[crazygringo]

> It’s [HN] also boring as hell. It’s an echo chamber, a bubble.

Funny... the reason I like HN is because the comments are actually well-thought out and interesting.

I honestly can't understand how Twitter, with it's character limit and lack of threads, can provide more "interesting" "discussion".

[jessepollak]

I agree. I think that there are a lot of situations where homogeneous interests/views can preclude interesting conversations, but I don't think HN is a place where this applies.

The reason is, while HN may be filled with all people who like startups--in fact, it may be primarily white males--so many people know so many different things, and have so many different perspectives, that I consistently fin conversations of a higher quality than anywhere else on the Internet.

I agree with the OP that we should try not to limit who can participate in a forum because of high barriers of entry, but I'm extremely skeptical that said limitations actively lower the quality of conversations on a site like HN.

[jmduke]

The reason is, while HN may be filled with all people who like startups--in fact, it may be primarily white males--so many people know so many different things, and have so many different perspectives, that I consistently fin conversations of a higher quality than anywhere else on the Internet.

I think this is true only with regards to sort of the 'classic' elements of HN; discussions of technical matters, startups, and overall just strong advice is wonderful and keeps me coming back to the overflowing well.

Discussions that include fanboyism of any kind (politics, education, and Apple v. MS v. Google chief among them) are aggravating. But bad parts don't negate good parts.

[jessepollak]

Agreed, but increasingly I find that HN actually does a pretty great job of limiting the number of posts that involve any sort of fanboyism that you mention. Many may get submitted, but the community doesn't seem interested in bringing that many of those posts (compared to other news sites/communities) to the front page.

[mitra]

While this adds nothing to the conversation, I would like to think there is a strong contingent of Indian males at HN as well.

[jessepollak]

I think you're probably right, and I'd venture a guess that HN is not in fact majority white male. I was simply using that to accentuate my point. :D

[mnicole]

Also the irony of saying HN is an echo chamber, when the primary content on my Twitter feed are retweets. Twitter is useless to me as a communicator, as someone that thrives on discussions and not abbreviated tidbits. Despite following only people I trust and admire, my feed is garbage. The single time I had a lengthy direct message conversation, it was a mess and a pain to have to add "..." to the end of each and then write the next message fast enough so that next person doesn't respond without all of the information. It really couldn't be a worse place to try to have serious conversations.

[bsphil]

As someone who doesn't really fit into HN (not really interested in startups, but like web design/development), I'd have to agree with the overall assertion. It feels a lot like an echo chamber, and I find myself often thinking "the rest of the world is a lot different than HN" after reading comments here.

[fudged71]

More generally than that, why is he characterizing the discussion quality of Twitter at all? Everyone's experience varies based on who's following who. I hardly get replies, for instance, because I hardly have any followers.

Vastly different platforms to compare.

[jessepollak]

Just a heads up, I'd be careful before you characterize the author as a 'he.'