HN Explorer

Is there a non-coders Hacker News website?

22 points by rcavezza ↗ HN
I'm not talking about Reddit or Digg (which I frequent) - I'm looking for a similar website with intelligent conversation that isn't centered around software and startups. I'm thinking NY Times, New Yorker, Economist type articles. Can someone share a link?

28 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 58.4 ms ] thread
mrschwabe
Build it ! The HN community model is simple, elegant and effective. There's no stopping you from adopting this model and applying it to your own niche'.

Of course, a huge factor in HN's popularity is Paul Graham's endorsement / YC hosted arrangement. This is something you won't easily be able to emulate ;)

roundsquare
Also quite difficult to get the same level of conversation.
ignifero
That. No matter how good the software, its the seeding of the community that's the hardest part.

also HN is heavily moderated

rkalla
Certainly a good suggestion, but I just laughed at the potential future-irony of him building it, and then suddenly being up to his neck in code, and being back here on HN posting stories about how to scale your startup on EC2 :)
andrewcooke
this place is getting closer to that by the day :o( just wait another few months.

more constructively, is there some way to split or segregate this site, so that people don't feel they need to comment on technical articles yet can still be involved (for motivating examples, see the html regexp thread)?

otherwise, no. although metafilter isn't so bad. i had hopes for quora, but when i was there last it was somehow managing to keep a focus on startups while sliding downhill on quality and encouraging cliques.

lordlarm
Definitely a good idea! A site where one can have intelligent and respectful discussions regarding news, publications, articles and essays would be great!
barney54
And that's what I like Hacker News, even though I know nothing about about coding.
pokoleo
My suggestion:

1. Add a reddit account. 2. Unsubscribe from all subreddits. 3. Subscribe to the subreddits below: /r/depthhub /r/philosophy /r/Foodforthought /r/math /r/TrueReddit /r/Cerebral /r/TrueTrueReddit /r/MetaTrueReddit /r/TRDump

4. Unsubscribe from ones that you find too spammy/off topic. Subscribe to ones that are also interesting.

Tip: Don't subscribe to ones that you think are funny. It's a slippery slope to crappy articles.

happolati
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
hexpen
Math is pretty far down the drain now, I don't know if there is a better one but if you are a math enthusiast r/math has gone to the mob.

This is in comparison to a year or so ago where it was a middle ground between http://mathoverflow.net/ and where it is now.

chrstphrwrght
Have you tried http://www.metafilter.com/? It has lots of interesting new links posted every day on just about any topic, and the quality of the comments is quite high. New users have to pay for an account ($5) in order to comment, and that tends to keep people well-behaved.
z2600
and ask.metafilter.com is a great place as well.
huherto
Well, what makes this place great is the people who come here. I often wish to see discussions about politics by the same people who post here. I guess it is very difficult to achieve because politics tend to attract a lot of crazy people. So as soon as something becomes popular it will be filled with the wrong crowd.
Vivtek
Politics makes people crazy. They start out just normal. I have utterly vivid recollections of September 11, 2001 - the world suddenly split into idiots and people that agreed with me. (Mostly idiots, sadly.)
hnal943
Wow. Way to start a flame war.
Vivtek
Huh. I didn't specify my politics at all (not that they're secret) - I was commenting on how regardless of politics, we all consider people who don't agree with us to be idiots, and the fact that communities that I had considered pretty homogeneous on 9/10/01 turned out not to be. That's universally human, and regrettable.

If that offends you, well, I've got no response.

huherto
He didn't specify his side, just that there was a lot radicalization.
markkat
http://hubski.com

My site. Still in development, but active. We are pretty eclectic. Join us dammit. :)

EDIT: A bit more info: I built Hubski for the very same reasons: I wanted it to exist. The model is a bit different than HN, as you can follow people and tags, and with the next few updates it is going to be even a bit more so.

But yes, I do think an intelligent general social aggregator is possible and needed. I hope you'll join us. We've just a couple hundred users so far, but the content and discussions we do have are surprisingly quality.

chrstphrwrght
Good start! Don't be afraid to increase the font size - my eye sight is okay, but it's not easy for me to read the text surrounding the headlines unless I focus on it.
markkat
:) You are probably right. I have a small font bias. Thanks for the feedback. Let me know if anything else strikes you one way or the other.
roundsquare
Is it just me, or do a lot of us geeks have a small font bias? Is it because we want more information on the screen?

Personally, I like small fonts when I'm coding but larger fonts for other stuff.

markkat
Not just you. I think you are right, it probably has something to do with information density. Which does raise an interesting question: Could font size play a role in the audience that you attract and maintain? No doubt 14pt Comic Sans would have a deleterious effect upon HN.

IMO, it could make a difference. 7pt Tahoma might be a bit too small, but I do think there is an 'intelligent aesthetic' that font size plays into.

Vivtek
Try Making Light. I can't stress this enough. Their comment sections are unthreaded, but lively. The hosts are science fiction editors in NYC, so that tends to shape the topics somewhat - but only somewhat.

http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/

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torstesu
Check out www.forlue.com --a replica of HN, only but the green theme an non-hacker focus.