Hacker News Reader

Comment by updog | Hacker News Reader

I still think hackernews is inappropriately named. It should be called startup news, but that doesn't have the same ring to it. Hacking is now a security word. It hasn't been reclaimed at all, it's just confusing to everyone that doesn't read this site (and still many that do).

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When I first stumbled upon Hacker News (I don't even recall how it happened, anymore), I asked myself, "Why are there all of these articles on startups and business in general??"

I had to learn about the group behind the site to understand. I still think that calling it "Hacker News" will prove misleading for some, but I've long since become used to the theme of this site.

The misnaming works well though. The hacker part covers all the technical posts, and the fact that it's on the YC domain covers all the startup posts.

If it was called startupnews, everyone would complain about the technical posts.

It used to be called Startup News, not much has changed w/ regard to submissions.

If accuracy was the highest priority when choosing the site's name, it would be called "Web Pages Voted on by a Reasonably Polite Community with a Curious Taste for Speculation About What Might Eventually Become News, Rather Than News Itself".

What technical posts?

Heh. This is startup news? "The ~200 Line Linux Kernel Patch That Does Wonders "

No, though there is certainly a notable lack of hacker discussion on that article.

"Hacker" news seems to not even be the second most popular topic of discussion here. Startup crap and politics shit both do a great job of drowning it out.

Then you have the always creepy "article about steve jobs' personal life, which has absolutely nothing to do with computing or even his business"...

I think HN's name is appropriate. Most people who write here are not (just) computer hackers (as in '90s definition) but people who hack themselves and the world around. Entrepreneurs are hackers. Most world-changers are hackers.

Its very easy to "dilute" a meaning by calling everyone a hacker. Yes strictly speaking you are right, there are Economists hacker, Financial hacker, Life Hacker, Music hacker and so on and so forth.

In the world of the internets the most commonly associated meaning (rightly or wrongly) of the word Hacker is for computer nerds.

In that sense "Hacker News" has nothing to do with hacking, Startup News is more apt description of this community.

I would agree if startups were the only topic covered on HN. But they aren't.

HN has always a lot of interesting stuff that has nothing to do with startups. E.g. general CS, psychology, physics ans so on...

Indeed it is. In addition to making it easy to dilute, it's a good search term to capture and stream a specific audience with.

Being a world-changer doesn't imply being a hacker ... adapting the world to your needs, that's just human nature and it's what people always did.

Hacking really means going against the status quo, and that's a different thing altogether.

Example: building something like Facebook is not hacking. That's just good engineering and opportunistic use of human nature.

The simplest test you can have to call something a hack or not: did other people laugh or got angry when hearing about it?

Of course you can still call yourself a hacker, for feeling good and all that, but I like how ESR puts it: you're not a hacker until other people start recognizing you as one.