[TelmoMenezes]

> Strict moderation is the reason HN is the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet.

Don't you find it a bit suspicious that the forum you happen to like is "the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet"?

[Mizza]

I don't know what you mean by "suspicious." I'm part of a ton of other forums and communities, and over time almost all of them have devolved into complete and utter dogshit, just an endless stream of memes and screenshots of Twitter posts. The communities that remain successful either have total strict moderation or a "shitposts" section where all of the garbage ends up, but even then the quarantine zone ends up sucking up a lot of the forum energy. I think it's best to just not have it at all.

[TelmoMenezes]

> I don't know what you mean by "suspicious."

I mean that, maybe you should distrust your own judgement that "HN is the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet". Perhaps other places have environments that you don't like but other people feel that they are "the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet".

> I'm part of a ton of other forums and communities, and over time almost all of them have devolved into complete and utter dogshit, just an endless stream of memes and screenshots of Twitter posts.

In my experience this has a lot more to do with algorithmic instead of chronological ordering. Facebook for example, where a lot of communities have gone to die, is a context-destroying engine. Only memes and shitposts can survive. What is the point of writing something thoughtful if you don't know if anyone will even see it?

Otherwise, online communities have a lifetime. Before HN there was Slashdot and Kuro5hin. They were nice at some point, then devolved into shit. Same thing will happen to HN and everything else, of course.

> The communities that remain successful either have total strict moderation or a "shitposts" section where all of the garbage ends up, but even then the quarantine zone ends up sucking up a lot of the forum energy. I think it's best to just not have it at all.

My favorite community uses a completely different strategy: there are no moderators but it is relatively obscure. Shit posters come and go, nobody reacts, all is fine. It has been going on for more than two decades. I will not disclose it because I do not want to ruin it, but I bet lots of things like this exist. They don't make money nor are they advertising arms of money-making operations, so nobody really cares. No newspaper will ever write an editorial about them -- this is why they are so great!

[ghaff]

I'm sure there are plenty of reasonable discussion forums, mailing lists, etc. And the more gated and the more obscure they are, the more reasonable (and insular) they are.

[dang]

> I will not disclose it because I do not want to ruin it

I'm glad your favorite community has sustained itself for 20 years, but with this statement you remove it so far from the category HN belongs to that it's incommensurable.

It's great that there's room for lots of different internet communities to thrive with different strategies. I've always felt there's room for many more—there are lots of opportunities for communities to start with different initial conditions and grow into qualitatively different things. I wish people would start them. But let's not pretend that they all have the same problems. HN's category is that of the large, public, anonymous internet forum, and all its hard problems stem from that category.

[Reddit2]

Reddit is actually pretty great. It's easy enough to evade the more-less-desireable parts of it. I can assure you some of the best textually-based content the last X years have happened there.

[TelmoMenezes]

I agree. Unfortunately, I have the impression it is already going in the downwards trajectory. The new redesign contains all the red flags. When "old.reddit.com" stops working, I suspect it's over for me.

[celticmusic]

What you're saying is 100% true. I personally dislike HN moderation because it stifles discussion in a big way.

A perfect example is the other poster who basically got called to task by dang for asking for sources to a claim. Dang characterized it as "unsubstantive" and lowering the signal to noise ratio.

For myself, a reasonable discussion is one which it's expected to be asked to cite sources. A community in which not doing so gets you called out.

Discourse on HN is too touchy feely, people are generally afraid to challenge others in a straightforward manner, so they end up using a lot of words to do so. It's like being in that meeting where the manager is using flowery language to extol the virtues of the company, when in reality everyone is there for reasons that don't involve the company itself.

I just kind of tolerate it, but in no way, shape, or form, do I view the discourse on HN as generally being honest or useful.

[dang]

That's not a perfect example or even an example at all. The comment explicitly broke the site guidelines, as I explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20648370.

[DanBC]

You might like Tildes. Here's their blog and docs which describe what Tildes is about.

https://blog.tildes.net/

https://docs.tildes.net/

You may also like Lobste.rs https://lobste.rs/

[ckris]

Tildes is a bit ironic.

Overall it is a lot better. The topics, timeline, moderation, structure and even comments. And a think some people might enjoy that.

But it also sort of highlights the greater problem which is that most people who frequent these forums these days just aren't that interesting, or interested. Or it is at least hard for those who are to show that and get something out of it.

[intuitionist]

Plenty of folks consider HN to have devolved into complete and utter dogshit; there aren’t many memes but there is a pretty heavy whiff of the Californian ideology, and given the choice I’ll usually take the memes.

[pjc50]

Who likes a forum they find unreasonable? That's hardly "suspicious", it's a statement about taste.