This is the best comment section on the internet, not sure what there is to be frustrated about. (Thanks pg and dang for putting so much effort in keeping it this way!)
But the comments do have a tendency to get off track or discuss topics not applicable to the original post. Still can be valuable to read, though.
Sometimes you'll see people comment on something you are more informed on (usually things outside tech) where the takes are just smart-sounding extrapolation but you don't have the mental fortitude to start a huge discussion under a comment that already veered into off-topic because you know there's a good change it'll be understood as starting a culture war mudfest (while the original comment usually is not, because there's either agreement or passive benefit of the doubt).
They're just weird moments where you notice how unreflected a usually very reflected, educated and measured community can be, and if you're personally affected by that category misinformation that can be quite annoying.
> This is the best comment section on the internet
> I generally dislike the culture there, it's almost impossible to read any of the comments without being frustrated about the industry I work in or am adjacent to and some of the people who inhabit it
Just because something is the best (or least bad) doesn't mean it is good.
Dang does a good job (for the longest time, my personal conspiracy theory was dang is not one person but like one of those names used by a whole team). However, if you remember the silicon valley bank saga, it is clear that the people here only talk the talk when it isn't their own money on the line. We ridicule the New York financial industry but look at the comments here about making ALL depositors/creditors whole in the comments and the panicked tweets Garry Tan put out. I can't even imagine the strings they must have pulled behind the scenes. I think their criticism is fairly tame.
Also, because of the nice firebase API, I think at this point writing a HN client is a rite of passage like print hello world (mine is in angular and performs terribly).
This leads to a lot of comments where someone clearly just read the title. These comments lack nuance and often make some argument that was already addressed by the author of the post.
(I'm guilty too, just sayin)
> not sure what there is to be frustrated about.
You actually just explained what there is to be frustrated about.
They are not "part of the problem". They are the problem.
There's a tragedy of the commons here, where the majority is going to the comments first without reading the article, expecting the other commenters to inform them about the article. Given this common practice, what makes you think you can get right to the actual information by looking at the comments? They're often less reliable than the articles themselves.
My comment included
There is a Nash equilibrium where experts and those who are interested read/know the topic of the article and write some commentary about it. The most insightful comments usually receive more upvotes from everyone (including non-readers). reading the top comments is thus generally a good timesave to risk of being misinformed tradeoff that many users have decided to be worth taking.
Being less reliable can be acceptable if it reduces the time to read by 10x or more.
That's highly questionable.
They're link aggregators, so threads start from links. But nobody reads the linked articles, they only head the "headline." In other words, the headline is the title of the thread, and the comments are a discussion starting from that title.
So what is the linked content? From the user's perspective, the linked article is just another comment. Which for users somehow make sense. The "author" is just an user with a site making a comment on a topic on their own website, while the thread are users without their own websites making comments on the same topic. If a single "comment" is just somebody's opinion, then it's highly likely most "are not worth reading," including the linked article.
So why is the link necessary in first place then? It certainly doesn't feel like it's needed. You could make a social media where to start a new thread you just type the topic and that's enough. We could also have the extreme opposite: we could have a social media where you also just type the topic to start a thread, but all "comments" must be links to articles.
I wonder if there's a social media like that. It would be interesting to compare what the threads look like.
The easiest way to get someone to actually read your hot takes isn't to post it on Twitter where you have no followers but to reply in a tangential and practically non-sequitur way to someone in a thread where there's a lot of eyeballs looking at the comments. You know, exactly the way I'm doing right now.
To put it another way, HN as a whole has strong opinions on a lot of things. And anyone or anything with strong opinions will have people disliking them, for better or worse :-)
Any website with JS is bad
Everything is cancel culture
Startup culture is bad (ironic)
Anything cryptocurrency is bad
HN's design/layout is perfect
Joe Rogan is a god
SWEs are underpaid and not respected
Everything is a cargo cult
dang is a god
Everything is a logical fallacy
Vercel is evil
Piracy is harmless and good
Correlation never indicates causation
Paywalls are bad except on my Substack
I think Elon flipped from being worshipped to being hated
Steve Jobs was a god
Being a contrarian makes you smart
Everything is virtue signalling
Only works in mice
there was a whole.HN parody thread -
http://bradconte.com/files/misc/HackerNewsParodyThread/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33680661
It's important to be self-aware enough that every group has its own groupthink, HN is no exception, and to know the thought bubble you occupy when you're in that group.
- Postgres is the final database, unless you need something embedded, in which case you may use sqlite.
Non-monogamous people are responsible for spreading sexual diseases
Discourse about reproductive health can be a ride on HN.
Our industry is still full of sexism and racism. Yes, things have gotten better. But most women in our industry can still tell you disturbing stories. We still have a long way to go.
HN is a generally going to reflect our industry. Some days are better than others here and it really depends on the topic. But it's pretty disappointing when you do come across some blatant sexism or racism and folks agree with it. PG himself is occasionally an angry privileged man moaning about the woke mob so it's no surprise not much has changed here over the decades. The owners like it this way. PG and Dang also get a lot right about how to run a site like this. Both can be true.
hahaha
For all X, saying "I'll probably get downvotes for" is an invitation to get downvoted.
I'd add "ageism" to the list.
Just sayin'...
Im curious what people like you want. If you look at the rest of the world, the west seems like it is decades ahead with this sort of stuff than anyone else in the world. And social change on national scales don't happen overnight. Yes improvements can be made, but HN is a site focussed on technology and that is what is mostly discussed. If some sexism or racism or whatever slips through, thats just the world we live in today. If you look at the youth today, they are already much more accommodating towards diverse views. Just give the world time and you'll see on average things will get better. But forcing your views onto people who grew up differently than you is just annoying.
[edit] when saying "people like you" I am refering to the highly vocal inflexible people on the interwebs.
I've been working in this industry for almost four decades. Who grew up differently from me?
You need to go back and fix all your wrong assumptions. There are lots of them.
"The west"?
Ok, so when is the US going to become part of the west?
The previous elected president of the United States believes that because he's privileged - by virtue of being a nepobaby - he can "grab women by the pussy", with no consequences.
So you tell me, what do "people like [us] want"? Do you really have no idea?
In the corpus of global communities this tends to be an extremely accepting and courteous one, from what I can tell over the last 13 years being on here.
I'm from Africa. Here "the west" is an expression refering to europe and the US and/or advanced democratic countries. I thought it was a common expression, I apologize if I was unclear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world
> The previous elected president of the United States believes that because he's privileged - by virtue of being a nepobaby...
Trump doesn't act the way he does "because he is priveledged by virtue of being a nepobaby". He acts that way, because he is old and grew up in times where acting that way was socially accepted. In modern times it is not accepted and people are growing up knowing it is wrong.
The point of my post was basically that preaching to a tech focussed website full of mostly middle aged men is the wrong strategy. If you want to make a difference, go to the youth and don't expect change to happen overnight.
Well that's alright then.
> And social change on national scales don't happen overnight.
Doesn't happen without a motive force, either. People being annoying, that kind of thing.
A website to discuss interesting things in thoughtful way that is largely free from sexism, ageism, and racism.
> the west seems like it is decades ahead with this sort of stuff
Some countries treated slaves better than other countries. Hopefully you can agree there was still a big problem to fix.
> social change on national scales don't happen overnight
Sure. And I'll be impatient and insistent until I live in the kind of world I want, which is one that is free as practically as possible from sexism, ageism, racism and other bias that keeps us from achieving what we are truly capable of as a species.
> If you look at the youth today, they are already much more accommodating towards diverse views
Which is why many of them avoid this site and call it "The Orange Site".
> Just give the world time and you'll see on average things will get better
I already said things are getting better. I also don't have time. I'm old. And the oppressed themselves have no patience. Nor should they.
> forcing your views onto people who grew up differently than you is just annoying
Who here is forcing their views on people who grew up differently?
If the price to pay for a better world is that I have to annoy some people who want to maintain the status quo, I am more than willing to pay that price. I wish it were actually that easy.
Don't be insane. You know what we want, and that's an end to sexism and racism. I don't care how we compare to other countries, I care how we rank on the "are we sexist or racist at all" metric.
Honestly, your question is one of the worst I have ever read, because it insinuates that you think it's ok to still be racist and sexist as long as we're less racist and sexist than others. We're not less racist or sexist than anyone else in the world, for one thing, so the premise for your complaint is baseless, and the amount of racism and sexism that is acceptable is zero, no matter where you are in the world.
Don't be insane.
If you point out something specific, some users will double down on their view that nothing is wrong. They start arguing as if they know nothing, and demand that every detail must be elaborated to them on a silver platter.
Oh, and the demands for stats.
Nevermind that the social sciences are in their infancy, and largely incapable of measuring the effects of things such as racism and sexism.
Science itself is the equivalent of a toddler - it is systematic (step by step), not systemic (whole picture). Reality is made of interconnected systems, and both perspectives are required to understand reality.
Or even a kitten ;)
Well for a site that loves to jack off to how much smarter they are than the rest of the internet, I’m just shocked.