Hacker News Reader

Comment by eggnet | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

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