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Ask HN: Are there other communities like Hacker News?

13 points by bbot23 ↗ HN
I've been devouring your content for the better part of the last two years and I was wondering if there were other online communities that resemble this one in its high quality discourse and activity level? Perhaps there are some excellent subreddits that we should all know about?

6 comments

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clarry
I don't know if it's what you're looking for, but lobste.rs is "the other HN" for me. Admittedly it's not quite as large and active, but then HN is currently hard to beat in that area.
Houshalter
Lesswrong.com is good. Subreddits will vary depending on your interests.
spoiler
Never heard of lesswrong, but it looks cool at first glance.

I've never been a fan of reddit. My experience with reading it is that everyone tries too hard to be a smartass, and rarely contributes to the discussion/thread. Although, I might have visited the "wrong" subreddits

lewispollard
In general, any subreddit that hits the default front page is garbage. If you can find a smaller, niche subreddit for something that interests you, there's usually more focus and better moderation.
PhantomGremlin
Okay, I'm about to state what is, around here, relatively unpopular: In one particular respect slashdot.org has what you're asking for. Have you checked them out?

There are a number of problems with them, even more now that their new(ish) corporate overlords have been making changes. But there's one thing they do better than anyone else IMO, and that's MODERATION! So that can often get you the "high quality discourse" you want.

Here's an example. Right now there's a discussion there [1] that's a few hours old. It's about the cost of Google Drive storage. That discussion currently has 254 comments. That would be daunting to wade thru. But that discussion has only 18 comments that have been voted up (and down) to be the "best". Reading just those comments will get you a reasonably good feel for the topic.

That said, I mostly spend time on HN now, rather than on slashdot. The overall level of discourse here is better and more respectful, and the moderation here (while more limited) does work.

[1] http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03/13/1834208/1gb-of-googl...

ScottWhigham
I don't think that's an unpopular suggestion here - every month when this thread re-surfaces, someone suggests it and others "Me too" it. As you said, "In one particular aspect" it's a good analogue to HN - perhaps multiple aspects.