
Why I stopped reading HN - Kilimanjaro
http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-i-stopped-reading-hn/
======
DanielBMarkham
_I consider it extremely important–perhaps vital, even–to spend time engaging
others intelligently who have diverging views from one’s own. I think that
this is, on the whole, one of the most valuable uses of one’s time that
exists._

Very interesting insight. If you're not doing things that are transformative
-- that change your habits and the way you have of looking at the world,
you're wasting your time. And I don't mean that in a philosophical or
political sense. It applies to everything -- coding, marketing, time
management. If you spend 3 hours on HN today and leave with basically the same
opinions, habits, and immediately useful pieces of knowledge that you started
with? Not good for you.

HN has always discouraged deeply nested discussions, seeing them as just so
much noise. I've always thought that was whacked. Yes, many times you are in a
flame war and nothing is accomplished, but the entire point of interacting
with other people is to _learn_. So you'd think that a long conversation
about, I dunno, pointer arithmetic, would have a transformative effect on both
the participants and the community. I think the issue here is whether you view
users as intelligent folks who are trying to understand each other, or cranks
and trolls who solely exist to get some emotional thrill from flaming (yes,
Gresham's Law comes into play here, but everything is a trade-off)

As it is, what's happened is this kind of lightweight, superficial herd
mentality, with folks striking out fairly deep responses and then nothing ever
gets settled. Lots of generalizations and high-level talk, nothing past an
initial exchange or three. I've even questioned some longtime members about
various topics and was told "I'm not posting to discuss, I'm posting to cut
you off" more or less.

Once I realized that HN was idle geek chitchat and not the watercooler for
entrepreneurs I wanted it to be, it changed my opinion of the place. I still
like it, no place like it, but it also has this terrible time-wasting
underbelly that we rarely talk about enough.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_If you're not doing things that are transformative -- that change your habits
and the way you have of looking at the world, you're wasting your time._

As written, this is a dangerously solipsistic statement. Transforming your
mind, body, knowledge, opinions and philosophy is indeed helpful, but it is
much less than half the problem: Unless you are content to live and die as a
hermit, you must also seek to transform the world, even if it's just the world
in your immediate vicinity.

Learning is valuable, but teaching is just as valuable, if not more so.

Teaching is hard, though. You have to do it in tiny pieces, applied one drop
at a time over weeks, months, and years. One of the hardest things to learn is
not to lecture. You think -- especially if you have spent years in school --
that you can just tie someone down and tell them the truth over and over until
they get it, but it doesn't work that way in real life. Rather, it is both
ineffective and rude to grab a piece of someone's attention and then attempt
to deliver a big lecture. In face-to-face interaction, people deploy social
signals to discourage this; on the web we must take more obvious measures,
such as designing venues like HN where lecturing feels awkward and is
therefore discouraged.

But if you want to read incredibly long-form back-and-forth discussions that
go on for pages the rest of the Internet is right there, one click away.

~~~
pvg
_As written, this is a dangerously solipsistic statement._

Dangerously self-referential statement. As written, of course.

~~~
philbarr
well, I learned a new word today

~~~
mechanical_fish
And I have learned something too: I must never use this word again, since
apparently I have yet to master all its overtones. ;)

------
wccrawford
Sounds to me like the reasons he stopped reading HN were:

1) He couldn't stop himself from posting. He had to comment on things even
when he had nothing to add. He even admits to commenting solely to gain karma.

2) He couldn't stop himself from reading the things he found pointless. All
the flame wars, the arguments, etc.

Just learn to skip all that. Learn to only post when you have something to
add. Only read an article when you actually care about the article. Only read
the comments when you care both about the article and what others have to say
about it.

Learn some self-control.

That, or tell me what the new best tech-news site is. I get a lot more
information about new techniques, languages, etc etc here at HN than anywhere
else at the moment.

~~~
swah
Sometimes I write a comment, but writing makes you think more clearly about
the subject, and so I realize it is not very insightful.

Then I discard it and feel very proud for saving everyone's time.

~~~
abraham
I'm curious how many people started replying to you but ended up discarding
it.

------
pg
I think the first time I remember having argument on HN from which I learned
nothing-- one of those nasty, legalistic types of arguments where the other
guy is definitely _not_ collaborating with you in a search for truth-- was
when the site was about a year old. So it is not a new phenomenon. You just
have to sense when a conversation is going down that sort of rathole, and not
get drawn into it.

I still sometimes get drawn in, but not as easily as I was before I'd
developed any resistance. As recently as a few years ago, I could still be
fooled by deliberate trolls. Now I'm mostly only fooled by de facto ones.

~~~
katovatzschyn
I would wager learning nothing is a trait of individuals and not settings.

~~~
aniket_ray
I think you're right. You learn something every time. But it may not be the
kind of thing you're out to learn.

As pg writes he learned not to be part of such arguments. Although, an
important lesson, I'm sure that's pg actually wanted to learn something more
pertinent to the argument (that's why he joined in the argument in the first
place).

When we don't get to learn what we were seeking to learn, we feel
disappointed.

------
tptacek
This is 'drewcrawford. Reading ~10 pages of the last 60 days of his comments,
I'm not seeing the unproductive arguments he's referring to. It's too bad;
he's an interesting guy: lives in OKC, went to WWDC, has opinions about
crypto. Maybe a bit too willing to invest himself in discussions that HN
doesn't do well (politics, social justice).

~~~
philk
To be fair, politics/social justice discussions seem to turn poisonous
_everywhere_ on the web and they probably produce a steady stream of people
saying "I'm not posting there again".

~~~
gloob
Which is precisely why they are largely discouraged here.

------
amix
The thing I love about HN are the comments from domain-experts - e.g. tptacek
on security, grellas posts on law or a direct response from a founder/creator.
These kind of comments always seem to be very insightful. I don't value
general discussions that much and I don't think HN is a very good medium for
discussions.

~~~
ww520
I think it might be better to ignore the roles of an expert and evaluate the
comments by themselves. If the comments are insightful, they can stand on
their own. Evaluating the comments by themselves help to develop critical
thinking and avoid being spoonfed by others.

~~~
amix
Arguments from authority are a fallacy and I am not saying that I trust
blindly someone just because they are an expert. I am just stating that domain
experts on HN generally have some really insightful comments :)

------
alexyim
One thing I would like to see get addressed is how a popular sentiment can get
upvoted so much. I feel that this undermines the importance of making an
insightful or relevant comment. People can easily just speak the popular
sentiment of the time and gain karma/have it highlighted.

However, this is an issue we can all try to address. Next time we see a
comment that says "hackers rule", we can avoid being trigger happy about
upvoting it but rather evaluate it in terms of its merits. As a corollary, I
make it a focus of mine to upvote good comments that I disagree with, a
particularly hard thing to do.

~~~
pavs
Also hero worshipping.

This is one thing I absolutely can't stand in reddit and now I see that it is
also very common here in HN.

People seem to up-vote users with "high score/past reputation/YC funded
member" on virtually any comment they leave, even if their comment contributes
absolutely nothing to the discussion or just re-enforces whatever the hive
mind believes in.

Forget about trying to disagree with a popular HN poster without getting down-
voted to oblivion.

This is really sad.

I think overall karma points should not be made public. Each comment should be
judged by its own merit not by the "karma points" they have in the leader-
board.

~~~
kmfrk
I haven't really wrapped my head around the grounds for down-voting on HN. It
seemed very rare - and proper - at first, but I am beginning to get that the,
albeit few, who do it vote based on content and not form. In other words, they
disagree with what a person is saying - sometimes vehemently - but the
downvoted comment is still politely and somewhat cogently phrased.

It's not as widespread as on reddit where there is widespread reputation-
sniping going on, and many HN users tend to pick up on unfair downvotes and
vote the comment up to counter it. It'll still deter some people, I guess.

~~~
nkurz
Based on how much some of my comments bounce up and down, I don't think that
the downvotes are done by only a few. But I think this is a good thing, and if
anything we need more people eager to downvote poor quality submissions. I
think the reason that HN has remained as usable as it has because it is
actively policed for content quality.

I don't see a way to check, but I'd guess that my upvote to downvote ratio is
about 3:1. I try to vote up anything that would want to see more of on the
site, whether I agree or disagree with the content. I try to mercilessly vote
down snappy one liners, purposeless profanity, and dumb jokes. If anything,
I'd say I vote primarily on form --- I'll support just about any content if
it's well written and well intentioned.

------
Eliezer
If semantic debates are really starting to be a problem here,
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/>.

Seriously, that's what I wrote it for.

~~~
xenophanes
Why do you think the problem people will be the ones who click the link? And
think about it enough to figure out what situations it applies to and learn
how to recognize those situations. And learn to see situations they are
personally involved in, in an objective enough way so that they can recognize
when they personally are doing it. And remember all this.

The link offers very little help in doing these tasks. It's almost pure
content, with little about how to integrate it into your life and actually use
it. I think it therefore is failing to give much advice about a part where the
many of relevant people get stuck or fail.

There also seems to be some significant proportion of people who think taking
issues like this seriously is not fun -- it's "overly serious" -- and they
want their internet discussions to be light-hearted and enjoyable. They are
alienated to learning things. So they won't care what you're saying; they
think it's only for people with a different personality type who like that
kind of thing. I don't even know what to do about these people because giving
an explanation of why they are making a mistake would offend them -- if they
aren't going to take discussion too seriously, they certainly don't want it to
turn into a self-help seminar that asks them personally to improve.

So, point is, while it's a decent article, if it's supposed to be for fixing a
discussion atmosphere involving thousands of people, I don't think it will
solve that problem.

~~~
billswift
There is a similar post to the original article here that was posted to LW a
few days ago, _Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-
Instrumental Rationality_ ,
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/2po/selfimprovement_or_shiny_distrac...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2po/selfimprovement_or_shiny_distraction_why_less/)
. I have been strongly cutting back my browsing in general, including both LW
and HN.

------
Mz
There are communities I have left for various reasons. I am not wrapped around
the axle enough about it to write a blog post naming the forum in the title
and bitch about everything that is wrong with the forum in question. I
couldn't get through half this post. I just don't care that much. I stopped
reading after he explained how central HN had been to him and how giving it up
was like lopping off a limb (or some such) but he just had to do it (or some
such). HN serves some of my needs, so I visit when time permits and the
interest is there. No big.

------
smoody
A few ideas (of course you won't be reading this, so perhaps it'll be useful
to those of us remaining on the service):

1\. Logout of HN and have a friend of yours change your password and not tell
you what it is. This keeps you from getting into the commenting/commenting-
for-karma cycle. And you won't want to create a new account because karma
addicts can't stand the idea of starting back at zero.

2\. Find a community that better suits your argumentative needs. I would
probably suggest looking a quora.com -- but, if you're addicted to arguments
for the sake of arguments, then that's probably not a good idea either.

3\. Take up photography. Seriously. It will center you and give you a vice to
replace the void created by quitting this site (whether the ban is short-term
imposed or long-term imposed).

------
epi0Bauqu
The biggest change for me is the broadening of focus away from just startups.
I like it because I'm interested in broad stuff, but it leaves a hole. So we
created <http://techstartu.ps> for the startup piece and now I regularly visit
both sites. Reddit subreddits are also good for other specific knowledge
domains, e.g. netsec.

------
jedwhite
The thing about Karma is it's related to Zen.

Sometimes you just have to accept things for what they are and let them be. HN
is the Parisian salon or bohemian coffee house of its age. And they also
suffered from the pretentious, inane or despotic and inciteful, as well as the
insightful and delightful.

~~~
grandalf
Excellent point. There is no point about meta-complaining about HN. It's a
superb community.

------
forgottenpaswrd
"I consider it extremely important–perhaps vital, even–to spend time engaging
others intelligently who have diverging views from one’s own. I think that
this is, on the whole, one of the most valuable uses of one’s time that
exists. "

This should be the reason he has comments closed. Walk your talk.

~~~
willurd
I was thinking the same thing myself. I'm unsure why a person who considers
having arguments a vital part of his life and is "very, very careful" with his
time would spend a month writing an article nobody can comment on. He's surely
not coming back the HN to read the comments.

Tell me again why I should care about this article?

EDIT: FWIW I did enjoy reading parts of the article. I thought the writer has
some thought-provoking things to say. I like his ideas about what make a bad
argument, and I like his ideas about the importance of interacting with people
who don't think like you. I just have a problem taking people who say one
thing and do another seriously.

------
bitdiddle
Well I can empathize with the author. I too feel almost everything of
importance that I've ever accomplished intellectually or mathematically,
however modest, emerged as the result of intense collaboration with
colleagues, complete with rigorous arguments. We would often change sides
solely to get a burst of new energy when stuck in the same old thoughts. It's
how research is done.

I also begin a lot of comments that I don't publish (please give the karma to
swah below for saying it first :), as writing is a skill you have to work at.
I don't consider myself a lurker, as my low karma might indicate given I've
been here 1306 days, but mostly I scan and occasionally read in depth and try
to jump in when I can add value or correct obvious mistakes. In terms of
interests it's surprising how diverse this community is. Even with lots of
programmers one wouldn't expect to find so many familiar with category theory.

I've seen HN change, often not for the better, and I'm reminded of Shirky's
essay on a group being it's own worst enemy, but I've watched this puppy grow
for a long time so I'm staying. Besides, I haven't owned a TV in 20 years now
and I miss the Saturday morning cartoons. HN fills that gap.

------
TGJ
I've left other communities for many of the same reasons. I think that people
get attached to the discourse and mental challenge that they ignore the
underlying issues. I don't think any site will ever be good enough and I don't
think that sites really change that much. I think the change perceived is more
the person coming around to the way things actually are and not the 'new toy'
image they had.

One site that I like to look at from time to time is
[http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?s=7f68f69e2b74a...](http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?s=7f68f69e2b74acadce7bf0617ca0c303&act=idx)

From what I can tell, most people that post there do so in a manner that
represents intelligence and proper manners. Plus they all agree with each
other too. There are some new people that join up because they have a question
but from what I have seen, there is a finite community. This also leads to a
tremendous stagnation on the forums. When everyone agrees, and everyone is
polite, discussions resolve themselves very quickly and there is nothing left
to talk about. Granted they are only concerned with one particular philosophy
and it's impacts, I think it shows what can happen.

------
angstrom
It was only natural that the community's interests would broaden and lose
focus. There was certainly a more strict focus prior to 5-6 months ago and
definitely 4 years ago, however, HN was never strictly startup only news. In
the initial stages it was heavily weighted towards startup news, but the focus
was still more diffuse than say /r/startups.

<http://www.reddit.com/r/startups>

This is where the superiority of a site designed to offer something for
everyone without foisting a mould on everyone becomes obvious. Reddit allows
the targeted streaming of topic consistent information. Hacker News attempts
to be an aggregate approximation of multiple streams that interest hacker
mindsets. Alternatively, Facebook is good if you're looking for organized
boredom in a curated garden that will spill your information like a dribble
cup.

------
wwortiz
I don't read very many articles on Hacker News and I think I get a lot more
out of it by being my own add on filter.

I avoid articles from techcrunch, nytimes, and basically any majorish news
source (they usually can't keep my attention for some reason, even if it is
interesting). What I do like are the new startup posts (sometimes they are
interesting just to see what people are doing), the underlying tech posts or
how someone solved an interesting problem (be it programming or something
else) and anything else that sticks out I'll click on. After I click on them I
skim them and see if it keeps my interest and then I read whatever is left,
some days I don't read any articles and some days I read quite a few.

Also comments help the filter and if I'm grabbed by a title I might check the
comments to see whether or not I am going to read an article.

------
iuguy
Some of what the author wrote was interesting, but a lot was hyperbole. At the
end of the day, HN loses less from his departure as he does from leaving. I'm
not saying this as a suggestion of the author's inferiority in comparison to
HN, far from it, just that people join and people leave communities, and
ultimately unless you are able to corner an area of the market (like why the
lucky stiff and rails) nothing of value is generally lost.

I see where the author is coming from but think it's a good thing for his
development as a person, he should carry on and move to his next thing,
because he should push forward in whatever direction he feels fit. Anhyoo, I
never stopped reading, because for every shameless plug, there's a 6502
implemented in Javscript here. You just don't get that ratio on reddit. Good
night, and $deity bless.

------
rw
Irony: it is articles like this that keep me coming back to HN.

------
darwinGod
I think it would be helpful to have certain information-breakdown made public.

From what I have seen,those with karma of 1000+,have been active on HN for
more than a year.

I am curious to know the number of people with karma 1000+ - (or any breakdown
of people/karma ranges).

It would be helpful to have : a)A graph of number of stories submitted vs
Karma level. b)A graph of number of downvotes vs Karma levels

This might give a better picture of the dynamics of HN. While that would not
be directly indicative of the quality of discussions, it would atleast show:
a) Rate of infusion of number of people into higher karma levels b) A closed,
and strongly opinionated group of higher karma levels

..which should be healthy for HN, as such.

------
tomsaffell
I suspect that one of the discussion to which he is referring is this:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1549623>

------
mark_l_watson
A reasonable point of view, but I would suggest simply setting rough limits
like "I am going to spend about 20 minutes today reading tech news."

Way off topic, but: I think the article was too long. This is a trick I
learned a long time ago: usually when I write an email or a blog post I let it
sit for a while, then try to shorten it. Other people's time is as precious as
our own so the effort in shrinking material down for quick digestion is
worthwhile.

~~~
ScottBurson
"Forgive the length of this letter; I did not have the time to make it
shorter." -- Blaise Pascal, at the end of a 10-page letter to a friend

------
sudonim
This article is attention-seeking flame-bait disguised as a thoughtful
analysis of why HN is no longer worthy of his attention.

Him: "Baby, I love you but you're so self-destructive" HN: "No, don't go - I
promise we'll change and be better for you"

I don't buy it. Why make a stink about it? Why not just leave quietly?

~~~
gcheong
Maybe he wanted to burn the bridge publicly in order to make it more likely
that he will keep to his decision. "Can't go back now that I've said I'm
leaving." kind of thing? But if he does decide to go back it leaves a nice
opening for the follow-on post of "Why I decided to go back to reading HN".

------
cnlwsu
"Every community deteriorates over time" - I hate these kind of statements
made by every community as it grows and the "older" generations feel that they
come from an elitist or a superior, time of purity.

Just related: <http://xkcd.com/603/>

~~~
Terretta
Unlike your XKCD example, a community's early members are not talking about
the general population. They're talking about a special interest community's
dilution.

Few communities are begun by the average, they're begun by the inspired,
impassioned, or invested. The founders are focused. Motivated, they cross a
barrier of inaction, pouring in resources and effort, establishing a meeting
place for clear like minds.

Latecomers are on the whole less missioned. The barrier to joining is less
than the barrier to beginning. Growth and time inexorably pull participatory
discussion away from the founding focus toward the bell curve's center.

------
vaksel
I don't see why people make such a big deal about karma...it doesn't affect
anything...and noone can see it without checking your profile. And that's
coming from someone who was #3 karma wise on this site.

~~~
stanleydrew
The problem is that karma does affect things. Just by existing it affects the
way we think. It may be subtle, but we give more respect to posters with
higher karma. It's a sign of acceptance from a desirable community. It's also
correlated with the age of your account, and we all know that older accounts
are respected more than newer accounts.

And we do check the karma of other users even though we have to click through
to a profile. All the time. At least I do. It helps to frame a user's comments
for instance.

Ultimately I think karma is a big deal. And it comes off as a little
disingenuous when someone with a ton of it belittles its importance.

~~~
acqq
Yes, karma affects things. It's an instant feedback. So you can adjust to it.
It's supposed to have a positive effect, and I believe it has, but the
negative is:

I've already learned that going "with the crowd" can get you more than trying
to argument against the popular belief. Going against guarantees to give you
some minus values even if you follow all the rules and contribute to the
discussion (that is you're not going off-topic). I guess we can generalize
things and say that the life is the same, _you just can't argue that the
condoms are good among the Catholics._ So I have personally already also
learned that how I'd be able to get more karma: say positive things about
Python in post about Python, about Erlang in post about Erlang, about Lisp in
posts about Lisp, etc. As Scott Adams would say "we're just meat robots."

As long as people react so, the people are not only train not to troll, but
also not to discuss against, just to "join our righteous crusades and fight
the infidels."

~~~
robryan
To a point, some of the most well know and respected members of this community
and more generally the startup's community are often so respected because they
do take alternate viewpoints and argue for them really well.

Sure you can preach to the choir on issues but if you do truly believe in an
opposite viewpoint and make a well construed argument on it, good enough for
the other side to at least see where you are coming from, that will earn a lot
of respect.

------
rblion
Very insightful. I have become a casual reader just for articles, not really
for the illogical arguments or personal attacks. It really does feel like
everybody's talking and no one is saying anything.

~~~
dschobel
You're missing out. The comments are a great way to filter the articles. I
usually load them up before reading the story and if the most highly rated
comment is a point by point evisceration of the thesis of the article then I
know I can skip it.

------
technomancy
> I am very, very careful with my time

That's funny; I read Hacker News when I just want to blow off some time. If
I'm being careful with my time, I'll spend it hacking.

------
jonpaul
What I appreciated about this article was the idea of engaging yourself into a
community for the sake of learning. I'm not sure that I do that enough.

------
maw
Grey mixes well with neither black nor white. Please stop!

------
RevRal
I basically stopped posting after this:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1433950>

~~~
RevRal
It's extremely discouraging to write a sincere comment that receives downvotes
without explanations, giving no chance to clarify or modify ideas. Sometimes I
have no idea what people are objecting to....

I felt that my comment (the one I linked to) was on topic and fulfilled what
the TC had asked for, yet downvotes and no explanation.

So I felt hurt, and here I am bringing it up. "It," the downvoted comment,
basically being the reason I don't post here much anymore.

I don't mind my downvotes in this submission, since unclear comments aren't
good comments. So I should have written a better comment.

I do respect this community a lot, I'm just not very "active" anymore.

------
kingkawn
HN is soooooo 2009

------
pseudopattern
When I was unemployed, HN was a big deal to me. I don't have time to come here
now. Developments about languages, frameworks and such is best received other
places. The trivial businesses, which are the stuff of legend around here, and
often silly, tribal discussions are not worthy of a person looking for new
information.

The worst feature of this and many other communities is the transparent effort
of many in the discussions to make compliments at the nebulous 'community.'
Some cool people make an effort to engage in some threads (especially about
them or their fraudulent board members). However, most of the time, hairs are
split in abundance.

~~~
emit_time_n3rgy
Unemployment + exploration is what enabled me to find out about HN. A job with
a routine span of hours can really gouge out a lot of opportunities to find
out about many interesting things going on in the world. However, when having
a much more limited amount of time to explore, it helps prioritize what to
explore. Both circumstances have their benefits and undesirables.

I think another issue is the idea of having a range-rating system versus a 1
point up & 1 point down system.

Another idea is to be able to turn off seeing the point system altogether
until you are done reading what you want to read. Perhaps this can be
accomplished somehow with the firebug firefox add-on. I like the idea of being
able to customize & edit the entire Web as an add-on feature (not
permanent/censorship) :)

------
johnconroy
tl;dr... "NEWFAGS R THE CANCER THAT IS KILLING HN!!111!!!"

Move along. Nothing to see here.

------
mmaunder
I stopped reading HN too. Doh!

------
bigB
Umm...Its a website....you should probably just get over whatever is making
you grumpy and get some fresh air. Sure its a community, but if it really is
that hard to let go of then you really need some time out to sort out your
real world issues.

