Tell HN: The 2 best things I love about HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=765449

by ujjwalg • 17 years ago

31 45 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

1) No ads 2) The wealth of FILTERED information you get everyday without browsing any other website

I used to waste so much time on techcrunch, venturebeat, techmeme, slashdot, google news, mashable, engadget and the likes. But, thanks to HN, not anymore. :)

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

I would add

3) generally very thoughtful discussion in the comments.

grinich• 17 years ago

This is the #1 for me. There are other ways to filter content and block ads, but finding quality conversations is difficult.

patio11• 17 years ago

Honestly, if they removed the URLs from the front page and just kept the conversation topics and community, I'd still get 98% of the value from the site.

(Ads are value-neutral for me, incidentally.)

thunk3• 17 years ago

ur gay, lol

jrockway2• 17 years ago

die in a fire, rtard.

allenbrunson• 17 years ago

Yeah, news.yc has changed my expectations forever about the way people interact with each other online. I can't look at any other forums these days without being appalled at how casually rude everybody is.

MikeW• 17 years ago

HN loads extremely quickly. I can generally scan through a page of comments quicker than the linked article while their rendering is blocked on 3rd party scripts/ads

uuilly• 17 years ago

I find that when I have a crap iPhone connection and I want to surf, I go to HN just b/c I know it will load.

mgrouchy• 17 years ago

For me its:

1) Subject Matter of the articles. for the most part the articles on here are right on target in what I am interested in.I know lately there has been talk of some cruft getting through, but for the most part the quality of articles to make it to front page is high.

2) Community I find that the community here is respectful and the members tend(and their comments) to be quite knowledgeable and highly focused. The community in general is a positive one.

prawn• 17 years ago

1. Interesting content.

2. Good quality, helpful, useful comments with very few idiots.

unalone3• 17 years ago

I'll chip in with the "2 worst things I hate about HN", since I enjoy being contrary.

1) The groupthink that arises in certain political/scientific/social debates. I find that the nontech debates here are more uniform and less varied than they are on sites with similar quality.

2) While the site's filtration is good, the fact that its only two lenses are "news" and "jobs" makes the community less flexible and, frequently, less engaging.

It's still easily a top three social news site, though, so I'll resume my lurking and quit being a pest.

weaksauce• 17 years ago

I think point 2 is a bit off. Normally the items that hit the front page are indeed news, but a largish percentage of the content is not new, just interesting to hackers and accepted because it hasn't been posted to HN in a while.

unalone3• 17 years ago

I meant "news" in the "social news" sense, where if it's new to me I'm fine with it. That said, it's a category that gets clogged with trivial announcements from YC companies, a lot of tech gossip that I don't care for, and articles on subjects I'm not interested in that other people really dig. I wish there was some system that would let me see what I wanted and remove the rest.

cubicle67• 17 years ago

at 5600+ karma, that's some serious lurking you've been doing :)

unalone3• 17 years ago

I noprocrasted my account for 4 months. I used to feel more involved in the community than I do now. I'll consider that lurking.

iigs• 17 years ago

I agree with the groupthink thing, there are some pretty well defined no-fly-zones for ideas and opinions, but given that the charter is more "be nice" than "get to the bottom of every issue", I'm happy to let things slide when I don't agree with the dominant line of thought.

I so far gravitate toward other sites to balance my conversational diet.

edw519• 17 years ago

For me it's:

1. I don't have to be in a vacuum anymore. If I read something on the internet and form an opinion about it, I can post it here and see what others think. I can also comment on any discussion, and soon enough I'll probably get feedback. I simply don't have that many people in my life with whom I can have this interaction about things I care about.

2. I don't have to be alone. I usually work from home alone for long hours. Some days, being one alt-click away from like minded people keeps me going.

tptacek2• 17 years ago

For me, it's definitely rms.

kirubakaran2• 17 years ago

Get a room you two :-p

tptacek2• 17 years ago

Oh can we rms?

TheElder• 17 years ago

I love the lack of leftist politics that have taken over reddit.

kirubakaran2• 17 years ago

My favorite is the absence of circlejerk ;)

swombat• 17 years ago

Except for present company, of course.

julsonl• 17 years ago

The articles posted here are always interesting and of good quality. The comments are well-mannered without a bunch of idiots ruining the posts (most of the time anyway).

jeffcoat• 17 years ago

News aggregators are useful if they convince me to read something useful that I otherwise wouldn't have seen.

A few seconds before I saw this question, I saw the link to "The Economics of Suicide". Surely a recipe for content-free emoting, that I would usually ignore ... but with 20 up-votes on a Saturday night. And I'm better off for having read it.

I still skim Slashdot, too. That's just a different selection of things I wouldn't have otherwise seen, but sometimes enjoy.

computerofmeat• 17 years ago

I'm not even a programmer but I come on here every day because when the submissions are relevant to my interests they're very good quality.

christonog• 17 years ago

1. Ask HN feature. 2. Comments and discussion.

hikari17• 17 years ago

I like that when I see a comment that I'm tempted to downvote (if I could), several people have already taken care of that for me.

Also, the amount of cross-disciplinary knowledge the community brings to bear on most issues is pleasantly humbling.

quizbiz• 17 years ago

A community of doers and thinkers.

dimarco• 17 years ago

I had never even visited techcrunch, venturebeat, mashable or engadget before stumbling upon HN. There are a ton of links to these sites.

But the thoughtful and insightful discussion by like-minded developers is a breath of fresh air.

ashr• 17 years ago

1. High quality discussions. 2. Any BS gets called out with relevant evidence

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

2. Any BS gets called out with relevant evidence

There could still be more improvement in this, but the current baseline is not bad.

DTrejo• 17 years ago

1. Meeting people! (Whether through the comments here or through #startups)

2. People help each other! (Ask HN, website feedback, participating in betas, etc)

sarunas• 17 years ago

I tend to filter information also using www.postrank.com for high volume sites such as the ones mentioned by OP.

ryanwaggoner• 17 years ago

1. HN is one of the few places where I constantly bump into people who are simultaneously more knowledgeable, more intelligent, and more accomplished than I am. Humbling, challenging, and rewarding.

2. I love that this is a community where smart people help other smart people navigate life, from deciding what to major in, to picking a database server, to dealing with an unruly roommate.

xhuang• 17 years ago

people in here give motivation start my own startup

olliesaunders• 17 years ago

People probably shouldn't be up-voting meta discussions.

bartl• 17 years ago

Compared to, for example Programming Reddit, HN has:

1. Good quality links (less fluff, and good links are often more visible here) 2. Good quality comments.

yef• 17 years ago

I disagree. Techmeme is better for quick news scans.

And the level of discourse here is better than most places, but the time decay of stories (and comments) leads to quick bursts of discussion near the top, followed by dead silence.

known• 17 years ago

    * Community
    * Quality of Comments

skwaddar• 17 years ago

1) Fast turnover of stories 2) the 250ish limit means I can actually run out of reading and get back to working

Tell HN: The 2 best things I love about HN

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