I have been around HN for about 4 years now (I lurked before I created my account) -- there used to be all sorts of interesting articles on the front page (not just about programming, but genuinely interesting things like music, biology, psychology etc). Now, every third story is about NSA/Snowden, Openness, or someone's blog about how XYZ is bad and we should all do ABC instead. The front page typically has maybe one post that I care about these days.
Comments similarly started lacking in quality, or maybe the really vocal minority are just louder than everyone else. You're right that slashdot comments are way worse (jokes aren't frowned-upon as they on HN, so a lot of discussions degrade to cheap jokes), but the articles are moderated by a handful of people and are typically more interesting.
It's simply a function of a user-run moderation system that reaches a critical point, after which is it logistically impossible for the "good few" to moderate out all the bad ones because their votes count the same. We saw it in Slashdot comments, Digg and Reddit, and now we are seeing it here.
Comments similarly started lacking in quality, or maybe the really vocal minority are just louder than everyone else. You're right that slashdot comments are way worse (jokes aren't frowned-upon as they on HN, so a lot of discussions degrade to cheap jokes), but the articles are moderated by a handful of people and are typically more interesting.
It'd be interesting to see some statistics on who comments on what articles. (And who doesn't.)
As it stands I sort of feel like I'm crashing a party, and would serve you all best by leaving.
I've found that articles with a bunch of comments have inevitably devolved into trolls shrieking at each other. But historically I've gotten as much or more out of the comments as the articles.
Could this be because the crowd is getting older and becoming more aware of this ever increasing political and social issues that affect the industry? You could have confirmation bias. I don't see too many political/social posts, maybe that's because I have confirmation bias the other way - I look for the interesting articles you talk about. Maybe the site needs to go full Lisp articles once a month to flush out the jokers (can't remember the language, haven't seen one in a while sorry)
I think it's more to do with the largest tech-based scandal since stuxnet, except with a vast litany of content of trickling leaks is going on right now. People may have topic fatigue, but it's not like some manufactured sideshow - things are really being shaken up, and it's paramount that folk in the industry follow it to know the state of play. Perhaps it's easier for non-US readers to maintain an interest and opinion on the topic, both due to being overtly targetted and being immune to the defensiveness we can all feel when our institutions are taking a hammering (even if we essentially agree in the fact they have made mistakes).
Aside from political posts, I think there is still a broad range of content on here that spans far more than myopic coding/entrepreneurial blogs etc.
Comments
I have been around HN for about 4 years now (I lurked before I created my account) -- there used to be all sorts of interesting articles on the front page (not just about programming, but genuinely interesting things like music, biology, psychology etc). Now, every third story is about NSA/Snowden, Openness, or someone's blog about how XYZ is bad and we should all do ABC instead. The front page typically has maybe one post that I care about these days.
Comments similarly started lacking in quality, or maybe the really vocal minority are just louder than everyone else. You're right that slashdot comments are way worse (jokes aren't frowned-upon as they on HN, so a lot of discussions degrade to cheap jokes), but the articles are moderated by a handful of people and are typically more interesting.
It's simply a function of a user-run moderation system that reaches a critical point, after which is it logistically impossible for the "good few" to moderate out all the bad ones because their votes count the same. We saw it in Slashdot comments, Digg and Reddit, and now we are seeing it here.
It'd be interesting to see some statistics on who comments on what articles. (And who doesn't.)
As it stands I sort of feel like I'm crashing a party, and would serve you all best by leaving.
I've found that articles with a bunch of comments have inevitably devolved into trolls shrieking at each other. But historically I've gotten as much or more out of the comments as the articles.
Could this be because the crowd is getting older and becoming more aware of this ever increasing political and social issues that affect the industry? You could have confirmation bias. I don't see too many political/social posts, maybe that's because I have confirmation bias the other way - I look for the interesting articles you talk about. Maybe the site needs to go full Lisp articles once a month to flush out the jokers (can't remember the language, haven't seen one in a while sorry)
I think it's more to do with the largest tech-based scandal since stuxnet, except with a vast litany of content of trickling leaks is going on right now. People may have topic fatigue, but it's not like some manufactured sideshow - things are really being shaken up, and it's paramount that folk in the industry follow it to know the state of play. Perhaps it's easier for non-US readers to maintain an interest and opinion on the topic, both due to being overtly targetted and being immune to the defensiveness we can all feel when our institutions are taking a hammering (even if we essentially agree in the fact they have made mistakes).
Aside from political posts, I think there is still a broad range of content on here that spans far more than myopic coding/entrepreneurial blogs etc.