[jldl805]

I can't speak for the person you are talking to but this site has much less tolerance for deviation from cultural norms - which is both a good and bad thing.

Compared to even niche subreddits there is much less room for "freewheeling" (can't think of a better term for it) comments. It has costs but what for what you pay, you gain in a more serious and sober environment.

[rrradical]

Wow, I think my experience has been different. Redditors seem to pile on a 'wrong' opinion and downvote to oblivion, whereas HN seems more evenhanded to me. I'm sure it depends on the subreddit though.

[Blikkentrekker]

Reddit does not pœnalize one for downvotes to the same extent.

On Reddit, if one's all time score be negative, one is throttled to one post per 10 minutes.

H.N. throttles to five posts per day if one's recent comments are negative I believe the number is that I've read.

[6510]

Its not serious at all, its a news aggregator that by very silly means filters stuff to the top that is worth reading. Serious is when you have skilled professionals pick the topics and an interesting debate is when preferably everyone disagrees.

[DoreenMichele]

I initially downvoted this. I've reversed that and decided to reply.

HN is bigger than it used to be which has helped introduce an Eternal September effect, but HN is the funnel for YC. You need an HN handle to apply to YC.

For people interested in starting a business and applying to YC, there is potentially millions of dollars at stake. Especially in the beginning when it was smaller, your comments here were used to help them evaluate your application to their seed funding and business mentorship program.

Lots of latecomers seem oblivious to that function and think it's just a silly discussion forum. But there are people who still know better and the people who understand that what you say here can make the difference between becoming the next Reddit (a YC company) or Dropbox (another YC company) or never getting anywhere with your business dreams help skew conversation here in a more serious and respectful direction than you are going to find on most forums that really are just discussion forums and that's it.

That's not what HN is. HN is the foyer you have to get through to have any hope of joining a large and powerful "old boys club" that has created many millionaires in a relatively short period of time.

Being an ass here is a good way to be politely turned away without ever knowing why: "Sorry, not YC material." Because they pick which applications to approve and fund primarily based on the people, not the idea.

That's not a secret. They talk about it incessantly. Anyone who doesn't know just hasn't paid attention to the huge volumes of info they put out about their application process.

Their "No assholes" rule is widely known.

[6510]

> your comments here were used to help them evaluate your application [...] Lots of latecomers seem oblivious to that function and think it's just a silly discussion forum.

I see, it [apparently] may still have serious implications. I still consider a serious discussion to be one where you can be right and I can be wrong - politely. It is then up to you to enlighten. Next round you get to be wrong and ill be there to point it out.

> I initially downvoted this. I've reversed that and decided to reply.

The exception not the rule. Normally I don't reply if I disagree and you downvote.

Now that I think about it the downvotes should make an interesting data-set to judge the founders by.

[DoreenMichele]

I still consider a serious discussion to be one where you can be right and I can be wrong - politely. It is then up to you to enlighten. Next round you get to be wrong and ill be there to point it out.

That still goes on here. It just is a smaller percentage of the discussion than it was when I originally joined in 2009. It's less obvious, but still possible to find that here.

There are more people here who don't participate that way, so you need to be a bit more careful about whom you try to engage that way to avoid having it go pointlessly sideways.

It's harder to stick your neck out about such things than it used to be and I don't know how to remedy that. It used to be much more possible to have a vigorous debate and have both sides remain civil in a way I have never seen anywhere else.