Hmm. I can see what you're saying. (I'm actually kind of loyal to HN too, but I visit mainly for the comments.) Thanks for the idea -- it's much appreciated!
That’s a fair point! I would have to read HN’s terms of use though. Not sure if that’s allowed or not. I felt good scrapping the comments section since everyone there “opted in “ to share their website to the broader community.
This is also a good argument for splitting the submission votes from the comment votes. You can probably rack up decent submission points with a halfway intelligent script, which a little bit harder in the case of commenting. It might reflect my own use of the site but I also see HN as more of a commenting place than a link-finding place. Most of the (non-meta) links that end up on HN are already making the rounds elsewhere. The chatter can still be interesting though, even when hanging off some insipid TC post.
Centralizing on something like HN also lets you make a choice about which community you want to spend time discussing things with. Random commenter on random blog doesn't usually interest me.
Were it a different site, I'd follow your advice. However, HN is not just like any other Internet forum. Moreover, I do care about it and I want it to be a better place, we just differ about the means.
How could I start to do this?
HN sometimes has interesting blogs but I don't get caught in a sustained loop of interesting things. That sounds nice. I'd want to join.
You could post a list of topics that are frequently posted on HN and mark each topic as positively commented on or negatively commented on. Maybe add a trending graph over time too.
Edit: I’m not being snarky. Such a list or view could be useful to get the pulse of the times on HN.
If I had a blog, I would skip any kind of commenting system altogether and just post a link to every article I write to HN, and include a link to the discussion on HN in the article, and let HN be my commenting system. It would probably get more visibility, have better discussions, and even if the link was never seen by anyone on HN, it would still offer a place for discussion for a while. You would have the benefit of letting the HN community be a filter of who gets to respond, which I think is a pretty good filter.
Yes, my intention was not to imply HN isn't successful. It's incredibly successful imo; it's the best example that a good, quality community can be built and not lose focus. However, it is currently not economically successful. It could be monetized, maybe. However, subscriptions would drastically lower the number of commenters (better? Worse? Not sure.). Ads might be a good solution, because they could be very targetted, since this is a niche community.
Not really. In fairness, it's probably a bad day to have posted this.
Don't get me wrong, I love reading that kind of stuff too. But I'd rather get it from the other sites, rather than on HN. I guess that's our point of contention, but that's cool. I knew when I posted this that there'd be people who'd have the PoV that you have, and I can completely understand where you're coming from. Part of me would like to agree.
However, I'd also like HN to stay as it is, and not to end up as a repository for everything your or I find interesting. I think it'd lose something at that point.
But to re-iterate, I can completely understand where you're coming from. However, I (respectfully) take the other side.
As said earlier comments, I think that the best way for HN to operate is for those people to participate indirectly in the community (by commenting or submitting). Personally, I think its a more interesting way to learn and reveals a more genuine image of a person.
Seems like a cool idea but have you considered what role your popularity plays in all of it? I consider myself a casual visitor to HN and more of a lurker than anything yet I still recognize your site immediately meaning you've gained traction with random folk like myself let alone more hardcore members.
Yes. HN is a breath of fresh air, one of the last places on the Internet governed by the merit of content and discussion. I would pay just to support it (not that it needs it, I think).
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