[k__]

> the best submissions and the best comments do tend to float to the top

I guess this is a "filter-bubble" problem. The HN crowd is (probably?) rather homogenous, so the stuff that gets to the top is stuff the people here like and think is good. This doesn't mean that anything getting to the top here is good in a general sense.

There are enough people out there who despise HN for being a bunch of privileged white guys, who only talk about stuff that privileged white guys like.

I'm one of these privileged white guys and I like what's going on here, so I'm probably not in the position to judge HN objectively, haha.

[Freak_NL]

I don't quite get why you jump from homogeneous to 'privileged white guys'. That seems to force racial and gender issues into a discussion where there are none.

The community here seems to consist mostly of software engineers and people in related fields of work, and in that sense we might be a homogeneous bunch, but that makes sense for the topics discussed here.

[superuser2]

>That seems to force racial and gender issues into a discussion where there are none.

The sentiment expressed in your comment, the belief that racial and gender issues are unimportant or nonexistent, is exactly one of the shared values that defines the HN in-group.

[Freak_NL]

> the belief that racial and gender issues are unimportant or nonexistent

That is absolutely not what I wrote, nor what I belief. You are shoehorning me into a position, and I resent that.

I do belief that racial and gender issues are not relevant when discussing the pros and cons of cryptocurrency or the benefits of two-factor authentication. That to me goes beyond a shared value, it ought to be common sense.

HN communicates via text — no avatars, no non-sense. All that matters is whether or not you can formulate a post in English that adds to the topic. Aside from English proficiency, that is about as inclusive as you can get. There could be a dog behind the keyboard on the other side for all I care — as long as he/she is civil and provides some interesting insight into the topic at hand.

Having an interest in software and its related topics is not the exclusive domain of the 'privileged white male', regardless of the demographic slant towards men in the software industry (of any colour really, depends a lot on the country posters hail from and the local demographic make up of the population).

[k__]

I don't jump to anything, that's just what I hear from people who don't like HN.

[cauterized]

It's also self-selecting. People who aren't aligned with this particular filter bubble don't stick around long. I say that as someone who has temporarily rage-quit HN a couple times over frustration with what came across as closed-mindedness on the part of the majority of commenters on certain topics.

Unfortunately for my blood pressure, it's still the best source for a few types of tech and startup topics. And at least it's not as bad as the filter bubble on slashdot.