Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?
149 comments
I get the sentiment. Many times I've been trawling the Internet for commentary on a topic when I come across a fantastic HN discussion from years ago and wish I could ask a question, or make a comment in that conversation today.
However, our gating factor is time and attention - we only have a fixed amount. I suspect that what makes many HN discussion valuable is that the few top discussions draw most of the focus of a large part of the community at the same time. Without that concentration of focus, you don't get those spontaneous interactions where someone makes a comment about a decision made in a 30 year old piece of software powering half the Internet, and the guy that wrote said software responds with the rational for why he made that decision at the time.
Long lived threads and resurrected discussions from the past diffuse that time and attention. While I like the idea of longer term discussions (a lot!), spreading the beam of focus gets us less 'power on target' for the topics of the day.
However, our gating factor is time and attention - we only have a fixed amount. I suspect that what makes many HN discussion valuable is that the few top discussions draw most of the focus of a large part of the community at the same time. Without that concentration of focus, you don't get those spontaneous interactions where someone makes a comment about a decision made in a 30 year old piece of software powering half the Internet, and the guy that wrote said software responds with the rational for why he made that decision at the time.
Long lived threads and resurrected discussions from the past diffuse that time and attention. While I like the idea of longer term discussions (a lot!), spreading the beam of focus gets us less 'power on target' for the topics of the day.
> you don't get those spontaneous interactions where someone makes a comment about a decision made in a 30 year old piece of software powering half the Internet, and the guy that wrote said software responds with the rational for why he made that decision at the time.
Perhaps less glamorous but one of my favorite HN moments is a recent link to the wikipedia article on Grandma Gatewood [1] where someone asks “Any of her descendants here on HN? She had 11 and it's been more than half a century now…”. Minutes later…
> Hi! I’m her great-great granddaughter. I actually met the thru-hiker mentioned in the comment above, Dixie, in October 21 and we still keep in touch!
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321521
Perhaps less glamorous but one of my favorite HN moments is a recent link to the wikipedia article on Grandma Gatewood [1] where someone asks “Any of her descendants here on HN? She had 11 and it's been more than half a century now…”. Minutes later…
> Hi! I’m her great-great granddaughter. I actually met the thru-hiker mentioned in the comment above, Dixie, in October 21 and we still keep in touch!
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321521
Yeah, that was great and I added it to the highlights list at the time. That's a list we keep of particularly good or cool comments - we used to publish them periodically (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) but it was too much work.
Anyone who wants to can see the list: https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights. It's just a handful and tons more are out there, so if anyone finds a post that belongs on it, please let me know at [email protected]. I figure this'll be useful for something someday.
Anyone who wants to can see the list: https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights. It's just a handful and tons more are out there, so if anyone finds a post that belongs on it, please let me know at [email protected]. I figure this'll be useful for something someday.
Would you please add https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights to https://news.ycombinator.com/lists so it's easy to find in future?
Thank you for all you do, dang.
Thank you for all you do, dang.
Belatedly added!
Your comment inspired... HN is a pool of ideas of "above average" quality fighting for the attention of readers in evolutionary sense. As in the life they born and die, the lifespan is very short, but the "DNA" of the best fitted lives somehow through the users passing them to other users.
Something that seems kinda unique to this community and the moderation is allowing and encouraging things to be posted again.
A lot of projects get posted and there's a reply that mentions the 2 or 3 other times in the past it was posted, with links to the comments. I thinks that's one way to deal with longer term topics and updates--allow reposts over time and new discussion, with links to the past discussions if folks are curious to dig deeper into the history.
IMHO not much really needs to change, I think how reposts and such are handled right now is great.
A lot of projects get posted and there's a reply that mentions the 2 or 3 other times in the past it was posted, with links to the comments. I thinks that's one way to deal with longer term topics and updates--allow reposts over time and new discussion, with links to the past discussions if folks are curious to dig deeper into the history.
IMHO not much really needs to change, I think how reposts and such are handled right now is great.
Thanks, that's helpful. The one missing piece is a good way of threading the beads together.
I do this informally: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que..., but that's all just prep for one day fitting it nicely into the software.
I do this informally: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que..., but that's all just prep for one day fitting it nicely into the software.
It's super tricky because how do you decide what constitutes a 'topic'?
For example, are all the various ChatGPT threads related? What about coverage of an event (e.g. there are six or seven threads regarding the recent earthquake in Turkiye—all empty apart from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34672314 —however I've seen it where basically the same story is being carried across several outlets and discussions are on the same topics, just one post gets more traction than the other).
It's easy enough to link articles which refer to the same exact source and mark duplicates, but harder to link posts which rely on different sources to cover the exact same topic.
For example, are all the various ChatGPT threads related? What about coverage of an event (e.g. there are six or seven threads regarding the recent earthquake in Turkiye—all empty apart from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34672314 —however I've seen it where basically the same story is being carried across several outlets and discussions are on the same topics, just one post gets more traction than the other).
It's easy enough to link articles which refer to the same exact source and mark duplicates, but harder to link posts which rely on different sources to cover the exact same topic.
I agree!
> IMHO not much really needs to change, I think how reposts and such are handled right now is great.
This is where I am at. The notion that HN posts die off relatively quickly (i.e. within ~48h) is potentially a very important part of what gives them the quality they have today.
If every post was eternal and duplicates were always closed, you'd wind up with effectively perma-stickied comments in these god threads that become the law for that topic until the end of time.
This is where I am at. The notion that HN posts die off relatively quickly (i.e. within ~48h) is potentially a very important part of what gives them the quality they have today.
If every post was eternal and duplicates were always closed, you'd wind up with effectively perma-stickied comments in these god threads that become the law for that topic until the end of time.
Exactly, it's a huge chore to keep those kind of mega threads up to date and relevant too. And you get a lot of bikeshedding on other topics with people complaing that this should be in the mega thread, etc.
Not if you sort them upside down, newest first. Old comments increasingly pushed away to deeper pages, becoming an archive.
You could have an AI to summarize the last N comments, giving an overview on the most recent opinion.
You could have an AI to summarize the last N comments, giving an overview on the most recent opinion.
This points to a more general problem with all online discussion forums: The signal to noise varies (and may on occasionally be zero) but in the end all the signal is lost / buried deep into some archive (like tears in rain if you want to be melodramatic about it).
Think about those millions of people, interacting for billions of hours online over almost two decades now. What is there to show for it at the end of the day? If even 1% of that exchange its somehow "valuable", it means there is a lost opportunity. And it will be kept thrown away in the future.
Wouldn't it be useful if we somehow could use technology to persist the "better" bits across this ever growing digital ocean? Something like wikipedia but autogenerated from diverse sources, with no claim to "truth", but rather a concise, searchable repository of whatever people are interested and are discussing online.
Think about those millions of people, interacting for billions of hours online over almost two decades now. What is there to show for it at the end of the day? If even 1% of that exchange its somehow "valuable", it means there is a lost opportunity. And it will be kept thrown away in the future.
Wouldn't it be useful if we somehow could use technology to persist the "better" bits across this ever growing digital ocean? Something like wikipedia but autogenerated from diverse sources, with no claim to "truth", but rather a concise, searchable repository of whatever people are interested and are discussing online.
I used to post a link to the previous thread and sometimes copy a short version of the best[1] comment if I remember it debunk or enhance the article.
Lately [2] I had no enough time to look up, and usually dang post a link before I see the repost.
[1] Best in my opinion. Usually the top one, but sometimes the second one, or a mix of a comment and a reply.
[2] In the last few years...
Lately [2] I had no enough time to look up, and usually dang post a link before I see the repost.
[1] Best in my opinion. Usually the top one, but sometimes the second one, or a mix of a comment and a reply.
[2] In the last few years...
The thing is, the curator of any topic X, also needs to be at an expert level of topic X. On HN I often gain more insights, so I add to the signal, not noise (I hope)
But it’s sometimes hard to gauge who is an expert if it’s a topic you are unfamiliar with. It helps if someone mentions (“I have been doing this for the last 5 years”) or wrote a literal book on the subject.
But it’s sometimes hard to gauge who is an expert if it’s a topic you are unfamiliar with. It helps if someone mentions (“I have been doing this for the last 5 years”) or wrote a literal book on the subject.
Google (and now Open AI, I suppose) are excellent at surfacing those old discussions.
Forum software like Discourse also reliably brings them up in an effort to avoid deduplication of discussion.
The best discussions are also springboards for articles, books, and sometimes whole companies.
Forum software like Discourse also reliably brings them up in an effort to avoid deduplication of discussion.
The best discussions are also springboards for articles, books, and sometimes whole companies.
Search is indeed the only tool we have now to salvage all this body of content, but it is limited: you need to have a 'prompt' (using modern terminology :-).
It is closer to a book index than a table of contents (to use older information technology tools) but one where the whole index is not accessible.
It is closer to a book index than a table of contents (to use older information technology tools) but one where the whole index is not accessible.
People use technology to manually curate the better bits into things called books, and sometimes implement them on physical biodegradable materials to serve as offline backup and as a low bandwidth distribution method.
A book is probably near the other end of the spectrum in terms of signal to noise and requires very serious investment of time. It is also not yet very typical to continuously update them to reflect new information
When I read some of the suggestions here in these comments, some of them exist already in Reddit.
Now at the risk of getting downvoted, my experience is that Reddit is awful: spiteful posts, tons of short sentence replies that litter the eyes, circular meme-like self-referential wink-wink behavior (i.e. repeating the same joke with slight modification).
There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex) but overall it has a culture of people who write well but their reasoning stinks. They have strong opinions and make assertions speculatively. I can't read any real estate investment, market or nerdy thread on Reddit without encountering armchair bullshitisms from people who happen to write well but don't research anything, and respond with hostility when questioned.
So maybe this is my way of saying, don't change HN too much.
Now at the risk of getting downvoted, my experience is that Reddit is awful: spiteful posts, tons of short sentence replies that litter the eyes, circular meme-like self-referential wink-wink behavior (i.e. repeating the same joke with slight modification).
There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex) but overall it has a culture of people who write well but their reasoning stinks. They have strong opinions and make assertions speculatively. I can't read any real estate investment, market or nerdy thread on Reddit without encountering armchair bullshitisms from people who happen to write well but don't research anything, and respond with hostility when questioned.
So maybe this is my way of saying, don't change HN too much.
> There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex)
I had to unsubscribe from that sub. In the past you could find some potentially interesting conversations with knowledgeable responses if you sifted through the noise. Lately, the general vibe has become uncomfortably welcoming of incel-adjacent topics or exploring weird alternative medicine ideas. The general vibe is that "normie" stuff is bad, contrarian takes are default good, and "rationalists" are the only ones who see the world for how it really is. The contrarian superiority is becoming vaguely reminiscent of conspiracy theorist circles. Everything is written in pseudo-intellectual style that makes it feel extra truthy, despite being recycled content from other domains.
I finally unsubscribed after a series of posts where posters wrote at length about their frustrations with dating, blaming their failures on women and women's behaviors as if women were a foreign species. The straw that broke the camel's back was when someone complained about taking women out on dates and not receiving sex in return for their effort, which I assumed would have been readily downvoted and dismissed. Instead, it was upvoted (100+ votes) and most of the upvoted comments agreed with the OP's take. When weird incel ideology becomes front and center accepted in a community, I'm out.
I had to unsubscribe from that sub. In the past you could find some potentially interesting conversations with knowledgeable responses if you sifted through the noise. Lately, the general vibe has become uncomfortably welcoming of incel-adjacent topics or exploring weird alternative medicine ideas. The general vibe is that "normie" stuff is bad, contrarian takes are default good, and "rationalists" are the only ones who see the world for how it really is. The contrarian superiority is becoming vaguely reminiscent of conspiracy theorist circles. Everything is written in pseudo-intellectual style that makes it feel extra truthy, despite being recycled content from other domains.
I finally unsubscribed after a series of posts where posters wrote at length about their frustrations with dating, blaming their failures on women and women's behaviors as if women were a foreign species. The straw that broke the camel's back was when someone complained about taking women out on dates and not receiving sex in return for their effort, which I assumed would have been readily downvoted and dismissed. Instead, it was upvoted (100+ votes) and most of the upvoted comments agreed with the OP's take. When weird incel ideology becomes front and center accepted in a community, I'm out.
>Everything is written in pseudo-intellectual style that makes it feel extra truthy, despite being recycled content from other domains.
I think I know what you mean about that sub and some slightly oddball 'aggrieved men' sort of pile-on conversations.
To your point here - that's one of the points I was making above, that I'm coming to realize (and perhaps there's a bit of looking in the mirror here) that good writing can cover up shoddy thinking. I've made a concerted effort to sometimes pause when I'm replying to something, and look things up to make sure what what I just said is true is actually true. Probably because I ran into smart people who questioned things here on HN.
One time I was replying to some sort of big article/thread in a real estate sub which touched upon housing affordability, the number of unregulated versus unregulated units in my city. I replied with a pretty neutral tone and linked the city's yearly datasheet in a PDF format which backed up what I said in terms of the breakdown of housing types in the city. There was a pie graph in the PDF document.
Well, I got downvoted to grey/invisible and there were a ton of replies in the style of "How arrogant that you think you're going to make us read THAT." I thought it was incredible how the people reacted.
I think I know what you mean about that sub and some slightly oddball 'aggrieved men' sort of pile-on conversations.
To your point here - that's one of the points I was making above, that I'm coming to realize (and perhaps there's a bit of looking in the mirror here) that good writing can cover up shoddy thinking. I've made a concerted effort to sometimes pause when I'm replying to something, and look things up to make sure what what I just said is true is actually true. Probably because I ran into smart people who questioned things here on HN.
One time I was replying to some sort of big article/thread in a real estate sub which touched upon housing affordability, the number of unregulated versus unregulated units in my city. I replied with a pretty neutral tone and linked the city's yearly datasheet in a PDF format which backed up what I said in terms of the breakdown of housing types in the city. There was a pie graph in the PDF document.
Well, I got downvoted to grey/invisible and there were a ton of replies in the style of "How arrogant that you think you're going to make us read THAT." I thought it was incredible how the people reacted.
I do not know what kind of comment you wrote, so I in the interest of curiosity I'll ask:
Could it be that instead of stating in the comment both the relevant, precise figures and a conclusion derived from them, you merely linked out to the PDF in a way that only by reading the PDF could your point be fully seen?
By and large, on forums and social media it is heavily frowned upon to rely on outlinks and open ended reasoning. As in the line of thought: "if you will not state your point clearly for everyone to see at a glance and then back it up with sources, why should I bother?".
It may seem unreasonable or even anti-intellectual at first until you draw parallels with in-person discussion: imagine someone describing their point in detail for 10 minutes only for the other person to hand over a whole book and say "you're ignorant, go read this and learn why you're so wrong".
I will repeat again: I do not know what you actually said in that comment, but I've seen this play out a few times and my gut tells me that unless the point was extremely controversial, a deluge of downvotes is likely explained by this scenario.
Could it be that instead of stating in the comment both the relevant, precise figures and a conclusion derived from them, you merely linked out to the PDF in a way that only by reading the PDF could your point be fully seen?
By and large, on forums and social media it is heavily frowned upon to rely on outlinks and open ended reasoning. As in the line of thought: "if you will not state your point clearly for everyone to see at a glance and then back it up with sources, why should I bother?".
It may seem unreasonable or even anti-intellectual at first until you draw parallels with in-person discussion: imagine someone describing their point in detail for 10 minutes only for the other person to hand over a whole book and say "you're ignorant, go read this and learn why you're so wrong".
I will repeat again: I do not know what you actually said in that comment, but I've seen this play out a few times and my gut tells me that unless the point was extremely controversial, a deluge of downvotes is likely explained by this scenario.
> good writing can cover up shoddy thinking
I’m afraid this is the primary value proposition for ChatGPT. It’s a power tool for writers like that. So the signal to noise ratio is about to get much worse.
I’m afraid this is the primary value proposition for ChatGPT. It’s a power tool for writers like that. So the signal to noise ratio is about to get much worse.
Rant: I was banned from Reddit once again yesterday (for the 100th time) because of my harassing behavior. The comment that caused this was about "daily Scrum meetings that were way too long in most companies." I'm dumbfounded about who would have reported this, and who confirmed that this was harassment.
Reddit may be fine for very specific subs, but overall it's a real mess where power hungry mods have fun without any kind of accountability.
HN does not have this kind of behavior and I don't really miss the lengthy conversations that can be found in other forums.
Reddit may be fine for very specific subs, but overall it's a real mess where power hungry mods have fun without any kind of accountability.
HN does not have this kind of behavior and I don't really miss the lengthy conversations that can be found in other forums.
As Raylan Givens once said: If you ran into an asshole in the morning, well, you ran into an asshole. Keep running into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
I've been on reddit since before subreddits existed and I've never been banned. Now I'm sure you've had your run-ins with some unhinged mods now and then but to be banned 100 times, you should probably take an honest look at your own behavior.
I've been on reddit since before subreddits existed and I've never been banned. Now I'm sure you've had your run-ins with some unhinged mods now and then but to be banned 100 times, you should probably take an honest look at your own behavior.
The "100 times" aside, some subs actually have rules about posting facts and will bann you for it. For example antiwork will bann anyone talking slightly positive about companies, which includes correcting false information. If you're into politics (90% of /r/all nowadays), it doesn't require a lot in some subs.
One really has to wonder about the mindset of people who would enforce such a rule.
Do they really think they are a force for positive change?
Isn’t every other fictional story some parable about how the means don’t justify the ends? It feels weird to me that people don’t absorb that idea at some point.
Do they really think they are a force for positive change?
Isn’t every other fictional story some parable about how the means don’t justify the ends? It feels weird to me that people don’t absorb that idea at some point.
I believe they feel that their ideology is the ultimate force for positive change, and they become so lost in it that they are willing to do objectively wrong things under the rationalization that they're nuetralizing a threat to the idealogy.
Again, that's just what I think makes sense and personally believe. It's certainly possible I'm incorrect.
Again, that's just what I think makes sense and personally believe. It's certainly possible I'm incorrect.
>As Raylan Givens once said: If you ran into an asshole in the morning, well, you ran into an asshole. Keep running into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
Has this person never been around a group of assholes for more than a few hours at a time? Some places are toxic and attract toxic personalities. Reddit is one of those places(the internet as a whole, really)
Has this person never been around a group of assholes for more than a few hours at a time? Some places are toxic and attract toxic personalities. Reddit is one of those places(the internet as a whole, really)
If you are in a place full of assholes how likely are the chances that you aren't also one?
> Rant: I was banned from Reddit once again yesterday (for the 100th time) because of my harassing behavior.
Did a moderator ban you from a subreddit?
Or did Reddit ban your account?
Some subreddits have trigger-happy mods that will ban people for everything from the wrong tone to simply holding the wrong opinion. Subreddits like the Lex Fridman sub are famous for banning anyone who posts comments that aren't in total glowing agreement with Lex Fridman, for example.
But getting banned from Reddit, the platform, is a rare occurrence. If you're getting repeatedly banned from Reddit (not just individual subreddits) then you really should step back and take a look at how you're writing your comments.
Did a moderator ban you from a subreddit?
Or did Reddit ban your account?
Some subreddits have trigger-happy mods that will ban people for everything from the wrong tone to simply holding the wrong opinion. Subreddits like the Lex Fridman sub are famous for banning anyone who posts comments that aren't in total glowing agreement with Lex Fridman, for example.
But getting banned from Reddit, the platform, is a rare occurrence. If you're getting repeatedly banned from Reddit (not just individual subreddits) then you really should step back and take a look at how you're writing your comments.
Trash mods really do hurt that place. I reported a physical assault, some punk kid with an airsoft taking potshots at pedestrians, to my local sub to warn others. Turned out the guy had been at it for weeks all over town.
Three months later, somebody didn’t like a political comment I made, went through my history, reported that earlier post, and voila. Banned for threatening violence because I warned people about a criminal’s behavior. Heh.
Three months later, somebody didn’t like a political comment I made, went through my history, reported that earlier post, and voila. Banned for threatening violence because I warned people about a criminal’s behavior. Heh.
Banned from Reddit alltogether, banned from a subreddit, or banned by Reddit because you were previously banned on this subreddit and were ban evading?
There are so many possible reasons for being banned in a subreddit.
Mods on Reddit are pretty free to do what they want. There are guidelines by Reddit but they are nothing more than suggestions and unless the mods of a subreddit are racists, they won't do anything. Sometimes not even then look how long it took for /r/TheDonald to being banned.
There are so many possible reasons for being banned in a subreddit.
Mods on Reddit are pretty free to do what they want. There are guidelines by Reddit but they are nothing more than suggestions and unless the mods of a subreddit are racists, they won't do anything. Sometimes not even then look how long it took for /r/TheDonald to being banned.
>daily Scrum meetings that were way too long in most companies.
I've said far more hostile things out loud about Agile at my workplace to senior management.
I've said far more hostile things out loud about Agile at my workplace to senior management.
...and this tiny fragment from the self-report of one aggrieved party is quite possibly far less hostile than whatever full comments/history actually triggered a "100th time" subreddit ban.
"The comment that caused this was about "daily Scrum meetings that were way too long in most companies.""
Ok, but what was your comment?
And next question, would you have phrased that comment around here in the same way?
Ok, but what was your comment?
And next question, would you have phrased that comment around here in the same way?
This perfectly captures my frustration with Reddit. I can't stand it these days. It's been eye opening to read about technical subjects on Reddit that I personally know a lot about only to see heaps of confidently spewed misinformation in the comments. Makes me question the validity of everything I read where I'm not very knowledgeable. I'm very grateful HN is a lot more thoughtful and open to questioning.
What's worse the well-written bullshit gets upvoted while the actual true answer gets downvoted because "It doesn't sound right" to the average visitor. Not that it is any different for any other social network tho.
I'll fact check comments I read at random sometimes when I question their validity. A few years ago, I feel as though reddit was an amazing places for all sorts of niche information from diverse places. There was some misinfo definitely, but for the most part it seemed as though information was posted for the sake of sharing information. Now I find it's not nearly as trustworthy, and people almost always have an agenda
There's a videogame subreddit that frequently downvotes comments from top tier players. It has gotten to the point where most good players will no longer engage with reddit because of the extreme hostility and incompetence.
Top tier players aren't always going to be right about everything, but the things for which they often get downvotes are absurd.
Top tier players aren't always going to be right about everything, but the things for which they often get downvotes are absurd.
Just name the subreddit, otherwise we can't do much with your comment.
Well, in this case I'm referring to the Heroes of the Storm subreddit, but I'm sure it's applicable to other games as well.
It’s not really different here…
Just recently, with the ballon stuff, sooooo many commenters were super confident how hard it would be to get up there and shoot down a ballon, how a missile would not work, etc.
Like, unless you are all in the air force, you have no clue. I did not, and that’s okay, and I just didn’t say anything.
I stopped using Reddit over a year ago and found a couple of traditional forums to replace it with. Sure I don’t have enough discussion to soak up hours of my day but in turn I’ve just started reading more books. My mental health has greatly improved.
I was there with, what, 1M+ karma and one night, when I realized I was arguing with an immature teenager I realized how much this impacts me.
I deleted the account immediately and never regretted it once. I recreated a new ne to engage in purely technical discussions.
I deleted the account immediately and never regretted it once. I recreated a new ne to engage in purely technical discussions.
I use the word Reddit as a pejorative.
“I stopped watching after the second season. The writing had become so reddit.”
“The steak itself was good but this sauce is a bit reddit.”
“Rose Street is a good night out but Raeburn Place is completely reddit.”
“I stopped watching after the second season. The writing had become so reddit.”
“The steak itself was good but this sauce is a bit reddit.”
“Rose Street is a good night out but Raeburn Place is completely reddit.”
I just invented one:
"Redditsplain"
v. "To make confident, even angry assertions about facts without a strong backing, but in a literary and well-reasoned style. To make bold statements about a subject where one is still a dilettante."
"Redditsplain"
v. "To make confident, even angry assertions about facts without a strong backing, but in a literary and well-reasoned style. To make bold statements about a subject where one is still a dilettante."
This is hardly unique to Reddit, and happens on HN as well.
I read each of these three examples several times and I still have no idea what you meant, outside of general displeasure. Maybe this is the point. So in a strange twist of meta your examples are way too reddit for me.
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This year one of my resolutions was to finally give up Reddit because I kept recognizing the site frustrating, annoying, or disappointing me. Whether intentional or not that seems to be the type of content generated there.
Download Apollo and unsubscribe from all mainstream subreddits + remove all and popular, is the key.
I did this myself, but it only kicked the can on my eventual leaving. Sure, niche subreddits are generally better in their content and discussions, but I still noticed that the same behaviors end up being rewarded. It's the format that's the problem, not the content, and that's the one thing shared by all subreddits.
Most subreddits I visit are low volume and haven't noticed much difference in behaviour other than acceptability of short funny replies. What do you mean about the format, isn't it the same as HN (OP link/text and comments)?
I do recall a comment/thread saying how HN comments/behaviour was starting to resemble Reddit, so there may be something to that (though I'd chalk it up to becoming more popular/mainstream).
I do recall a comment/thread saying how HN comments/behaviour was starting to resemble Reddit, so there may be something to that (though I'd chalk it up to becoming more popular/mainstream).
HN only works because of supplemental rules and heavy moderation, which both look very different on Reddit. Even if a subreddit reaches a good set of rules, enforcement is usually poor, due both to mods being volunteers and a generally negative view towards moderation (can you imagine "Mods are gay" flying on HN?)
Any moments of "lightning-in-a-bottle" can certainly result in memorable periods where a subreddit truly adds value to one's life, and that can make the whole website hard to give up. However, after a decade of redditing, I never saw one subreddit maintain that momentum once the larger audience poured in, which always came as a result of the perfect balance. Members of /r/subredditA will hear that /r/subredditB is similar but with better discourse, and then the wave of rufugees from /r/subredditA will pour in, ruining /r/subredditB (eg /r/Gaming and /r/Games.)
On HN, if you don't like the rules, you go find a different website.
Any moments of "lightning-in-a-bottle" can certainly result in memorable periods where a subreddit truly adds value to one's life, and that can make the whole website hard to give up. However, after a decade of redditing, I never saw one subreddit maintain that momentum once the larger audience poured in, which always came as a result of the perfect balance. Members of /r/subredditA will hear that /r/subredditB is similar but with better discourse, and then the wave of rufugees from /r/subredditA will pour in, ruining /r/subredditB (eg /r/Gaming and /r/Games.)
On HN, if you don't like the rules, you go find a different website.
> Any moments of "lightning-in-a-bottle" can certainly result in memorable periods where a subreddit truly adds value to one's life, and that can make the whole website hard to give up.
I would mention /r/credibledefense as a counter example. It was a niche subreddit before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the aftermath got popular, but still managed to keep its quality.
But I agree with your general point, it's not a huge problem for me, though. Some subreddits get popular and thus bad, some new subreddits get created. Reddit's relative anarchy is its saving grace, communities can split/fork, but still stay within reddit platform.
I would mention /r/credibledefense as a counter example. It was a niche subreddit before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the aftermath got popular, but still managed to keep its quality.
But I agree with your general point, it's not a huge problem for me, though. Some subreddits get popular and thus bad, some new subreddits get created. Reddit's relative anarchy is its saving grace, communities can split/fork, but still stay within reddit platform.
Isn't "reddit format" essentially exactly the same as the "hacker news format"?
Format certainly influences the quality of interactions, but there are some other strong factors as well.
Format certainly influences the quality of interactions, but there are some other strong factors as well.
I’d love to see AI that automatically curates the comments so that all the ‘witty’ takes can be collapsed under one category. But I think I’m with you in that it’s probably just time to move on. I’ve found a lot of my discussions have migrated to Discord for better or worse
This wasn't always the case. I've used Reddit since the Digg days and in the earlier days it was long form comments with sources and the vote system was actually used as a "this is true" signal instead of an "I don't agree with this". The thing that killed it in my opinion was the layout change to embed media directly in Facebook style. Sure there's always old.reddit.com , but the problem is that because of the default interface change it drives a certain type of ecosystem for submissions and discussions that's not as enjoyable.
Tl,Dr when it was primarily a text based website the discussions were better. The gifs, video, meme layout is like junk food.
Tl,Dr when it was primarily a text based website the discussions were better. The gifs, video, meme layout is like junk food.
I was thinking that HN shows only the writer what the 'value' of the post is (number of upvotes). In Reddit, most subs seem to show that number to the whole world.
So if this comment had 100 upvotes, and another one 20, you're the winner, everyone can see it. I speculate it at the minimum encourages subconscious behavior of trying to game votes upwards, and also biases people that it's a good comment. Because your brain will process "100" before reading a paragraph of words.
So if this comment had 100 upvotes, and another one 20, you're the winner, everyone can see it. I speculate it at the minimum encourages subconscious behavior of trying to game votes upwards, and also biases people that it's a good comment. Because your brain will process "100" before reading a paragraph of words.
HN used to have points! It was a long time ago though, and hiding them was probably the right decision.
Reddit caters to the young audience, it's mostly them who go on emotional crusades as they have little experience to back up their words. In real life, you wouldn't engage in a serious argument about real estate market with 10 year olds, but on Reddit you can and do.
This has been a challenge in online communities for quite sometime. Some approaches I wanted to mention are what Metafilter does, which is require people pay to sign up and comment, and when they sign up they have to wait 30 days to comment. This cuts down a lot of noise and reactionary Twitter type trolling.
Another I think is worth mentioning is r/NeutralPolitics on reddit. They have a pretty strict moderation policy that makes for some string signal to noise but due to it's heavy handedness I feel like it does not get enough different perspectives because the least thought out or explored do not get enough attention.
This is such a routine, generalized rant it almost becomes the problem it describes.
Short, spiteful condescension that circles back to the authors preferences (HN). No explicit language, I guess, but I learned nothing except some internet rando has a BS opinion.
If you did any research you’d see the same on HN.
Public forums are noise generators which, once reasoned around, makes it more fun. I email academics doing work I find interesting for the best signal; most reply.
Short, spiteful condescension that circles back to the authors preferences (HN). No explicit language, I guess, but I learned nothing except some internet rando has a BS opinion.
If you did any research you’d see the same on HN.
Public forums are noise generators which, once reasoned around, makes it more fun. I email academics doing work I find interesting for the best signal; most reply.
As a general rule, for me, the barrier-to-entry for online commentary is too low for genuinely worthwhile "longer term" discussions to occur. The vast majority of responses are "automatic" rather than reasoned and thoughtful, even in the limited cases where the commenter is otherwise "sufficiently competent" to contribute meaningfully.
Shallow, reflexive engagement (especially from a "large" number of participants) has no actual value except to platforms needing eyeballs for ad revenue, which isn't the HN model. So.
Brought to you by the letters I, M, and O.
Shallow, reflexive engagement (especially from a "large" number of participants) has no actual value except to platforms needing eyeballs for ad revenue, which isn't the HN model. So.
Brought to you by the letters I, M, and O.
I miss Usenet in the 1990's where threads would go on for months or even years.
I used "slrn" to read news and it was great. It would only show me new posts. I could kill a thread to filter it so I didn't have to see it. I could just hit one button to go to the next post on the thread or to the next thread.
In many ways it was superior to modern web based forums.
I used "slrn" to read news and it was great. It would only show me new posts. I could kill a thread to filter it so I didn't have to see it. I could just hit one button to go to the next post on the thread or to the next thread.
In many ways it was superior to modern web based forums.
i’m finding mastodon very reminiscent of the early usenet, in tone and quality, tho haven’t yet seen a years long thread.
I stopped at having to decide on a server and the specific content of them. Is there a recommendation for HN-like people? i.e. mixes of tech, economics, small doses of politics, etc. in response to articles?
I think you’re overthinking it. You can follow people on other servers, so the actual server you’re on is… not hugely important to the experience.
I’d say, pick any server that’s close enough and just play with it for a while. That way you can get a feel for what it’s like, and you can also see if you end up repeatedly following people from a specific server. If you do, you can move over to that server if you want.
I started on hachyderm.io and it seems vaguely like what you describe, though I also follow a few people from infosec.exchange
I’d say, pick any server that’s close enough and just play with it for a while. That way you can get a feel for what it’s like, and you can also see if you end up repeatedly following people from a specific server. If you do, you can move over to that server if you want.
I started on hachyderm.io and it seems vaguely like what you describe, though I also follow a few people from infosec.exchange
The server you join only effects what website you go to interact with Mastodon, who stores your data, and what you're allowed to say. But from any mastodon instance, you can read content which is hosted on any other mastodon instance.
> The server you join only effects
The server you join effects who are the people who can ban you. Lately, mstdn.science has been banning scientists who have discussed the coronavirus lab leak theory.
The server you join effects who are the people who can ban you. Lately, mstdn.science has been banning scientists who have discussed the coronavirus lab leak theory.
SDF at least ostensibly overlaps with hacker folks, though they ended up on a list of Mastodon servers to join so there are a lot of randoms.
[deleted]
fosstodon.org?
For me the main problem would be thread drift. In most short discussions (10 comments) usually the comments are on topic. In long discussions (100 comments) usually the topic has drifted to one of the usual attractors.
(For example in a new proposed rocket technology, after 100 or 200 comments there will be a huge discussion about how to use it to get FTL travel like in a popular sci-fi movie.)
(For example in a new proposed rocket technology, after 100 or 200 comments there will be a huge discussion about how to use it to get FTL travel like in a popular sci-fi movie.)
I usually collapse those comments that drift too much because everything below it doesn't matter much. Sometimes I have to collapse all top-level comments, which is sad.
If hn had reply notifications it would go a long way toward keeping discussions relevant for later readers.
In lieu of a built-in solution I've been using https://www.hnreplies.com/ which seems to work well.
In lieu of a built-in solution I've been using https://www.hnreplies.com/ which seems to work well.
Creator of Sqwok here, you can have long-lived real-time conversations that will get bumped even if they're older, while also having notifications, @mentions, embeds, following, search, themes (including "hacker" https://imgur.com/a/qHkopKO), etc. The ranking algo is based off live conversation activity.
I did a Show HN back in April and have been quietly continuing to develop the site. Open to ideas/suggestions as well.
https://sqwok.im
I did a Show HN back in April and have been quietly continuing to develop the site. Open to ideas/suggestions as well.
https://sqwok.im
IMO The best way to encourage this is through better (default) notifications. Or, this solution, for a platform with (tens) of thousands of users like HN, seems to automatically bring the specter of flame war (and intrusion and what else ?)
Is there a middle ground? I don't know. Edit : Daily/Weeky email (=slower) updates ?
As for old threads getting bumped, I think this is here equivalent to reposting the link (or re-asking). The old thread is almost "dead", but this is how it works "in real life discussions". So maybe that is not so bad. This is (as a call it) a (fast) stream model, where there is no (direct) accumulation : it is more twitter than Stack Overflow, more blogs than Wikis.
Is there a middle ground? I don't know. Edit : Daily/Weeky email (=slower) updates ?
As for old threads getting bumped, I think this is here equivalent to reposting the link (or re-asking). The old thread is almost "dead", but this is how it works "in real life discussions". So maybe that is not so bad. This is (as a call it) a (fast) stream model, where there is no (direct) accumulation : it is more twitter than Stack Overflow, more blogs than Wikis.
Took me a while to realise there are no "your comment has been replied to!" type notifications on HN. Seemed weird to me.
I know there are a couple third-party services that you can sign up on to monitor that for you (they email you when someone replies to you, AFAIK), but I opted to just go with the flow and hit my "threads" link every now and then to see if someone has replied to something.
Agreed - built-in, opt-in HN notifs (or easy-to-opt-out) would be good to help with what OP is asking about, IMO.
I know there are a couple third-party services that you can sign up on to monitor that for you (they email you when someone replies to you, AFAIK), but I opted to just go with the flow and hit my "threads" link every now and then to see if someone has replied to something.
Agreed - built-in, opt-in HN notifs (or easy-to-opt-out) would be good to help with what OP is asking about, IMO.
More chat than forum, with the exception that the comments stay on the Web instead of being hidden in the logs.
Forums and chats do have a solution to too big size : they can just split into others (or subforums) once the linear discussion becomes unmanageable.
Forums and chats do have a solution to too big size : they can just split into others (or subforums) once the linear discussion becomes unmanageable.
Yeah. More chat than forum, in the sense that people rarely venture to reply on what is older than a day (apart from Ask/Show HN; both hang a little longer)
I don't get your solution. It seems to me that HN threads are already tree-like.
I don't get your solution. It seems to me that HN threads are already tree-like.
Yes, but they are a bit too easy to split, which means that a good chunk of comments end up getting ignored.
I sometimes read the new ones by first reading all of them, and later manually scanning every comment newer than X hours, but it's tedious.
I guess a system that would automatically hid old comments (except their immediate parent) might work ?
I sometimes read the new ones by first reading all of them, and later manually scanning every comment newer than X hours, but it's tedious.
I guess a system that would automatically hid old comments (except their immediate parent) might work ?
I always thought it'd be nice to have a "slow" discussion forum. Something a lot like current forums, but where it's normal to take a day or two to respond to somebody. I think I make calmer and higher-quality responses if I wait a little longer than usual, especially for topics that tend to generate a lot of heat.
I get the sentiment. And I think you should feel encouraged to repost the thing that interested you. That's one of the things I've found good about HN. Some really old, obscure posts/topics get reposted and I get to discover/re-discover them. Another way to tackle this is possibly write a blog post around your topic of interest then link it here. In one way you invite longer discussion while allowing rediscovery for any previous commenters. You should try it
I would adore an old-school forum (phpBB, anyone?) that had the HN crowd on it.
For ages that was Slashdot.
Kind of the same crowd but how was/is /. anything like a old school forum? Format is pretty much what HN has emulated, no? Forums are different mainly because you can shit post without the stigma.
Not that I am complaining but this place often elevates pretentious, "high brow" shit posting as opposed to the vanilla thing practiced the us commoners. As if rich tech bro's trolling is better. Gotta say, this place really like smelling its own farts.
However, there's a lot of good stuff, too, and the moderation is better than /. where the majority of visible posts are made by the same 10 guys. Been like that for past 20 years.
Sorry. Got carried away. That beer had 7% alcohol in it. How is this place anything like the phpbb (now, xenforo) style forums?
Not that I am complaining but this place often elevates pretentious, "high brow" shit posting as opposed to the vanilla thing practiced the us commoners. As if rich tech bro's trolling is better. Gotta say, this place really like smelling its own farts.
However, there's a lot of good stuff, too, and the moderation is better than /. where the majority of visible posts are made by the same 10 guys. Been like that for past 20 years.
Sorry. Got carried away. That beer had 7% alcohol in it. How is this place anything like the phpbb (now, xenforo) style forums?
The medium is the message though, so even if you got the crowd...
To me, feels like more pressing issue would be to increase the ease of tagging, grouping, filtering, ranking, etc. Specifically, if you see existing coverage of a topic, it’s easy enough to revive it if you’re aware of how HN handles duplicate detection, but there’s no way to enforce users having to vote on comments with fresh eyes, hide comments that don’t have significant new sub-comments, discover significant new sub-comments, etc. Not to mention need for comment notifications and user responsiveness indicators. (Insert yet feature to support various user sub-use cases.)
All and all, reliving prior content and/or having a complex multifunctional interface would take away from the centrality and freshness of the home page experience.
I have wondered if dang would be open to allowing community to contribute to various approved feature additions; for example, better search, night mode, duplicate detection, etc.
All and all, reliving prior content and/or having a complex multifunctional interface would take away from the centrality and freshness of the home page experience.
I have wondered if dang would be open to allowing community to contribute to various approved feature additions; for example, better search, night mode, duplicate detection, etc.
YC and dang's approach to HN seems to be more or less this: "Somehow we stumbled upon a system that really works. We don't know why it does, but it does, and so we don't want to change things too much too fast lest we break it."
And honestly, I love that approach. In my time on HN features have rolled out slowly, and you can tell that they were selected very carefully as being important quality of life improvements that don't fundamentally change the interactions.
Most features that people propose that HN needs are likely to substantially or subtly alter the dynamics, with potentially catastrophic results over the long haul.
And honestly, I love that approach. In my time on HN features have rolled out slowly, and you can tell that they were selected very carefully as being important quality of life improvements that don't fundamentally change the interactions.
Most features that people propose that HN needs are likely to substantially or subtly alter the dynamics, with potentially catastrophic results over the long haul.
This may be true. But I think the greater value of HN is in fact the community: the set of people who use it and the norms that have emerged, more than the features. I think encouraging more "slow" conversation would improve this community, and it would not be too risky to test out more default comments notification.
I use HN replies (and RSS)... but very few others do, so the the change of getting a reply to this comment is low, even though I got here within a day.
I use HN replies (and RSS)... but very few others do, so the the change of getting a reply to this comment is low, even though I got here within a day.
Hi! I don't use HN replies, but I do go back and check my less-than-day-old comments.
When I say a system, I'm including everything, including the community. It's not any one part of HN, it's the way all the parts interact. Seemingly small changes can have a dramatic impact on the way the system operates, which includes the community. Suddenly different voices become amplified while others feel marginalized, and it's hard to predict if that will be a good outcome.
I'm not saying that it would for sure be a problem, but I sympathize with dang wanting to be very careful before introducing something like that.
When I say a system, I'm including everything, including the community. It's not any one part of HN, it's the way all the parts interact. Seemingly small changes can have a dramatic impact on the way the system operates, which includes the community. Suddenly different voices become amplified while others feel marginalized, and it's hard to predict if that will be a good outcome.
I'm not saying that it would for sure be a problem, but I sympathize with dang wanting to be very careful before introducing something like that.
Nice, thanks for the reply! I agree - I'm also very sympathetic to that. In this case, I think it is an example of a feature worth experimenting with, even if slowly. I would love to have more slow threads like this one.
My impression is dang makes a lot of behind the scenes changes, but few public changes. As such, they’re hard to notice and really become a topic. There a lot of features HN has that most users don’t know about and/or use too.
Two years ago was the last thread I remember talking about night-mode:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24472535
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24472535
Yes, aware of the thread, honestly not super important feature to me, but aware dang agreed it was okay. Also not saying dang need to do anything, he’s obviously in the best position to decide what’s best. Just pointing out the obvious that people would likely be more than happy to help him save time and amplify value HN provides.
For me hn.algolia.com solved some of the needs you mention.
While I haven’t documented specific issues it has, Google frequently finds items I recall, but unable to find using YC enterprise search engine service.
For clarity, this is how you search HN using Google:
https://google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com
For clarity, this is how you search HN using Google:
https://google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com
The thread discussion ends often because of two things - new popular posts pushing old ones off the front page and the lack of constant notification. Both are by design and what make HN great.
To encourage longer term discussion without changing the existing design, one idea is to add longer term notification to keep the engagement on a thread discussion, e.g. a daily summary of the responses to my comments coming as a notification. One is not constantly bombarded with instant notifications but still have a chance to catch up on the responses.
I remember Usenet newsgroups were sync’ed daily via uucp, which forced a delayed notification of new responses.
To encourage longer term discussion without changing the existing design, one idea is to add longer term notification to keep the engagement on a thread discussion, e.g. a daily summary of the responses to my comments coming as a notification. One is not constantly bombarded with instant notifications but still have a chance to catch up on the responses.
I remember Usenet newsgroups were sync’ed daily via uucp, which forced a delayed notification of new responses.
If you have NNTP, then that will help. You can read/write any message. There is not voting, but to me that is an advantage to not have voting; I think chronological will be better. Also if you have NNTP, you can more easily to compose and read already downloaded messages even if you are not connected to the internet (or if the server is down), only needing internet to send/receive. Scoring files can be used if you want to customize which messages should be displayed, and possibly other things if you use a client program that can use scoring files for other purposes. Another idea is global scoring files that can be optionally installed if the user intends to do, maybe. A protocol extension for search could be used if it is desirable to be able to search, maybe.
One part of HN’s success is the addictivity. Having to be-here-now-or-don’t-participate is certainly part of it, it makes people open HN many times a day. The drawback is that participants are often dopamine-high people, not the wise CEOs with developed opinions that we had 10 years ago.
A long-form HN would involve another audience than the dopamine-high people.
A long-form HN would involve another audience than the dopamine-high people.
I think the posts on HN are often good, and it's typical to find at least a couple insightful or informed top-level comments about them. But after that, replies to those comments, and then the replies to those replies, typically don't add much value. I have my theories about why that happens, but in any case I doubt the site would benefit from leaning in to one of its weaker aspects.
I think you might respond that improving the site's discussion features would improve the quality of the discussion. But I am skeptical that would happen: it feels like an engineering approach rather than a community approach. The best discussion sites on the internet have worked consistently because of the crowd they attract, and the pressure moderators apply, not because they had a certain feature set.
I think you might respond that improving the site's discussion features would improve the quality of the discussion. But I am skeptical that would happen: it feels like an engineering approach rather than a community approach. The best discussion sites on the internet have worked consistently because of the crowd they attract, and the pressure moderators apply, not because they had a certain feature set.
What is the age of a Hacker News post before discussion dies on average? It seems like having a feed for any new comments on posts posts older than that age would allow anyone interested in longer-term discussion to opt-in without requiring any additional features.
From my anecdotal observations after using this site for over a decade, it’s about a day, sometimes two, and very rarely longer than that.
The whole design very much discourages longer discussion. Even if you want it digging to nth page of your comments just to check whether you got answers gets annoying real quick.
There is a timeout after which you can't respond to a comment. So old threads don't die only because people lose interest, but also because HN doesn't allow them to continue the discussions anymore.
I agree that even old conversations need updates, but I think it should come in the form of a repost. Ask or post about the same thing again and let it get to the front page.
Every year or two the same thing needs opened for conversation - in some cases.
You can always reference the old post.
Every year or two the same thing needs opened for conversation - in some cases.
You can always reference the old post.
Find a local LessWrong group! These kinds of conversations are much more productive in person.
> But I wonder if others would also be interested in longer term discussions,
Bots already pretty much dominate platforms like Twitter and Reddit, although I would point out the structured nature of Reddit makes it an ideal public resource AI training dataset. Saying that, I like your idea because these new LLM's like ChatGPT v3 need to be able to debate which is something that has largely been shutdown online including here, under a variety of guises. A debatable AI some would argue is the next logical step in some area's of AI evolution.
Bots already pretty much dominate platforms like Twitter and Reddit, although I would point out the structured nature of Reddit makes it an ideal public resource AI training dataset. Saying that, I like your idea because these new LLM's like ChatGPT v3 need to be able to debate which is something that has largely been shutdown online including here, under a variety of guises. A debatable AI some would argue is the next logical step in some area's of AI evolution.
I have to ask: have we ever met?
I understand the sentiment also. It's the flip side of high-quality focused attention on the topic of the day: The resurrection of our high-quality focused attention on the topic of yore.
Past HN threads on evergreen topics do have a very long tail. I'm still getting inquiries in my area of expertise* about items I posted on HN 5 years ago. I really appreciate this and my inquirers do too.
H/T to dang for curating all this. Thank you.
*US extraordinary-ability visas for engineers / tech industry.
Past HN threads on evergreen topics do have a very long tail. I'm still getting inquiries in my area of expertise* about items I posted on HN 5 years ago. I really appreciate this and my inquirers do too.
H/T to dang for curating all this. Thank you.
*US extraordinary-ability visas for engineers / tech industry.
Hi Mary! Good to see you active here. You're website has been a huge help for me, thanks for sharing the right information
Ravagat you're most welcome! I'm so happy this helped you. Guess what, the first MVP's launching this month, it's a template. All the free info will remain too, with more added.
A few practical suggestions:
Many people here have contact info in their profiles. If you find a good (dead) comment thread, you can contact the people involved directly. I suspect many of the people here would be willing to continue the conversation.
The other way to restart discussion is to repost (if the topic is more than a year old). That's a pretty common theme on HN. You can link the past discussion in the comment section for context.
Many people here have contact info in their profiles. If you find a good (dead) comment thread, you can contact the people involved directly. I suspect many of the people here would be willing to continue the conversation.
The other way to restart discussion is to repost (if the topic is more than a year old). That's a pretty common theme on HN. You can link the past discussion in the comment section for context.
[deleted]
The idea resonates. I remember in the good old days of BBS, there was a smaller community of folks having longer range conversations on a smaller set of topics.
IIRC the BBS software surfaced threads based on recent replies rather than novelty so interesting threads stayed current for longer.
It would be hard to replicate and I am not sure how one would start but I miss it :)
IIRC the BBS software surfaced threads based on recent replies rather than novelty so interesting threads stayed current for longer.
It would be hard to replicate and I am not sure how one would start but I miss it :)
I suspect that one thing that contributes to make HN a high quality forum is that it discourages longer discussions.
This is a Reddit problem as well, even with notifications. In a regular forum posts that are replied to are automatically "bumped" to the top, thus a thread can go on for years. Whereas here even a popular discussion gets buried to the bottom after a day or two - for better or for worse.
Yes, I’ve often thought about this and wished there were some way to comment or revive an older discussion (although even the ability to comment on an >30 day discussion would hold little value inside HN— so it would need to be on some other site/forum).
Once I “designed” (on paper) a site to hold the meta discussion that happens on HN (and the internet) Many times there is a post about some piece of tech that reaches the top, followed up by tools, counter-ideas and new ideas building on the OP. Would be cool to trace those arcs across time and sites. As a user you could subscribe to the topic and make your comment
Sweet idea. Would love to contribute.
Managing spam would probably be challenging with every discussion open for comments.
> old forums, where old threads get bumped
HN has something kind of like this with /newcomments.
HN has something kind of like this with /newcomments.
I find communities on discord and slack are good for this. I’m in a slack group where we have threads that last days. Occasionally I think of a related thing to a thread and post a new message there
This would be nice. Sometimes people have interesting conversations but they go dead after a few days. It would be nice to be able to have long running conversations on interesting topics.
I also follow HN via RSS. Even if something was posted to 10 hours ago, I do still tend to reply to someone's message, and sometimes the discussion continues after that somehow!
Maybe someone could create a website that resurfaces old HN topics and allows users to comment on them and reply to comments as if they were the article themselves.
It would be similar to a forum.
It would be similar to a forum.
I'd assume then we'd also need notifications of replies. Not a lot of good in replying to someone to get their (later) thoughts on something if they never see it.
Very good question, HN is a bit of a waste of time because of it... what forums do people frequent with discussion of similar topics ?
I refuse to even add comments to my new projects.
I can't imagine running HN. If I had to run HN and also had to deal with 1-n week long flame wars I would delete the database, backups, and repo.
The worst part of the modern internet is how often we have to come into contact with commenters and moderators. No, I don't want to click on a monkey emoji to declare your Discord's constitution legally binding.
I can't imagine running HN. If I had to run HN and also had to deal with 1-n week long flame wars I would delete the database, backups, and repo.
The worst part of the modern internet is how often we have to come into contact with commenters and moderators. No, I don't want to click on a monkey emoji to declare your Discord's constitution legally binding.
I share this frustration; sometimes communities move so fast that you cannot participate.
[deleted]
I alternate between hacker news and Metafilter. Metafilter often has discussions that run for a month (at which point comments close), or longer by making a series of posts to continue discussion, usually for longer events/topics like elections or the Ukraine war. It's a very different site culture, but has been my primary home on the Internet for twenty years...
Yes, I would be interested
The forums in which I've seen this most notably were Usenet (to an extent) and Google+.
I've tried to put my finger on what made certain G+ discussions just tick, and it's complex and subtle.
Much of it came down to having a good host for the discussion, and among the best was the site's chief architect, Yonatan Zunger. He was well-connected within G+ and at Google (obviously), but also had a diverse set of interests, tolerated a wide range of opinion and interactions, but not without limits. (Similar in many regards to HN's moderation philosophy.)
Threads were anchored by the initial post or link, and Yonatan often wrote a fairly substantial piece himself, rather than just throwing up links or a brief tweet-length bit.
Discussions were limited in how many comments could be appended, I believe the limit was 500. Presentation was unthreaded flat, with most recent comments at the end of the thread ... but that was also what was presented by default (the full thread could be expanded if desired).
And "recent" participants (I believe this was the most recent 100 comments, could have been more) would get a notification if there were new comments. This could (and did) occur even years after the initial post, and occasionally old posts would come back to life.
Participants would receive a notification, and could view and respond to recent comments within the Notifications pane itself, rather than having to separately go to the post itself. This is unlike many other systems I've seen, including Diaspora*, which is otherwise quite similar but has a very cumbersome (and slow) notifications -> posts interaction.
Key to keeping this from becoming a magnet for spam or tedious arguments was the fact that the host could moderate (and remove) low-value, distracting, or inappropriate replies. Doing so would effectively remove notifications generated by such comments. Again, Yonatan was diligent in this --- over several years I saw a very small handful of low-value responses, and usually they had been removed in the few seconds between my own seeing them and writing Yonatan to alert him of something untoward.
The other element driving this was an effective search tool. G+ went through numerous iterations, some lacking search entirely and some with a very half-assed search, but for its final few years, there was actually an effective and useful search which could turn up interesting prior discussions. (Search is another feature Diaspora* is entirely lacking.)
As regards HN, several elements that made G+ so vibrant in this regard are lacking. There are no notifications, individual members don't host threads in the same way as G+ did, S/N is worse than G+ at its best (and that was by no means the typical experience).
For HN, the best way to resurrect an old thread is probably to either link it (or a comment) directly, or to re-share the original article/URL and reference earlier discussion. That would have to be more than just the "previous discussion" comments which are typically made.
I'll often reference my own earlier comments (or occasionally posts elsewhere) in responses, and have a few bugbears I'll raise again. (Those ... risk becoming tedious, I try to be mindful of that.)
There are a few themes I've raised multiple times and developed somewhat in the course of multiple discussions, two examples that come to mind are the prospect of trans-oceanic trains (using submerged floating tunnels), and the possibility of a tax- or ISP-brokered scheme of universal content syndication as an alternative to subscriptions and ad-supported media, both of which I've developed over several years.
I've tried to put my finger on what made certain G+ discussions just tick, and it's complex and subtle.
Much of it came down to having a good host for the discussion, and among the best was the site's chief architect, Yonatan Zunger. He was well-connected within G+ and at Google (obviously), but also had a diverse set of interests, tolerated a wide range of opinion and interactions, but not without limits. (Similar in many regards to HN's moderation philosophy.)
Threads were anchored by the initial post or link, and Yonatan often wrote a fairly substantial piece himself, rather than just throwing up links or a brief tweet-length bit.
Discussions were limited in how many comments could be appended, I believe the limit was 500. Presentation was unthreaded flat, with most recent comments at the end of the thread ... but that was also what was presented by default (the full thread could be expanded if desired).
And "recent" participants (I believe this was the most recent 100 comments, could have been more) would get a notification if there were new comments. This could (and did) occur even years after the initial post, and occasionally old posts would come back to life.
Participants would receive a notification, and could view and respond to recent comments within the Notifications pane itself, rather than having to separately go to the post itself. This is unlike many other systems I've seen, including Diaspora*, which is otherwise quite similar but has a very cumbersome (and slow) notifications -> posts interaction.
Key to keeping this from becoming a magnet for spam or tedious arguments was the fact that the host could moderate (and remove) low-value, distracting, or inappropriate replies. Doing so would effectively remove notifications generated by such comments. Again, Yonatan was diligent in this --- over several years I saw a very small handful of low-value responses, and usually they had been removed in the few seconds between my own seeing them and writing Yonatan to alert him of something untoward.
The other element driving this was an effective search tool. G+ went through numerous iterations, some lacking search entirely and some with a very half-assed search, but for its final few years, there was actually an effective and useful search which could turn up interesting prior discussions. (Search is another feature Diaspora* is entirely lacking.)
As regards HN, several elements that made G+ so vibrant in this regard are lacking. There are no notifications, individual members don't host threads in the same way as G+ did, S/N is worse than G+ at its best (and that was by no means the typical experience).
For HN, the best way to resurrect an old thread is probably to either link it (or a comment) directly, or to re-share the original article/URL and reference earlier discussion. That would have to be more than just the "previous discussion" comments which are typically made.
I'll often reference my own earlier comments (or occasionally posts elsewhere) in responses, and have a few bugbears I'll raise again. (Those ... risk becoming tedious, I try to be mindful of that.)
There are a few themes I've raised multiple times and developed somewhat in the course of multiple discussions, two examples that come to mind are the prospect of trans-oceanic trains (using submerged floating tunnels), and the possibility of a tax- or ISP-brokered scheme of universal content syndication as an alternative to subscriptions and ad-supported media, both of which I've developed over several years.
It's an acceptable trade-off to me. But I wonder if others would also be interested in longer term discussions, and if there could be a way to have them. I thought about old forums, where old threads get bumped even if they were created years ago, and wondered if an hybrid model could be of interest to HN users.
Just a thought, I'm glad to have this site as is. Enjoy your Sunday everyone!