HN users consistently imply this place has better comments than Reddit. "Reddit is a cesspool." "Can we please not bring this to HN as well." etc.
I've never had a problem avoiding content I didn't like there. Meanwhile I saw great discussions at various times.
Here, on the other hand, I've nearly stopped reading. Besides the unjustified elitism, constantly I'd post on a thread here only to see it disappear with no explanation. I don't understand HN's weighting and it seems to change without notice, or it did a while ago. Arbitrary curating means someone is arbitrarily imposing their values on discussions. I prefer allowing legal speech.
I generally preferred Reddit to HN and will probably end up going to Voat.co like everyone else talks about.
EDIT: Case in point: When I posted the above, the story was number 1 and it was about fifty minutes old. When it hit one hour, it dropped to number 5. The stories that it dropped behind were 5 to 12 hours old so I doubt they suddenly got surges of activity.
In the time I wrote the above edit this story dropped to number 11. Soon it will probably drop from the front page. Who knows?
I don't understand HN's weighting. Maybe this story is getting downvoted and user behavior is driving its trajectory, but it seems arbitrary and tells me to leave the site.
EDIT 2: corrected voat.co address thanks to ljk's comment.
HN isn't very good, but it's a little better than the current state of reddit, which is like a middle school without adults. At least people try to be intellectual on HN.
It really depends where you look and what subreddits you subscribe to. Opening reddit this morning looked exactly the same to me as any other day, except for one thread because I'm subscribed to /r/subredditdrama.
I'd rather we all be intentionally snooty and arrogant and keep the unsuited at bay instead of succumbing. We can easily be silenced with a few keystrokes, at pg's command.
> HN users consistently imply this place has better comments than Reddit
That isn't a big surprise, is it? If they thought otherwise, they'd be commenting on Reddit about how HN sucks :)
Reddit and HN have different audiences. I tried both and found HN suits me much better. If it's not your cup of tea, nothing wrong with that too.
Yes, HN story ranking is arcane and I wish there were better tools to track content I like. But it also has a lot of insightful people and great discussions while trying not to devolve into circus.
> will probably end up going to Voat.co like everyone else talks about.
Good luck with that. The users exiting reddit are precisely the kind of users you don't want on your website. The young, trolls, immature and racist/bigots. They're essentially filling their community up with 4channers. That site is already filled with reddit's /r/conspiracy users. They run many of the most popular subreddits.
That place is doomed to fail. And as far as I know, they've already begun banning users and blacklisting domains. So much for "free speech".
There are lots of normal, high-functioning and even helpful users having discussions daily on 4chan. This is something that is often glossed over by folks who don't understand chan culture: its chaotic neutral, not chaotic evil.
> constantly I'd post on a thread here only to see it disappear with no explanation.
We surely don't have the same experience with reddit then, most big subreddits have a huge amount of rules and posting to them will just cause a bot/moderator to remove your thread and ask you to make changes
> cause a bot/moderator to remove your thread and ask you to make changes
He said "disappear with no explanation". Most of the time, bots will comment on why a post was removed. Not only that, the rules are indicative of why your post was removed. It serves as an explanation. Here on HN, you get nothing. Not even a list of rules which need to be followed.
> Arbitrary curating means someone is arbitrarily imposing their values on discussions.
This has been bothering me about HN for some time. Maybe it's due to a smaller user base, but having stories disappear, specific user's comments always being weighted lower, and childish hellbanning is really discouraging. It does give the sense of a 'country club', where if you're not of the same bread and butter as those making the rules then you're not welcome.
I've never had a problem avoiding content I didn't like there. Meanwhile I saw great discussions at various times.
Here, on the other hand, I've nearly stopped reading. Besides the unjustified elitism, constantly I'd post on a thread here only to see it disappear with no explanation. I don't understand HN's weighting and it seems to change without notice, or it did a while ago. Arbitrary curating means someone is arbitrarily imposing their values on discussions. I prefer allowing legal speech.
I generally preferred Reddit to HN and will probably end up going to Voat.co like everyone else talks about.
EDIT: Case in point: When I posted the above, the story was number 1 and it was about fifty minutes old. When it hit one hour, it dropped to number 5. The stories that it dropped behind were 5 to 12 hours old so I doubt they suddenly got surges of activity.
In the time I wrote the above edit this story dropped to number 11. Soon it will probably drop from the front page. Who knows?
I don't understand HN's weighting. Maybe this story is getting downvoted and user behavior is driving its trajectory, but it seems arbitrary and tells me to leave the site.
EDIT 2: corrected voat.co address thanks to ljk's comment.