Hacker News Reader

> Proggit (programming.reddit.com) is (IMHO) just awful.

So I went over there, and the first article is about protocol-less links, and the first comment notes that they have performance issues in css for IE7 & 8. The second article is a link to dadgum and the first comment is about optimizing network communication.

It's not HN, but awful is an overstatement.

> t's not HN, but awful is an overstatement.

Agreed. In many ways I find Reddit to be much better and more enjoyable. First, it provides a better UX, especially for posting and revising comments. Second, there is much less pedantry there than on HN ("Well technically... Well technically... Exception in this exceptional case! No it's not. Yes it is! Exotic edge case under theoretical conditions I read about in a book that one time!" etc.). Third, there are less haters. Fourth, there are lots of funny and creative writers there, again, unlike here on HN. There are definitely positives about HN, and both HN and Reddit share some of the same weaknesses (a unimind or Thought Police effect: if you post a view that strays too far from the median you will get downvotes that penalizes your karma, even if your post was thoughtful, well-written, constructive, polite, etc.)

It seems like proggit is dying. I've been subbed to it for a few years and there used to be a lot more submissions. I don't have data to back it up and hopefully I am wrong but if I am not I imagine us programmers prefer to go to sources totally dedicated for programming instead of a mixed bag. It would make sense for proggit to be dying out though because Reddit used to be primarily for tech and has of course now shifted out of tech and into everything.

I stopped following proggit months ago for the simple reason that there's too much not-about-programming posts. Too much of the content was "announcing my iphone app!", "omg industry gossip!" and stackoverflow repost variety. And I was sick of it.

I tried for about 2 months to politely explain to posters why their posts didn't fit the guidelines and then I quit and gave up. Why fight an inevitability?

I think the value of a site declines over time relative to how long an individual has been viewing it. The first few weeks I started browsing Hacker News, a large portion of the articles were interesting.

The percentage of interesting articles has declined over time. Is that because I have overdosed a bit on the types of articles and discussions that appear here? Or simply because I have consumed more internet based news now than I had when I started reading HN? Who is to say.

Yes, sites in general can and have declined. However, due to the fact that I have not seen trolls dominate HN, and in my view the quality of HN is approximately as good as it has always been, I find it difficult to measure the quality of the site to a precision that would allow me to track it over time. In my own head.

The short answer is, this site is still among the best discussion news sites on the internet.

I am not a programmer, just a normal computer user with above average knowledge compared to the bog standard users. I love this site because i learn something new every single day. Same with Hackaday. I find reading articles on things you know absolutely nothing about, makes them that much interesting. For instance, i love glossing over C or ASM code, but i couldn't understand it if it depended on my life; i know nothing about programming (i can make basic applications with Visual Basic, which is looked down upon on every forum i've read).

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I hang out here so much because a) a lot of the content shared is interesting to anyone with an interest in technology, computers, or lately the world in general (seems like HN has been growing more broad), and b) With the rare exception, the discussion here is interesting and executed with respect. At times the conversations are more interesting than the articles. People here often cite sources, they highlight points they liked about a post before they disagree. I had a philosophy teacher who often would randomly just throw out into the class "Intelligent people disagree! It's ok!" I feel like that is supported here, a majority of the time.

The way people here go about disagreeing with one another is perhaps my favorite part of hacker news.

I think that's a very good point. It's similar to how when you start learning something new, you'll make a lot of progress easily and everything will seem fresh and original. After a while, you've discovered most of the big ideas in the field and have see a lot of what is on offer, so things start to seem worse and less original.

A good way to test this hypothesis would be to check with people who are new to the scene and new to Hacker News. Do they react to the content similarly to how old members initially reacted?

I agree with most of your post, but would clarify:

>> People complain about how HN is getting worse. That's probably true and it is true (and will continue to be true) of any such social site in the future.

Two things:

1. "Worse" is subjective.

2. I think it's more of a trade-off between quality and size. Hacker News doesn't have to get "worse", but would have to remain niche in order to avoid it. That is why subreddits can succeed, because Reddit is essentially a platform for lots of niche communities.

If by "niche" you mean high quality, in depth content that takes effort to digest, as opposed to brain candy that makes you feel like you're in a special club when you're not, and that you're thinking when you're not, then I would very much prefer the "niche".

>I'm surprised at how some wax lyrical on how amazing reddit is. It's just a minor tweak on a long trend of existing prior art (the subreddits). Personally I think it's a cesspool full of trolls. Proggit (programming.reddit.com) is (IMHO) just awful.

Reddit is the easiest way I know of to generate a targeted community. I've set up subreddits, forgot about them, and come back to find them with thousands of members and fresh content. Are there other comparable ways to do this?

Starting a wiki? I know that wikis spring up for recently released video games pretty frequently, although I'm not sure if anything like that happens for non-video game content.

Reddit as a whole brings immense value in the sheer volume of unusual content. The AMA section varies from banal to fascinating, for example — and the strength of the interesting content far outweighs the easy-to-skip bad.

The quality of individual subreddits varies wildly, of course. This should not be a surprise. In a way, Reddit's subreddits feature brought back the spirit of Usenet.

The smaller the subreddit, the better it is. Also see:

http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

>Basically all these social sites get worse over time as the masses flood in.

They only get worse for people who don't like mainstream content.

Mainstream is lowest common denominator aka crap.

"Mainstream" is often content that is polished enough, well done enough, and original enough that it can stand on its own without referring to fringe cultural appeal. "Alternative" content often relies on the fact that its fans like its particular style of "alternativeness" to compensate for the fact that its execution is lacking.