"You obviously haven't been to much of the internet then- it really is one of the better communities."
"better" is relative. To me, HN is one of the "better" communities. Reddit is comprised of 1% people that are actually smart, 20% kooks, 15% political nutjobs, and the rest are early 20-something pseudo-intellectuals that feel that anything against the US, religion, or corporations makes them more intelligent and witty in the eyes of the world. I also get the feeling that people there have very little experience beyond a keyboard in their parent's house.
When I look at any HN article, most of the comments are sane, well-articulated, and thought-out. It's quite refreshing, actually.
Reddit to communities is what Craigslist is for dating.
I spend a considerable amount of time on reddit, and some on HN. What I would say is this: If I want a dry, knowledgeable discussion about a particular tech topic, I'll come to HN. If I want to laugh/cry/rage, I'll go to reddit. The SNR might be higher here, but there's far more wit there.
Both communities serve their purpose. HN is nice in that it is specifically not trying to be big. It seems that Paul Graham is trying quite hard to avoid an Eternal September-type scenario arising from the dilution of the community as it exists now. That's great, and I respect that. The flip side of that, however, is a lack of dynamism.
There's nothing unique about either site. I find the comments on HN to be generally more knowledgeable than those on r/technology, slightly better than r/programming, and about the same as r/netsec. When you get down to the smaller subreddits, the idiocy usually goes away.
>Reddit is comprised of 1% people that are actually smart, 20% kooks, 15% political nutjobs
I'll give you the last two, but I'd say you're off by an order of magnitude on the first one. That's a generalization of the site as a whole, mind you. Your figure might be entirely accurate for, say, r/pics.
>and the rest are early 20-something pseudo-intellectuals that feel that anything against the US, religion, or corporations makes them more intelligent and witty in the eyes of the world.
Again, depends on the subreddit. On r/politics, I'd say you're probably right. Many other subreddits would defy that description.
As I said before, r/tehcnology is hit and miss, but the smaller tech subreddits are good. I personally frequent r/netsec, and I often find good links and discussion at r/python, r/linux, and other tech subreddits.
"I'll give you the last two, but I'd say you're off by an order of magnitude on the first one. That's a generalization of the site as a whole, mind you. Your figure might be entirely accurate for, say, r/pics."
My figure is from every subreddit on the front page (without adding any of the specific ones you can add yourself). I could find conservative/republican subreddits, but that wouldn't represent the community as a whole either.
It's pretty obvious even from the link titles users have posted.
"As I said before, r/tehcnology is hit and miss, but the smaller tech subreddits are good. I personally frequent r/netsec, and I often find good links and discussion at r/python, r/linux, and other tech subreddits."
This also doesn't represent the community as a whole. These are small subreddits.
Seriously, though, if you just remove pics (add pics2), funny (add humour), worldnews, atheism, politics, and maybe reddit.com, you'll tripple the quality of discussion you run into.
It's easy to classify the big subreddits as "Reddit", but that's just not the case. The "community as a whole" is an ephemeral thing. You can't really judge it by the tone on some of the, admittedly larger, subreddits.
Seriously, you say how much better the community at HN is, but you dismiss the subreddits I mentioned, many of which have more users than HN. HN itself was originally supposed to be a subreddit, but the admins wouldn't give Paul what he wanted. Reddit itself is more of an umbrella than a group.
Sometimes the same articles get much better comments on Reddit than they do on HN. Also, for some reason, the Apple and Microsoft fanboys don't seem to be as rife there, or at least they're properly downvoted.
It's easy to point out fanboys we disagree with. A better mental tool might be reflecting upon yourself and finding out what you might be a fanboy of, what are you irrationally attached to that you will defend vehemently, even when at odds with reason?
Once you discover the object of your irrational affection, try to sympathize with those irrationally at odds with it (i.e. haters, detractors, bashers, the Other fanboy, etc.)
HN is smaller. When you have a forum of this size the members will be much closer to the ideals of the site (i.e. if it's about civil discourse then everyone will respect that, if it's about being a troll that's what you'll get). As the sites get larger you start getting closer to the average amount of kooks/idiots/assholes/etc. I can't think of a single site that got big and didn't have this.
Facebook is an interesting take on this by effectively blocking you from hearing much from people you don't wish to hear from.
"better" is relative. To me, HN is one of the "better" communities. Reddit is comprised of 1% people that are actually smart, 20% kooks, 15% political nutjobs, and the rest are early 20-something pseudo-intellectuals that feel that anything against the US, religion, or corporations makes them more intelligent and witty in the eyes of the world. I also get the feeling that people there have very little experience beyond a keyboard in their parent's house.
When I look at any HN article, most of the comments are sane, well-articulated, and thought-out. It's quite refreshing, actually.
Reddit to communities is what Craigslist is for dating.