Ask HN: Do you tell other people about HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373762

by viggity • 18 years ago

11 37 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've been very hesitant to tell any of my friends about HN. I've seen the kind of content that gets generated when the community population explodes, and I'd really hate to see that happen here. It's not that I don't trust my friend's content, I don't trust their friend's content.

I know the HN has generally rebuffed off-topic material, but at the same time it still shows up. Should the broken window theory or a video of a meteor really be on the front page today? Its not that I don't enjoy that content, but allowing some of it is a slippery slope and before you know it we could be seeing posts that stipulate that Karl Rove eats deep fried baby flesh.

So HN, what do you think?

beaudeal• 18 years ago

As far as telling other people goes, I find that HN comes up most often when I tell my friends about the interesting stories I find here. The reaction from non-technical people is usually something to the effect of: "Where the hell do you find this stuff??" The reaction from technical people is usually something like: "Yeah, I already read that on HN." With regards to the first group, it seems that they always find the stories interesting, but never show any signs that they'll make HN one of their news sources, and I'm fine with that.

For me, things such as the meteor video or an article about the Broken Windows Theory are fine, and I don't foresee any "Karl Rove eats deep fried baby flesh" articles soon, but I'd like to keep it that way. The community at HN is the root of the reason I keep coming back.

WarTheatre• 18 years ago

I'm also cautious about writing about HN on various communities I visit simply because I fear it would attract the wrong crowds, e.g. spammers, trolls and your average eternal septemberists.

Right now HN is a great community for startups, Internet businesses, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs. The signal to noise ratio is very high and discussions are relevant, mostly civil and very interesting. Heck, I can't name another site with so much relevant content for Internet businesses.

Furthermore, I think it's perfectly fine that HN remains a relatively small and focus community, not every site must be like Digg or Slashdot in size.

Regards, WarTheatre

jsmcgd• 18 years ago

I tell people about it but most people aren't interested. I think they're happy to let me be their geek news filter, or perhaps they're just humoring me. Either way I think the aesthetics of the site go a long way to keep out wrong people.

pg3• 18 years ago

Yes, I tell smart people. If their friends' friends submit stuff that's offtopic, the editors just kill it. Though in fact I think our strongest defense against idiots is to look boring to them.

Incidentally, the broken windows story isn't offtopic. News.YC isn't just about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in hacking.

dustineichler• 18 years ago

likewise, i tell people i think will contribute and/ or involve themselves with the community, not just use selfishly... after-all i think what we're all doing here is valuable. otherwise, just keep you're mouth shut. my dad always said, "loose lips sink ships". it's trite, but still true.

Alex39174• 18 years ago

None of my friends would like it. As unscientific as the Meyers-Briggs test is, I really do think this site appeals mostly to a small subset of XNTPs. And there aren't that many of those around.

MaysonL• 18 years ago

We INTPs also enjoy it :<)

Xichekolas3• 18 years ago

Well, seeing has there is no such thing as an XNTP, I'm pretty sure the X in the OP was a variable. ;)

pg3• 18 years ago

I just tried one of those tests. It said I was an INTJ. Are the letters in order of significance? I.e. is INTJ the next door neighbor of INTP?

Xichekolas3• 18 years ago

http://www.typelogic.com/intj.html

As far as I know the letters are always in the same order. To put it in regex form: (E|I)(S|N)(F|T)(J|P)

Alex39174• 18 years ago

INTJ is the next closest to (E/I)NTP. The reason there are less INTJs on the site is probably because they are more rare, rather than because the temperament is different.

pg3• 18 years ago

Jessica just tried the same test and was classified as an ISTJ, which judging from the description is hilariously accurate.

"Under stress, ISTJs may fall into "catastrophe mode", where they see nothing but all of the possibilities of what could go wrong. They will berate themselves for things which they should have done differently, or duties which they failed to perform. They will lose their ability to see things calmly and reasonably, and will depress themselves with their visions of doom."

(Within YC Jessica's nickname is Panic.)

DaniFong3• 18 years ago

It's a weird theory, but it is somewhat coherent. INTJ is very close to INTP, just not really for that reason. ENTP is the classic entrepreneur. INTP/INTJ is the classic hacker; there was a poll on here and nearly 60% of the people 662 people who voted were INTP/INTJ, whereas they're each around 2-3% in the ordinary population. 10% of the rest were ENTP. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=204240)

Basically, the Myers-Briggs type determines your preferences for particular cognitive functions. The four letter indicator is like an extreme Huffman coding of those preferences:

Your information-gathering, perceiving function (that is, input.) This can be either i(N)tuitive or (S)ensing. Roughly, a sensing person trusts their senses, directly what they see and hear from the world. And an intuitive person trusts, or looks for knowledge, in their subconscious and conscious cognitive models.

Your decision-making, judging function (that is, output.) This can be either (T)hinking or (F)eeling. Roughly, the thinking person is at ease when they can make a decision supported by a logical process, and the feeling person prefers to make the decision according to their gut.

(E)xtroverted and (I)ntroverted describes the social attitudes of each of the 'functions,' in other words, whether you, when information-gathering, or decision making, prefer to focus on behavior, action, people and things or the internal world of ideas and reflection. There is only one letter for this, even though each function is supposed to have its own attitude. This is because Isabel Myers believed that there was always a balance; if you are introverted in information-gathering, you're extroverted in decision making.

Finally, the last letter, (P)erciving or (J)udging, specifies which side of yourself; perception (information-gathering) or judgment (decision-making), you tend to show to the world. Perceiving types prefer to "keep decisions open." Judging types prefer to "have matters settled." The YCombinator practice of deciding quickly, while it may be a definite plus for both sides, is a judging characteristic, for example.

ig1• 18 years ago

Have a look at the comments on the broken window theory post, a lot of them are about the applicability of the theory to online social sites, something which is very on-topic on HN. Just because an article isn't inherently startupish, it doesn't mean that it's not relevent to HN.

pavelludiq• 18 years ago

Conversation with a friend:

friend: "You don't look good, whats wrong"-

I: "I haven't slept that well, i was up all night"

friend: "WTF were you doing all night"

I: "Lurking on HN of course, and reading the old Dilbert strips"

Maybe i should try this "noprocrast" feature, but i don't know what to do about Dilbert though. :D

You people are great, i read reddit to find cool articles, but i don't bother to read the comments, but here, i read mostly the comments, they are more valuable than the original articles sometimes.

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

Indeed, I often find myself reading the comments before the article here.

It's probably a bad habit though, I suppose I should form my own opinion about the article first.

sherl0ck• 18 years ago

I did this all the times, so I don't waste my time to read awful articles.

zitterbewegung• 18 years ago

First rule of hn. Don't tell others about hn.

kiplinger• 18 years ago

I heard about it from my friend at work.

markessien• 18 years ago

The first stage of a community falling apart is when it starts getting meta. When your prayer group start discussing about how right their prayer group is, and how wrong other groups are; when K5 started getting lots of articles about K5; when the IQ club starts talking about how IQ makes them different.

That's always the step that precedes some type of change. Because when people start looking within, they never seem to be satisfied with what's there.

unalone2• 18 years ago

That's what it was like with Reddit. Their new subreddits saved themselves from that: AskReddit is an excellent part of the site, now.

Metafiler has AskMeFi. Maybe Hacker News could get something like that? Or perhaps we could choose to filter out self-referential posts?

grag• 18 years ago

I think an option to filter out (or just see) self-referential posts would be great. I actually like AskHN posts a lot, and an option to just see those posts would probably encourage people to post more.

run4yourlives• 18 years ago

The broken window theory article wasn't off-topic, the discussion immediately evolved into how it related to online forums and was very interesting.

cookiecaper• 18 years ago

Yes, I tell others about HN, but only those that I know will be valuable and interested users.

IsaacSchlueter• 18 years ago

My least favorite HN content, by far: Bitching about HN and its content.

Srsly, folks, just don't vote it up if you don't like it. It really is that easy.

This isn't "startup news" or "programmer news", it's "hacker news". It's news that is interesting to hackers. And it delivers quite well.

As it happens, some hackers are into politics or business or meteors or robots or science or economics. Some are not.

You should expect that about 10-20% of the articles will not be interesting to you. Consider that a success.

vizard• 18 years ago

I am bored of all these posts that talk about HN. I am not on HN to talk about HN itself dammit.

paulgb• 18 years ago

I'm more disappointed to see "10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That Made Someone Rich" on the front page than broken windows or a meteor. Being on-topic doesn't make up for bad content.

siong1987• 18 years ago

My approach is to tell only startup founders about HN. You will be surprised that many founders do not know about HN at all. But, it becomes less and less now.

And, my approach to meet smart people is to check out how many karma points those people have in HN.

Ask HN: Do you tell other people about HN?

Related Stories