
Most popular links in Hacker News comments, 2006–2015 - anton_tarasenko
https://github.com/antontarasenko/smq/blob/master/reports/hackernews-links-in-comments.md
======
minimaxir
It is strongly worth nothing that there has been a shift in comment
sentiment/quality over the years. In early HN, comments were more hostile and
would definitely be killed by the modern mod team. (it's where the HN
stereotypes originated)

See my old list of the Top Comments for each month of HN since 2006 and note
the difference between the old comments and recent comments:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwonVX_KlDYhuhPnAAnV...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwonVX_KlDYhuhPnAAnVpdVRgu4LxldP74-c_kvOd5k/)

At the least, there is no situation nowadays on HN where commenting with
[http://xkcd.com/386/](http://xkcd.com/386/) would be considered appropriate.

~~~
lackbeard
This comment is super weird to me. I've been here since the beginning and I
think comments have gotten more hostile since then.

Also, I'm not aware of an at-large "HN stereotype". No one outside of HN that
I interact with discusses HN, and if there's ever discussion of this
stereotype here, I've missed it.

~~~
nostrademons
I've also been here since the beginning and thought that comments have been
getting meaner...but when I actually look back at old threads, I'm reminded
that that's not, in general, true, and we were just as bad back then.

The obvious conclusion to me is that _my_ standards have changed. I'm older,
hopefully wiser, and less inclined to put up with bullshit. So Hacker News has
improved over the years, but my expectations have gone up faster than the rate
of improvement, and so it _seems_ like the quality of discourse has gone down.

Reminds me of a comment I left on Reddit in 2012, which was basically that
while it wasn't as engaging _for me_ , it's worth remembering that there are
still millions of new people who are just finding the site for the first time.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/rbqwc/by_request_i_di...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/rbqwc/by_request_i_discovered_reddit_the_day_it_opened/c44k24i)

~~~
cbHXBY1D
I've been here and on Reddit (I remember that exact post of yours on Reddit)
for years and I've had the same realization after going over old threads. I
think that while the quality and meanness haven't changed much here on HN,
there has been a marked shift away from "hard tech" content. For example, the
article posted the other day about suicide in Greenland wouldn't have been
posted here years ago. It was an interesting read and a thought provoking
discussion but it doesn't fall in the realm of hacker news.

~~~
DanBC
> It was an interesting read and a thought provoking discussion but it doesn't
> fall in the realm of hacker news.

You're a hacker, and you found it "interesting" and the discussion was
"thought provoking", so by the guidelines (which have been in place for very
many years) it is solidly on topic for HN.

Here's a thread from pg from 8 years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=128439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=128439)
"Ad exec driven to suicide (partly) by trolls (nytimes.com)"

Part of the reason you're seeing more discussion of suicide and mental health
is because we're seeing less stigma and less taboo around these subjects.

------
LeafStorm
I have seen xkcd #927 used to dismiss discussions of standards on HN so many
times that it is the only xkcd comic I can recognize by number.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I don't recognise it by number, but I knew exactly which one it would be.

The thing I find slightly annoying about those that use xkcd #927 as a
response is that it ignores how new standards can push things forward, it's
mostly/always used in a dismissive way. Also, if the new standard is enough of
an improvement on the old standards, it can largely cause development using
the old standards to stop, causing a consolidation in the market rather than
splintering the market further.

Hopefully one day more people will realise xkcd #927 isn't that insightful,
it's just a simplification of the issue to make it a better joke.

~~~
igravious
I've started downvoting comments that are XKCD links and nothing more to
encourage context-giving and discourage needless repetition.

------
Sealy
Thanks for this. I just discovered [http://hckrnews.com](http://hckrnews.com)
for the first time through your list of links. I think I'll be using it to
browse the site from now on!

------
smitherfield
Just reread the 2003 Paul Graham post about PR firms, which is of course a
great insight (hence all the reposts), but I had to chuckle at the last part
where he goes on about how, unlike print journalists, _bloggers_ are _far_ too
principled to be fed stories by PR firms.

------
digi_owl
So a bunch of Graham, a bunch of XKCD (top one being the one on standards),
and a bit of joel.

~~~
infocollector
Is there any hope of separating Ycombinator and Hacker news?

~~~
jacquesm
They are already quite separated. It would be good if they were separated even
further from my point of view (because the value of HN for me outweighs the
value of YC tremendously), but since HN does not have a monetization strategy
it currently needs support in the form of employees generously paid for by YC.

You'd need to at least begin to solve that problem before you can ask for more
separation than there already is. And from a community perspective I think
Daniel and others are doing a pretty good job at keeping an even keel when it
comes to not giving YC preferential treatment. The only bit left is the job
postings, which is probably a fair way to pay back for what YC does for HN.

------
GICodeWarrior
Most of these look like things I'd expect.

However, number 13 is an obvious spam link if you look at the mentions.

I wonder how HN protects against this type of spam and how this particular
spam got through. The most recent mention was 4 years ago, so it would appear
this particular issue is fixed in the current software.

------
ronnier
My [http://ihackernews.com](http://ihackernews.com) made the list. I've had
zero time over the last 5 years to maintain it. Some nice person did convert
it to js, based on the now available hacker news API. Now that this site
renders better on mobile there's really no need for ihackernews. Reach out to
me if you'd like to do something with it.

------
waiseristy
#13 is a spam bot, looks like the site got shut down or something

------
LordDragonfang
It's interesting to compare HN's usage frequency of particular xkcd comics
compared to elsewhere on the internet
([https://xkcdref.info/statistics/](https://xkcdref.info/statistics/))

------
duncan_bayne
Something I've noticed of late is that there are things one can criticise on
HN and receive reasoned rebuttal, and other things where any criticism will
receive a flurry of downvotes but little discussion.

------
UniZero
If anyone is curious, Link #5 (broken) is now hosted here:
[http://ejucovy.github.io/readability/](http://ejucovy.github.io/readability/)

------
kitd
I'm sure the first 2 are simply people trying to remember/understand what
formatting is supported. I wish it was a bit more prominent.

------
gpvos
fullmalls.com at #13 and etradinglife.com at #15? Maybe you should filter for
dead or flagged comments?

~~~
vidarh
Ironically your comment ended up dead, perhaps for mentioning those domains.

~~~
gpvos
Got one upvote though (maybe yours).

~~~
vidarh
Probably, I vouched it and upvoted, given that it actually was relevant. Guess
those domains were bad enough to trigger the spam filter.

------
pbiggar
[https://circleci.com](https://circleci.com) is 37 on the list. 37! Ahead of I
think any other SaaS company.

Either my unintentional content marketing campaign has paid off, or something
is weird with how they count this.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
There's a lot of noise above you, too. E.g. YouTube gets all of its videos
conflated, ycombinator links should arguably be ignored; really, you're about
30th :-)

------
lamontcg
I'm kinda surprised that [https://xkcd.com/1172/](https://xkcd.com/1172/)
didn't make the list..

------
longwave
Rank 50 is missing. I wonder what it was!

~~~
gkst
I just tried the query myself. The result set contains this URL
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge&#x27;s_law_of_headli...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge&#x27;s_law_of_headlines),
which does not work when entered in the browser. It appears that OP merged
this URL with the working URL, that occurs on rank 49. Also notice, that a URL
variant pointing to this page occurs on rank 89 again.

------
protomyth
I was hoping the cdc.gov links would make it given the number of discussions
of mortality in the USA.

------
anoother
Why is Google.com mentioned twice?

------
hmate9
Google appears twice. 92 and 82. Makes me wonder how good this list really is.

~~~
minimaxir
That is due to some Google links having _www_ and some links not (I double-
checked by running the query).

It is a easy-to-miss fidelity issue that does not warrant passive-aggression.

~~~
klibertp
OMG, talk about being overly sensitive as a community :)

If you skim the comments here you'll see that there are also other problems
with this list and there's no aggression in pointing out that those issues
lower the level of trust one has for it.

