While I agree that this is news and it's a fascinating story, it feels like something more for Reddit than for HN. But that's probably my naïveté or dad-of-an-infant sleep deprivation.
Interesting story just doesn't seem like HN material. But please correct me if I'm wrong or help me see the connection
The first paragraph states:
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Note: emphasis added for dramatic effect.
This the first sentence of the HN rules. If you only want “hacking-related news” you’re going to have to tolerate some other bits on HN.
There are many people here who are related to the culture and care.
It's really simple. HN is a place where like-minded people share things of interest. When people like a link, they upvote it. If they don't, they don't.
"HN material" is material HN members find interesting, not things you may or may not think are related to "startup culture" (if there's even such a thing).
I like how every time this is brought up, Reddit is used as an example. But Reddit has far, far more interesting and nuanced discussions that includes many people at the top of their respective fields. Nobody noteworthy would do an AMA on HN, but they all do it on Reddit. A comment here or there doesn’t really move the needle on the over all trajectory.
HN is more of a midwit sort of place, where you don’t get the shitposters or the exceedingly brilliant because the band is so narrow and conformist that nobody wants to deal with being downvoted/removed over the most trivial things. And then when people find out just how wrong the audience here can be, as attested by actual professionals usually taking the top comment to correct the majority of, then you really just might as well not bother with HN at all and stick with Reddit for breadth and depth.
So yes, Reddit is probably the better place for this article, along with just about every other article posted here.
Got a bit confused here, what is this sentence?
I agree that the band on HN is somewhat narrow, though I feel it is a distinctly different band from most other places which makes it worth visiting.
Any subreddits in particular you recommend for high quality discourse?
As for what subreddits are worthwhile - I don’t follow any of them religiously, usually the good stuff is cross posted and even HN has its fair share of good Reddit links much to their chagrin lol. You can often start at the top of the list of popular subreddits as the good stuff is also often cross posted with attribution to the original subreddit. So pick what you’re into and go down the rabbit hole.
"I have the correct opinion™, please validate me with upvotes", "Can you believe that some people have the wrong opinion™ They are dumb!" over and over again gets old fast.
Go to a post, nearly all the responses are deleted, hundreds of them, inbetween the deleted comments you find enthusiastic support for the current thing.
"I had to lock this post yall, too many people being crazy"
Look, I don't even disagree with your overall comment on HN, but this is a complete joke. I can't tell if you are actually serious. Go to the front page of reddit now and point me to that nuanced discussion. Even AMAs are now outrage bait, with all the top comments/ questions being snarky stabs at the AMA guest.
Your comment is either only valid for very small subs, or you're a time traveler from 8 years ago.
(I've seen far more "celebrities" or experts pop on comment sections about themselves or their expertise here than on reddit. FWIW.
Whether or not the commenters on Reddit tend to shitpost AMAs doesn’t speak to the fact that AMAs occur there, and the people give long winded answers to questions and talk at length about things. Literally there are people there whose answers to each question is a blog post entry on HN.
Usually the reason why celebrities/experts pop on comment sections here is to correct others. Which again, is just sad that the community here is naive with misinformation and cargo culling.
I've also found certain subreddits now provide better value to discussions than HN at this point.
- /r/AskHistorians
- ...
Ehm well I can't think of any more x)
Likewise, some threads on this site are garbage, too. It's easy enough to hide them and move on, though.
Well there's a sentence I didn't expect to read today.