

Tell HN: The 2 best things I love about HN - ujjwalg

1) No ads
2) The wealth of FILTERED information you get everyday without browsing any other website<p>I used to waste so much time on techcrunch, venturebeat, techmeme, slashdot, google news, mashable, engadget and the likes. But, thanks to HN, not anymore. :)
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unalone
I'll chip in with the "2 worst things I hate about HN", since I enjoy being
contrary.

1) The groupthink that arises in certain political/scientific/social debates.
I find that the nontech debates here are more uniform and less varied than
they are on sites with similar quality.

2) While the site's filtration is good, the fact that its only two lenses are
"news" and "jobs" makes the community less flexible and, frequently, less
engaging.

It's still easily a top three social news site, though, so I'll resume my
lurking and quit being a pest.

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cubicle67
at 5600+ karma, that's some serious lurking you've been doing :)

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unalone
I noprocrasted my account for 4 months. I used to feel more involved in the
community than I do now. I'll consider that lurking.

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tokenadult
I would add

3) generally very thoughtful discussion in the comments.

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grinich
This is the #1 for me. There are other ways to filter content and block ads,
but finding quality conversations is difficult.

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patio11
Honestly, if they removed the URLs from the front page and just kept the
conversation topics and community, I'd still get 98% of the value from the
site.

(Ads are value-neutral for me, incidentally.)

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ryanwaggoner
1\. HN is one of the few places where I constantly bump into people who are
simultaneously more knowledgeable, more intelligent, and more accomplished
than I am. Humbling, challenging, and rewarding.

2\. I love that this is a community where smart people help other smart people
navigate life, from deciding what to major in, to picking a database server,
to dealing with an unruly roommate.

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MikeW
HN loads extremely quickly. I can generally scan through a page of comments
quicker than the linked article while their rendering is blocked on 3rd party
scripts/ads

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uuilly
I find that when I have a crap iPhone connection and I want to surf, I go to
HN just b/c I know it will load.

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mgrouchy
For me its:

1) Subject Matter of the articles. for the most part the articles on here are
right on target in what I am interested in.I know lately there has been talk
of some cruft getting through, but for the most part the quality of articles
to make it to front page is high.

2) Community I find that the community here is respectful and the members
tend(and their comments) to be quite knowledgeable and highly focused. The
community in general is a positive one.

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jeffcoat
News aggregators are useful if they convince me to read something useful that
I otherwise wouldn't have seen.

A few seconds before I saw this question, I saw the link to "The Economics of
Suicide". Surely a recipe for content-free emoting, that I would usually
ignore ... but with 20 up-votes on a Saturday night. And I'm better off for
having read it.

I still skim Slashdot, too. That's just a different selection of things I
wouldn't have otherwise seen, but sometimes enjoy.

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quizbiz
A community of doers and thinkers.

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computerofmeat
I'm not even a programmer but I come on here every day because when the
submissions are relevant to my interests they're very good quality.

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edw519
For me it's:

1\. I don't have to be in a vacuum anymore. If I read something on the
internet and form an opinion about it, I can post it here and see what others
think. I can also comment on any discussion, and soon enough I'll probably get
feedback. I simply don't have that many people in my life with whom I can have
this interaction about things I care about.

2\. I don't have to _be_ alone. I usually work from home alone for long hours.
Some days, being one alt-click away from like minded people keeps me going.

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hikari17
I like that when I see a comment that I'm tempted to downvote (if I could),
several people have already taken care of that for me.

Also, the amount of cross-disciplinary knowledge the community brings to bear
on most issues is pleasantly humbling.

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prawn
1\. Interesting content.

2\. Good quality, helpful, useful comments with very few idiots.

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dimarco
I had never even visited techcrunch, venturebeat, mashable or engadget before
stumbling upon HN. There are a ton of links to these sites.

But the thoughtful and insightful discussion by like-minded developers is a
breath of fresh air.

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yef
I disagree. Techmeme is better for quick news scans.

And the level of discourse here is better than most places, but the time decay
of stories (and comments) leads to quick bursts of discussion near the top,
followed by dead silence.

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ashr
1\. High quality discussions. 2\. Any BS gets called out with relevant
evidence

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tokenadult
_2\. Any BS gets called out with relevant evidence_

There could still be more improvement in this, but the current baseline is not
bad.

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julsonl
The articles posted here are always interesting and of good quality. The
comments are well-mannered without a bunch of idiots ruining the posts (most
of the time anyway).

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DTrejo
1\. Meeting people! (Whether through the comments here or through #startups)

2\. People help each other! (Ask HN, website feedback, participating in betas,
etc)

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christonog
1\. Ask HN feature. 2\. Comments and discussion.

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tptacek
For me, it's definitely rms.

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kirubakaran
Get a room you two :-p

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tptacek
Oh can we rms?

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TheElder
I love the lack of leftist politics that have taken over reddit.

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bartl
Compared to, for example Programming Reddit, HN has:

1\. Good quality links (less fluff, and good links are often more visible
here) 2\. Good quality comments.

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kirubakaran
My favorite is the absence of circlejerk ;)

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swombat
Except for present company, of course.

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sarunas
I tend to filter information also using www.postrank.com for high volume sites
such as the ones mentioned by OP.

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skwaddar
1) Fast turnover of stories 2) the 250ish limit means I can actually run out
of reading and get back to working

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known

        * Community
        * Quality of Comments

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olliesaunders
People probably shouldn't be up-voting meta discussions.

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xhuang
people in here give motivation start my own startup

