Show HN: Coinspotting - A Hacker News For Bitcoins and Other Cryptocurrencies | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Coinspotting - A Hacker News For Bitcoins and Other Cryptocurrencies

coinspotting.com

117 pointscoinspotting52 comments

Ok, can we stop now? They reason I prefer HN instead of say Reddit is precisely because all the news are in one place. The new trend "Hacker News for X" basically means hey guys let's make Reddit, without all the good stuff.

> The new trend "Hacker News for X"

New trend? This has been happening continuously for about 5 years now.

I'm just amazed people keep upvoting it, despite the fact these sites always die.

Why isn't there a Hacker News for Hacker News for X?

>Show HN: HNaaS (Hacker News As a Service... in ~100 lines of js)

But at least with Reddit you can subscribe to the subreddits you like. With extra "HNs", you have to visit each individually.

exactly!!!

making sites like this is kind of equivalent to news.ycombinator.com/r/bitcoin

Hacker News + tags: http://hubski.com/tag?id=bitcoin

Quick, someone write MetaNews: A hacker news for "A hacker news for X" websites!

That's reddit, really.

Ironically, there is already a HN subreddit.

But it's join-by-approval only and there's nothing there.

There's also http://www.reddit.com/r/hackerjerk

I don't think so. From my understanding he is talking about a HN clone that only allows posts about new HN clones.

Yes, that's what I meant. And this would beg for a Meta version of itself, although I'm not sure what that could be..

Until someone does you can use the following HNSearch queries: [1], [2] and [3] (roughly best to wrost). Note that you'll get HN apps along with HN clones.

[1] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%22hac...

[2] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=show+%...

[3] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=%22sho...

Edit: [2] finds this 'Show HN: Hacker News for "Hacker News for 'X'"': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5436841.

Edit 2: Improved the search queries.

No kidding. And, be sure to rip off the entire look and feel with only a color change.

Seems like there should be at least a little shame with these Hacker News for X sites.

It's not really "ripping off" anything given that the structure and css are included with the Arc distro which a lot of these sites appear to be using.

Yeah, maybe it's the idea of taking that CSS/structure and creating an exact clone of HN for some specific niche that lacks originality in my book.

well, to be fair, if this is any indication of how deeply integrated markup, data and code are in an Arc application, making any kind of changes to the rendered document would be potentially horribly painful: https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/html.arc

(sorry... I'm sure people think this is awesome because zomg Lisp but in any other language it would be derided as "spaghetti code")

That's pretty bad.

So, what we're saying is these guys are merely using the open source Arc webapp that HN is using and changing a few styles?

If so, that's actually not dishonorable and more like just starting a niche community with forum software.

And, I have been educated.

Wow, Lisp is pretty gross. There just doesn't look like a whole lot of order there, and it looks pretty annoying to write.

I do wonder if there's such a thing as a web framework in a Lisp, Arc or what have you, with templating and a url router and all that. Or if that's even possible. Or if the Lisp community would recoil in horror at the very thought.

I mean I know (as far as I know) this was pg's pet project and it's taken off like nothing i've written ever has, but I can't see it selling a blub like me on the language. Nothing makes me want to touch a Lisp less than seeing it.

On the same day, we get a filter that is by default HN without Bitcoin and another site that is HN only about Bitcoin.

It's like we're approaching some sort of binary tree data structure where the leaves are HN clones with their own indiosyncratic topic configurations.

The two are, of course, motivated by the same plea: for HN to be only for discourse about technology/hacking/building/entrepreneur-ing itself, and to leave the discussion of the politics surrounding it to somewhere else.

I mean, we all want to discuss techpolitik sometimes... but generally not at the same time we're reading about new tech.

HN might be well-served doing something like MetaFilter's "blue/grey" split, but instead of just a content/meta division, a "hacks/sociopolitical-implications-of-hacks" division. HN is already a community, and it'd be nice if the account names and karma stayed synchronized.

The community has become more complex than the structure of Hacker News allows for.

I shall call it a subreddit.

Change the header color to a nice yellow "coin" color, like #F9BA00, or the official Bitcoin color, #FF9933.

Agreed. Also, the favicon is pretty disappointing.

I do look forward to keeping an eye on it though. I hope it takes off. Thanks for sharing.

Wait, I thought this was called "the HN front page". /snark

Great idea! Some request

* add an API (apps, mobile browsing)

* integrate tipping (upvote = tip)

* add signup fee to limit spam

Not sure if upvote = tips is a fantastic idea or a way for trolls and dramatic people to make a living.

Talk about a "knowledge economy"!

Instead of paying trolls, monetizing trolls might be a good idea. You could have people buy karma, buy mod rights, buy out other people's mod rights, etc.

Of course posting and downvoting would have a karma cost.

> add signup fee to limit spam

- this assumes that there would flood of users on this site and a chunk of them will actually pay for it. Will you use HN if there is a fee? Instead, why not just write an algorithm to limit spam Or a 'report spam' button?

This is an interesting debate. During the last weeks I've been working in a concept like this, but is not ready yet.

I'm a big fan of Hacker News, and I'm trying to create something that isn't an exact copy of HN, so if someone is interested feel free to sign up to the "The Currency" mailing list in http://thecurrency.io/ or send me an e-mail to hi@thecurrency.io. I count to have some news in the next weeks.

PS: and I also appreciate to have some feedback about the landing page: brand, value proposition, etc.

Thanks.

To be honest, there is a need for something much more filtered than bitcointalk.org. That used to be /r/bitcoin, but it really sucks now.

My question for the coinspotting people: How are you going to maintain high quality? If you don't have any plan, it will probably be filled with crap and eventually die.

_love_ the domain name!

I guess the name is a reference to Trainsportting? Great domain name in any case.

I made something similar a couple of weeks ago: http://www.bitcoinfyi.com

Although it doesn't have quite as much traction as yours :P

Awsome work, Recently I heard about Cryptocurrencylive (www.cryptocurrencylive.com) too. We'll have to wait and see who makes the best news.

Why is this better than the Bitcoin Reddit Page?

You serious? Getting stabbed IRL is less bad than /r/bitcoin. I'm not sure if the memes or continual circlejerking are worse.

Why is this better than /r/bitcoinserious, /r/bitcoinmarkets, or creating a new subreddit for bitcoin?

Well, anything that might result in fewer BTC posts in HN is fine by me, for one...

Because of reddit's management policies and ownership by mainstream media. Not to mention the total control of Bitcoin-related forum threads there by anointed moderators who are also pump and dump propaganda masters.

That is also a potential problem with an HN spin-off not being run by the same people.

Correct, spin-off site operators need to be trusted not to be P&D moles. However, mystery odds beat certain odds of P&D message control (as seen in Reddit).

Because reddit sucks. There, I said it.

So brave.

Except creating something that looks like HN does not automatically attract the same crowd as HN. There are plenty of clean, meme-free, well managed Reddits. This new site could just as well turn into /r/bitcoin.

Also, anything bitcoin related is going to turn into a "circle-jerk". That's the point isn't it? They exist to educate, market, hype-up, and encourage everyone to use BitCoin. No thanks.

Communities are made of people. Software alone is only half the story. The problem with reddit is redditors.

Love it.

Do these hacker news clones truly run on top of that LISP legacy stuff? Or are they rewritten?

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