| I wrote a comment few days ago about why I stopped using Reddit and explained how I feel Reddit today basically optimises for unproductive and intolerant discussion. Good discussion requires opinions that are both diverse in perspective and well reasoned – and a bit of intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness doesn't hurt either. Something I think HN does right is that it doesn't segment its community and it doesn't reward or emphasis upvotes / downvotes which makes the community much less prone to say things solely for social respect, and therefore less prone to group think. When I go to HN I never know what I'm going to find. It could be tech, business, economics, history, or just some interesting event happening in the news. HN forces its users to be exposed to a diverse range of content, and because the only post requirement here is that the content is intellectually interesting it tends to naturally attract people who are intellectually curious. On HN I find myself in reading and participating in discussions about topics that I'd never ordinarily seek out and I think this is what encourages the diversity in perspectives shared here. Think of it this way, on Reddit if you want to discuss React you'd first have to seek out a community which is cares enough about React to talk about it. And often that community will be solely focused on React and therefore generally enthusiasts of it. Now imagine someone shares a post about React Hooks, how many people do you think will be giving critical opinions of React Hooks in that comment thread? And if someone is being critical of them how might a community of React enthusiasts response to that person? Compare that to a thread you might find about React Hooks on HN. You'll have people who love them, people who hate them, people who have no idea how they work, maybe even a couple of people who are completely nontechnical who just want to share their thoughts about something their developer colleagues said about migrating to React Hooks. This is what makes HN so awesome in my opinion – there's no gimmicks, just a community of intellectually curious people discussing things they find intellectually interesting. |