Ask HN: Hacker News is for tech, as X is for Y?
Are there some forums or well moderated discussion groups for other interests and hobbies?
Sure there are subreddits, but what else exists?
Sure there are subreddits, but what else exists?
/r/PersonalFinance for not-super-technical-finanace. I'm more familiar with PersonalFinanceCanada which has single-handeldy taught me how to think about money and finance. Can definitely get a bit toxic sometimes.
/r/Guitar is surprisingly small but still fun, and /r/Frugal is another favourite of mine. I also frequent the many FIRE subreddits but I don't think those are as popular as other forums about FIRE.
In a similar vein, Stack Exchange can be VERY interesting. I often casually sift through WorkplaceSE and TravelSE, though I supposed that is more entertainment than educational.
Talking with actual workers in a field is super valuable...I think that's what makes HN great - most of us work in tech.
With Reddit, you get tons of 'oh, I like guitars, I'll join that' people giving advice instead of say, professional musicians or luthiers.
Note: I didn't mean to insult r/guitars, I've never been, just used it as an example.
When I used to use Reddit heavily, I had 5 different accounts, easily managed by the app and RES on Firefox.
One was for Physics, Astronomy, and Math (earlier in life), one was for books subs only (suggestmeabook, books, etc.), one was for CS, programming, language subs, and so on, one was for everything else- i.e. memes, short videos, etc, and another one was for skills I was learning- piano, drawing, etc.
This was, I had everything managed.
Of course the subreddit still needs to be focused on a specific topic
In terms of quality, Reddit mods are hugely important. I was a mod for my city’s sub, and it was a constant effort to filter out the low-quality or toxic content.
Top level comments need to be sourced and verified and mod-approved on these, but great places to lurk and learn:
History: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ – also has an amazing weekly newsletter that you can get DMed to you!
Economics: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/
Also, a subreddit exclusively for experienced devs, but nice to lurk for everyone:
Thankfully, Lobsters is invite-only to post and comment. This filters out the usual garbage.
It's in German but this is a place for nerds to talk about home automation and lighting. By this I don't mean just getting an Alexa and calling it a day, actually automating your home using professional equipment like that used in commercial buildings.
One of the big topics I'm following right now discusses a Chinese lighting manufacturer who makes high CRI tuneable white lights (think a professional version of Philips Hue), and the forum members have banded together to get a set (min order 1000 pieces) of custom lights made.
Im currently building one of fashion as it’s a huge interest of mine.
I realised while I’m building this, the solution is not the tech but actually the community providing the posts abs the moderation. I love hacker news because of the highly safe space to be able to have great open discussions.
I get more value from the discussion thread than the link that this shared.
Only if you can create a replica of Dang.
As with other comments, there are plenty of well moderated forums, but most of them are very small and specific. When they are small, it lacks enough diversity. But when they are big or up to a certain size, moderation no longer works at all.
HN is not perfect, but I have yet to find anything that is close to HN.
My SO spends a lot of time on FB groups that are focused on her niche, so I'd look there.
If you want live discussion/to meet real people, I haven't found anything as effective as meetup.com.
Generally high quality and informed discussions, well moderated, every year there is a Tour de France related influx of new users but the older users are kind and keen to educate.
http://www.mountwhitneyforum.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist...