HN Explorer

Ask HN: Has HN Entered Eternal September? What's Next?

3 points by vanattab ↗ HN
So in my opinion hn has entered Eternal September and the dialog is largely not worth participating in any more. Anyone have recommendations on places to go next.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_SeptemberEternal_SeptemberEternal_SeptemberEternal_SeptemberEternal_SeptemberEternal_SeptemberEternal_SeptemberEternal_September

3 comments

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TheCoreh
I've been here since ~2011, and people have complained of a supposed "Eternal September" or a decline in culture for as long as I can remember. I think that's largely a matter of perception/shifting expectations and not an actual dillution in quality.

I think HN is both an amazing place to find content and also to meet the top experts on a variety of subjects (very often articles about a technology or research field will have the creator or most influent researcher in the comments answering questions and listening to feedback)

If you'd like a more curated feed, you can use: https://news.ycombinator.com/best

knowsnothing
I just discovered the beauty of HN. Its a great alternative to the noise of social media and cleaner (as in easier to use) than reddit.
mindcrime
It's tough to say. I've been here since April of 2008, and I've definitely seen a lot of change. Certainly the tone / prevailing sentiment in many areas has changed. But the quality? I'm not sure I even know how to measure that.

Subjectively, yeah, I think the quality of the discourse here has gone down, and I would say I feel like something of an "Eternal September" effect has had an influence. But I can't really prove that.

That said, while I get annoyed by some of the stuff I see here lately, this site is still more fulfilling that most similar sites, so I still spend more time here. I have been gravitating back to Slashdot a little more lately though, just for a different take on things.

Next? Well, there's an invite only site called lobste.rs that is largely populated by ex-HN'ers. They keep it invite only to try and avoid that watering down / culture change effect. The flipside is that the amount of traffic there is much lower.