legitimate questions -- questions I had myself when first learning to
program.

While reddit seems to be the breeding ground for hate groups and public
shaming, this is likely the minority (even if the minority seems rather
large). I wouldn't expect to see posts on HN whose entire purpose is to
generate hate speech against women speaking out against how women are
currently portrayed in games or for the purpose of shaming an individual new
to programming for their lack of "expert" knowledge.

------
antjanus
I'm a user of both and I'd say both are great but both have deep-seated issues
that make me wary of using either at all.

 __HN __

HN is wonderful in that you 're more likely to learn something from the
comments and have an intellectual discussion. If you can get to the discussion
fast enough. Or if that thread doesn't magically die off. Due to the lack of a
notification system on HN, there are lots of dangling, empty comments.

The problem is that HN is very much "all or nothing". If you post an HN
question, you're either going to get 200+ comments with people discussing the
minutiae or you get a 0 comment thread going.

Sharing links on HN is the same way. 90% of the userbase stays on the front
page without even clicking "next" on the bottom that means that there are 20+
threads at any given moment but they usually stay static for hours at a time,
giving no other threads any attention.

The upside is that self-promotion is totally okay. No one gives you shit for
posting an article you wrote.

 __Reddit __

I don 't personally spend too much time on /r/programming, but I do spend a
ton of time on /r/webdev. The issue with Reddit is RULES. There are tons of
rules, there are ruthless mods, and often, good content gets buried while
terrible content makes it to the top. There's an inherent mistrust in the
system.

With that said, I found it more likely to get an answer to a question on
Reddit than on here. And I found it more likely that people would discuss
something I post. Basically, Reddit feels like there is more small-user
generated content rather than big journalism taking over. For example, check
the top links for HN, how many of those come from big newspapers/online
magazines that everyone knows? Now check Reddit, how about that ratio instead?

Basically, I feel like Reddit is more about users generating discussion and
content while HN is more about users responding to a discussion or content. If
that makes sense.

I use both, obviously.

~~~
haack
On a side note, why is there no notification system for HN? It would be great
to know that someone has replied to a comment.

Incidentally, I will probably never see if you reply to this.

~~~
Killswitch
I wish it had a notification system too. I don't live on HN and sometimes I
forget to check my previous comments to see if there was any replies for at
least a couple days.

~~~
antjanus
I use HN Notify which emails you when someone replies.

------
danso
I like Reddit for the smaller (particularly local) subreddits. But as a
frontpage, HN is far more inviting to me. HN discussions are far more engaging
and constructive; with Reddit, you're competing with whoever can copy-paste a
meme the fastest. (edit: typo)

------
jasonlotito
If you stick to just the popular subreddits, you are doing yourself a
disservice. Subreddit subscriptions are what make Reddit really nice.

If you are trying to compare /r/programming to HN, you really don't understand
the purpose of either I should think.

------
meritt
My biggest issue with HN is the the automatic dismissal and downvoting of
comments which discuss non-sexy legacy technologies. Reddit seems to be far
more pragmatic about tech choices while HN leans heavily toward the dogmatic
side.

------
BinaryIdiot
Biggest differences I notice is Reddit not only tolerates but it rewards jokes
/ puns / non-seriousness but on HN it's really hard to avoid being downvoted
when telling a joke. Beyond that I don't think there is much difference; there
is a hive-mind in HN just like reddit (and like any social experience; it's
human nature so impossible to avoid).

One thing I will say is on HN, after like 3 or 4 comments within 10 minutes I
usually can't post another comment again for another 30+ minutes (I've never
been able to quantify the amount of comments required to trigger the throttle
and how long it lasts). So it's really difficult to have any type of quick,
back and forth conversations / discussions on HN but on Reddit, even though
they have a throttle, it's no where near as aggressive so it's more possible
there. I'm not sure the HN throttle is necessarily bad but I know I don't
enjoy its aggressiveness.

------
jules
It's totally different. HN has very little technical content compared to
/r/programming. Some people here say that /r/programming's userbase is less
sophisticated than HN. In my experience this sophistication is only skin deep
with regards to technical discussion. In the rare technical discussion on HN
the form and number of smart sounding words matter more than whether the
technical point is correct. It seems as if the people voting know less about
the technical content they vote on. HN is just more of a startup and general
topics discussion board than a technical discussion board. You can also see it
in this thread: most people posting here talk about other subreddits than
/r/programming, which indicates that they may not be programmers.

On the other hand, people are more polite and generally nicer on HN. Perhaps
this is an inherent difference in the audience, or because the comment scores
are hidden on HN.

~~~
cartoonfoxes
> You can also see it in this thread: most people posting here talk about
> other subreddits than /r/programming, which indicates that they may not be
> programmers.

A more interesting question is HN vs subreddits in general. /r/programming
seems like a bad example.

~~~
jules
The post asks specifically about /r/programming vs HN.

------
Geee
Reddit is better if you want to focus your attention to certain topics such as
/r/javascript or /r/reactjs, for example, and you'll be certain that you'll
get all the relevant news (along with some noise).

HN is for general news, and new new things with deeper discussions. There's
lots of noise on HN too, if all you want is news or programming related
things. Lately, I think, 'intellectual-porn' has increased on HN (such as
Wikipedia articles of mildly-interesting things), which I think are no
different from cat pictures.

Quite often I spot something on Reddit, and then search HN for additional
discussion.

(obviously you shouldn't follow the default subreddits, which are optimized
for maximum addiction for general population)

------
lojack
I use both, and treat them slightly differently. I'm a lot more passive with
my commenting on HN.

When I do my comments tend to be better thought out, but I'll often have an
opinion on something and choose to not comment for various reasons. Maybe my
opinion was a bit too harsh, maybe others have a similar opinion and have
already voiced it in their words, or maybe I realize its off topic.

IMO this is both a good thing and a bad thing. Sometimes I find myself not
commenting when I could truly contribute to the discussion. On the flip side,
there's also a lot less noise when trying to filter through the discussions.

~~~
mod
Strangely, I find I'm quite the opposite--rarely contributing on Reddit,
fairly regularly on HN.

Probably because I'm interested in quality discussion and generally more
knowledgeable about the topics here. I'm also not impressed by typical reddit
humor (pun threads, meta-jokes, purposeful mis-reading of comments).

I really like the AMAs and other than that I mostly stay out of reddit comment
sections. Conversely, on HN, comments are the whole reason I'm here.

------
codazoda
I can spend hours on Reddit while I only seem to spend a few minutes on HN. On
Reddit I go from /r/programming to /r/diy to /r/art, besides just looking at
the first page. On Hacker News I only look at the first page. Once I've gone
through it, I'm off to Reddit. The first page doesn't seem like it changes
that often, so I only check it once a day or so.

That said, the discussions on HN are usually about technical topics from
technical people. It's far more intellectual than Reddit where a lot of the
comments are puns, jokes, and other off-topic nonsense.

------
techtalsky
I "extensively monitor" both channels and find that they have their own
advantages and disadvantages.

When an important technology is announced, or there's some important tech
event, I really want to see what HN says first. It's more likely to be a
focused and civil discussion due to the way it's moderated, and it's extremely
likely that an engineer involved in the project or its history will come and
personally contribute to the discussion. When I read a huge HN thread on an
important topic, I feel like I'm largely educated about what experienced
thinkers and specialists on the topic would say.

That said, Reddit has more breadth. There's not just /r/programming, there's
subreddits for every specific language, technology, and specialty. Some are
better curated and moderated than others but it's a deeper and richer set of
information. There might occasionally be a story about OpenBSD around here,
but reddit has
[http://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd](http://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd).

I probably follow HN more closely, but I do like to see what bubbles up in
specific subreddits as well.

------
pXMzR2A
> Specifically /r/programming vs HN.

HNers /behave/ more knowledgeably about startups and software.

> Is the user-base different?

No. White middle class men. Anything else is downvoted or not spoken of.[1]

> Is it just differences in karma/downvoting mechanics?

No, it's the YCombinator brand name that's making the difference. And the fact
that HN is nowhere near as popular as reddit. (Popularity attracts even more
white people, but especially those who would like to behave like spoiled
brats.)

> Am I right to irrationally dislike reddit?

Yup. Find the right sub and you'll be fine.

(Edit) [1] As an example,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9451652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9451652)
. Anyone other than that demographic, with some critical thought in them, have
already abandoned the use of "riots" [along with its corrolary, "thugs"] to
refer to the protests, and are using either #BaltimoreProtests or
#BaltimoreUprisings . In that linked debate, not a single leading commentary
disputes... wait for it... the very title.

------
rouma7
i think the main advantage that reddit has over HN is the combination of
breadth and specificity. there aren't any categories or labels in HN and, as
has already been discussed, people generally only see the front page. this
leads to the "social echo chamber" effect that people have discussed
elsewhere, meaning a lot of people read/respond to the same ideas over and
over leading to an incestuous breeding ground for thought/commentary.

i prefer to create my own multireddits for content technical content i'm
interested in discussing. one for languages, open source, web, mobile, or
computer science theory. these would be impossible to find on HN but on reddit
they often attract more serious comments (not perfect).

also, did you ask this same question on reddit? i'm wary of the implicit
selection bias in asking for a comparison from HN users and not reddit. the
users on HN who take the time to read and respond to something like this are
more than likely to prefer HN to reddit.

------
cartoonfoxes
There's some overlap between the two, of course. Personally, I frequent both.
I self-censor here in a way that I won't on reddit, if for no other reason
than to help curate the better SNR.

The psychology is a little different, here. Since there's no equivalent of
user-created and moderated subreddits, it's hard to associate the same
feelings of identity and ownership. As a result, ironic on account of the
smaller userbase, I tend to think of Hacker News as a more public space than
reddit. Hacker News is more impersonal and sterile, but in a good way. Reddit
is the equivalent of bullshitting with the neighbors over a few beers and a
barbecue.

Both are good. It's hard to speak of my time here in terms of a migration, or
switch from, reddit.

------
rev_bird
I've gotten so, so much out of the archives in the /r/cscareerquestions. It's
mostly cultural stuff, but I've learned a lot from there and /r/sysadmin.

When I went to Reddit without logging in (and saw the content of the standard
subreddits), I was SHOCKED at how stupid it was. I frequent a bunch of
smaller, focused subreddits and really enjoy it... most of the time. I have to
say, I've never been scared to voice an opinion on HN like I have been on
Reddit. This is a much more civil place, especially when I'm wrong about
something.

~~~
c0wb0yc0d3r
I feel the same way, I actually created a second Reddit account. One for all
the cat memes which I'll typically only look at when I want to lazily pass
some time. And the other that actually gives me food for thought so to speak.
That being said, commenting on HN is a much nicer experience.

------
Red_Tarsius
Don't let the layout fool you, reddit is a different beast.

Reddit is a versatile tool for building any kind of community you want.
However, Reddit itself is not the herald of any kind of value. Like facebook
groups, multi-purpose weakens meaning.

HN was born from the core values of YCombinator. It's a tangible proof of the
tribe built around hacking and entrepreneurship. Meaning and Visuals are
tightly coupled. Even the language it's written on (Arc) is an integral part
of the overarching theme.

~~~
kefka
In reality, I think of Reddit as Usenet.

Tons of groups, and very very low barrier. Flamewars, trolls and idiots are
everywhere, and finding a quiet corner for intellectual studies is hard to
find... but it is doable.

There are also such thing as invite only / private subreddits, which somewhat
compare to moderated usenet subs.

------
pluma
HN certainly has a lot more startup and non-programming content than reddit.
In my experience there is also a better balance between "early adopters" and
"grumpy enterprise devs" (proggit in particular tends to be dominated by the
latter, e.g. a lot of cynicism towards Node.js).

I would like to say HN is simply generally more sophisticated, but some of my
highest-voted comments on HR are sarcastic remarks (criticising the US seems
to equal free karma).

------
frindo
Reddit caters to a broader range of people, so it is less focused. If you go
to specific subreddits you can find great content and intelligent
conversation. I've learned a lot from /r/swift and /r/learnpython.

HN would fit in as a subreddit on Reddit. In fact, I'd wager that if there was
a subreddit /r/hackernews it would look almost exactly the same as this
website.

~~~
cartoonfoxes
> In fact, I'd wager that if there was a subreddit /r/hackernews it would look
> almost exactly the same as this website.

A community that generates a nearly identical content feed seems plausible
enough. I doubt the character of the comments would be the same, though.
Beyond the obvious fact that HN is a more focused and less populous community,
the structure, context, and presentation of the reddits must have effects on
the psychology of their users.

Even if you were to replicate the HN content feed exactly on a private
subreddit, with the same set of members and the same set of moderators, you'd
see a different character to the comments.

------
baccheion
Reddit seems to have a larger number of users and a broader range of topics. I
don't enjoy the discussions/comments on HN, the answers are fairly
predictable, and I mostly visit this site because I'm forced to.

~~~
cartoonfoxes
> I mostly visit this site because I'm forced to.

Context, for the curious?

------
Lord_Zero
Personally for me I do HN at work and Reddit at home.

------
moskie
I've gotten the impression (and more so recently) that astroturfing is a
problem on reddit. Not so much on Hacker News.

~~~
forgotX2
What do you mean by astroturfing?

~~~
kaybe
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)

I cannot think of a meaning your question might have that is not answered by
the intro of this article. (sorry if I got that wrong)

------
ilitirit
> Am I right to irrationally dislike reddit?

I'd say that you are wrong to _irrationally_ like/dislike anything.

------
EvenThisAcronym
People on HN refer to it as an "intellectual community". That should be you
all the answer you need.

------
lessthunk
Reddit has a much wider user-base. I guess most of us on hn have a tech
background.

------
snarfy
Hacker news today looks like /r/programming 6 years ago.

As the population of any online site grows, you get the least common
denominator. The smaller subreddits are still good, but /r/programming got too
big.

------
dreamdu5t
I prefer reddit because I can browse by topic. I don't like wading through the
latest political news story, science of menstration, dolphin communication,
etc that is on HN. HN often feels like r/technology combined with r/politics.
That said the comments here tend to be higher quality but I still have to wade
through a lot of noise.

------
ihsw
/r/programming is a narrowly scoped -- it has to do with programming, whereas
HN is more generalized.

Furthermore, there is a far wider variety of users on /r/programming. This
increases the signal to noise ratio, and reduces opportunity for higher-
quality content and comments to float to the top.

And, one cannot discuss HN and /r/programming without discussing the
moderators -- they are the curators of content submitted and the comment
discussions, after all. I would haphazard to guess that the similarities
between the two groups are more closely aligned than the user-bases
themselves.

As for my personal opinion -- I feel far more inclined to contribute to HN as
my writing on /r/programming is more likely to be lost in the void, akin to
pissing into an ocean.

------
stefantalpalaru
> Am I right to irrationally dislike reddit?

It depends. Do you like a fatherly figure to make you do stuff for your own
good even if you're now in your thirties? Do you enjoy censoring yourself for
the fear of being hellbanned? Do you get a kick out of seeing your comments
become unreadable because you wrote something against the prevalent opinion?
Do you mind being gently molded into an echo box of what's hip right now in
the Silicon Valley culture? Are you so focused on patting yourself on the back
that you don't realize that subreddits are actually different forums with
different administration and moderation policies?

P.S.: do you like having to wait an unspecified amount of time before being
able to post your comment because you've been suspiciously active lately?

------
praeivis
It's like compare Facebook and Twitter. Surely you can try compare them, but
better just use whatever you like to use.

