[espeed]

Yes. HN is a form of social media -- it's a social media exemplar -- the exception that proves it's possible to have an open system for high-quality public discourse, even if such a system is hard to establish and even harder to maintain.

Paul Graham has said, "he hopes to avoid the Eternal September that results in the general decline of intelligent discourse within a community" [1]. Hacker News launched 12 years ago in 2007, it's a testament to Graham, the moderators, the algorithms behind it, and the community members that HN has been able to keep its system for high quality intelligent discourse from devolving over time.

If HN doesn't resemble most other social media systems -- so much so that people have to ask -- this is why. Establishing such a system is hard to do, and even harder to maintain. So far HN has been an exception, not the rule.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_News

[F-0X]

Strong disagree. HN is not a social media. Because we do not use it for social purposes. This site has no concept of user relationships, and it does not encourage you to use real/identifying information about yourself to use it. It is centred on topics and discussion - sites like this, Reddit, and other forums can develop social networks, but this is a byproduct and not the intent, which I think is the single most important factor. HN's purpose is not to keep you in touch with your friends or community, thus it is not a social media.

[espeed]

Where are you getting your definition for social media?

Wikipedia defines social media as [1]:

  Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies 
  that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, 
  ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via 
  virtual communities and networks.

I don't know if there's an "official" agreed upon definition somewhere, but I do know this: The definition of what social media is and what it will become is not yet known -- it will continue to evolve as the Internet evolves and as our understanding evolves closer to true -- but at its core, I would say social media is technology that enables bidirectional public communication among people whereas mass media [2] enables unidirectional public communication -- one to many broadcasts to people -- with no direct feedback loop.

The Internet provided the foundational infrastructure and was the prerequisite layer that made social media interaction possible. What we do with social media -- how we use it, build upon it, and optimize for it -- is yet to be determined.

For example, who would have envisioned the mobile phone as we use it today when the telephone was invented. Phones aren't just used for phone calls anymore. The iPhone changed that, but the iPhone couldn't exist in its present form until the foundation for the Internet infrastructure was laid. Today our vision of the Internet is not what it was when it was invented. It continues to evolve, as does its uses and definition. Social media will be like that too -- it's part of the next layer to build upon, and we're still learning what that is -- its definition is still being formed, and its optimal form is still to come.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media

[z3phyr]

By this definition, the internet itself is a social media?

[sbmthakur]

Do you mean the World Wide Web? The Internet also consists of devices like routers.

[z3phyr]

More than WWW. There is a lot of content on the on the internet not served by hypertext markup in a web browser.

[NeedMoreTea]

It seems to have the key components. An ephemeral timeline and new posts page, user submitted stories and content, and the like/upvote.

It's not a social network though. There's no concept of friends. Twitter is part way between the two. It barely groks user relationships - you subscribe to someone to see their stuff in your feed and that's about as far as it goes.

[doute]

Yes, very much so and it is also apparent by the content. You also don't have to have formal network to have a social network. The significant part is whether something behaves differently in the context of the network. Which I think one could clearly say about hacker news.

[dTal]

Moreover, it's impossible to use HN to keep in touch with friends in meaningful ways - you can't send private messages on HN. There are people I've otherwise lost touch with, who turn up on HN from time to time. What am I gonna do, hijack a thread to say hi?

[espeed]

People say hi on HN all the time, esp when they see someone they know comment on a thread.

[craftyguy]

> open system

"Hacker" "news" is not an open system. The source code, AFAIK, is proprietary, and the FAQ even states that votes are not counted 1:1, which implies "algorithms" and other hand-wavy stuff.

For an actual open social media system, where moderator actions and source code are public for all to review, see https://lobste.rs.

[6d6b73]

And what's open about HN?

[espeed]

HN is open in almost every sense, and it exists within an open market...

[1] Open vs Closed System (social science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_and_closed_systems_in_soc...

[2] Open System (systems theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(systems_theory)

[3] Open System (computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(computing)

[4] Open API https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_API

[5] Open Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_market