
Ask HN: Alerntatives to HN? - l33tbro
Casual user here of 4 years.  Still find Hacker News one of the better online communities in terms of quality of discussion and breadth of topics.<p>However, I&#x27;m often frustrated by thoughtless comments before people have bothered to read the articles they are discussing, as well as an overall lack of charity in in the subsequent discussion.<p>There&#x27;s a myth that people were once second guessed posting here, given the high calibre of discussion and not wanting to look idiotic.  If there&#x27;s any truth to that, where are those people now?
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Mz
Another forum I like is Metafilter. There are some HNers over there, fwiw.

But, you know, the situation is really complicated. For example, some people
didn't "leave," they just changed their handle.

You can never step in the same river twice. If you value HN and want it to be
more of a particular thing, you can choose to give your attention to things
you value and try to grow more of that.

~~~
olympus
MeFi is great. It has a strong focus on quality. It's got a focus on "things
that are interesting" and not on startups or technology, so you'll see some
different stuff. It takes a while to mesh into the community, but you can
enjoy the postings right away. I usually find one or maybe two interesting
things there each day, which is about the same as I do on Reddit or HN, but
the percentage is quite a bit higher on MeFi considering there aren't as many
posts.

It has remained small (relative to an internet scale) and that has allowed it
to remain high quality. It is a little more difficult to sign up and post (and
charges a one time fee of $5), which makes signing up a much more deliberate
thing. Trolls aren't going to waste $5.

A side note, one of my favorite quotes from the internet is originally
credited to MeFi user blue_beetle: "If you are not paying for it, you're not
the customer; you're the product being sold."
[http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-
discontent](http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-discontent)

------
mindcrime
Like any long-standing community, certain aspects of the "flavor" of the
community have changed over time, as members have come and gone. @pg and the
other HN staff have tried to fight the "eternal september" effect, but you can
question how successful they've been. Anyway, more than a few of the members
here who have been very popular and valuable contributors have left for one
reason or another (and, I'm sure, plenty of less "visible" folks as well).

One community that gathered at least some of the former HN crowd to attempt to
maintain a specific culture, is Lobste.rs. It's a smaller community (partly by
choice, as you have to be invited to join) so there's less overall traffic and
discussion to be had, but it may be that the discussion that is there, is of a
level closer to what you're looking for.

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

~~~
l33tbro
Thanks - will check out.

Oh and I hope I don't sound like one of those "used to be better" people, but
I've started to notice that 'Eternal September' thing with the general
mainstreaming of startup culture in the last few years. That's another
discussion though ...

Overall, I think HN is generally pretty great - but been here a while now and
thought there may be more progressive alternatives to eclectic discussion

On a side note - I've heard the original Reddit was much like how this used to
be.

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vmorgulis
LtU and /r/programming.

[http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/)

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

I do my best to avoid controversies (generate or feed).

HN is the coolest and safest place I know. I tried other sites but they are
more violent. Too much struggles.

Peace!

------
rms
I feel like a lot of it is that the tech industry itself has become less
interesting over time. Four or five years ago, there was more of an outsider
status to startups and startup founders, and in San Francisco 2015, tech
workers have become the banal mainstream.

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leesalminen
I find it fairly easy to scroll past comments I don't care to see, but I am
curious about other sites (maybe about different topics?) that has a similar
community.

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ramon
Come on, there's no better place than HN for the new stuff, please either just
stop comenting or they comment only when they feel it's worth while, we're not
required to discuss, so chill and coment only when you feel it's worth it.

------
anon3_
One of the issues I'm having at the moment is the censorship with "flag" on
discussions relating to political correctness.

This was taken out of front page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9747095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9747095)

See "has political correctness gone too far" on my username:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anon3_](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anon3_)

These were extremely trending topics with relevance, it's just the people
behind codes of conduct are able to get away with it by flagging criticism as
"off topic".

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sjs382
It depends what you're interested in. If your answer is "startups", then this
really is _the_ place.

Design? [http://news.layervalut.com](http://news.layervalut.com)

Tech & Development? [http://lobste.rs](http://lobste.rs)

~~~
sjs382
Sorry for the typo! [http://news.layervault.com](http://news.layervault.com)

~~~
gy3b
Note it is now [http://designernews.co](http://designernews.co) but your url
will redirect

