Ask HN: Where do you go for discourse?

[zeryx]

Obviously HackerNews has rigid requirements around what kind of information can be posted and what gets popular - but the type of people who visit here are unique, typically sophisticated tech savvy folks who have many interests. I was wondering where else in the internet you frequent? Are there any subreddits you'd recommend?

[sph]

Still searching. My goal is to replace Reddit [1] completely.

So far I've only replaced my motorsport subs (mostly F1) with Autosport Forums, a bona-fide old-school and vibrant community to this day.

Years ago I enjoyed the discussion on bluelight.org - happy to know it's still going strong.

What's missing in my life is a forum for movies, TV shows and one for video game discussion. Any suggestion?

--

My issue with Reddit is I started using it in my 20s and now 15 years later, the average age is still 20. The quality of discussion is on the floor, though some love to mention subs like /r/askhistorians which are an exception among a sea of memes, one line puns and terrible moderation.

[tsuujin]

Man I feel this.

I recently purged most of my subreddit subscriptions and really focused in on topics I care about that still have content I actually want to see. I probably dropped 90% of my subscriptions.

The payoff is that as long as I never visit “all” I get a fairly well curated list of posts that don’t suck.

[krustyburger]

Everyone’s responding to the part of your comment about Reddit but I’d also really like a recommendation for a quality place for pop culture (movies, TV games etc.) discussion.

[dogshitideas]

Like someone else said, reddit is still good for certain things, but that is entirely up to the subreddit. Bigger subreddits tend to suck, usually the smaller ones are good, and deteriorate when popular. A revent example of this is r/fuckcars, which has just become a meme subreddit now, but started off as a place with some good discussion.

So, basically, with reddit it's very much luck. I still use r/analog and r/londoncycling, but most of the other ones I accept are just meme subs.

Forums are great if you can find a good one for your purpose.

I use https://www.lfgss.com/ for cycling in and around london.

I also follow https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ for money tips in the UK.

Controversial, but I think forums are better than subreddits, as there is less chance that you will get an influx of people who are not really interested in your stuff. If something hits r/all, you might get a lot of people controbuting to your sub that probably shouldn't be.

Finally, 4chan isn't half bad on some boards... /mu/ is kinda fun, as is /fit/

[sph]

Your mention about /fit/ reminded me of the infamous Bodybuilding.com forum. Such a legendary place, and looks like it still ain't dead yet, far from it.

EDIT: to add another recommendation: https://bogleheads.org/forum/index.php - Personal investments, financial independence

[dredmorbius]

Cultivate an informed set of friends.

Avoid large spaces.

Books. (It's a somewhat one-sided discourse, but not entirely so.)

If in need of specific expertise, seek it out. Much will be written down, some isn't. Many authors will respond to a well-considered emailed question.

Conversation scales poorly. It's easily disrupted. Intimacy is the opposite of scale.

What kind of discourse are you looking to have? Shooting the breeze? Discussing fads? Feeding curiosity? Building or understanding something?

Those are all distinctly different.

[marttt]

Not a member myself, but after reading a fellow HNer [1], I got curious about the Something Awful Forums [2] because of their (apparent) moderating policy.

Oh, and I think I used to be a member on IlXor [3] in around 2004. Loved their UI (I think it is still the same); and hey, one can always assume that a no-bullshit UI is possibly a good indicator of no-bullshit discussions, just like on HN.

Oh, and Perlmonks and its Meditations section [4] -- I suppose I like a mixture of madness and intellectual depth. And Lambda The Ultimate [5], which is extremely dense IMO. I could skim those old PLT discussions for hours.

Are there any members of The WELL [6] on HN?

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23262581

2: https://forums.somethingawful.com/

3: https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/

4: https://www.perlmonks.org/

5: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/

6: https://www.well.com/

[PaulHoule]

Forums. For instance https://coderanch.com/

[sph]

Keep the suggestions coming. Searching for forums on Google means landing on bulletin boards that haven't been updated in years. There's a ghost town feel to most of them, unless someone tells you where to go.

[themadturk]

https://www.mobileread.com/ has an active community around ereading software and hardware, not just Kindle but other eInk devices, ebook software, etc.

[linesinthesand]

Private web 1.0 forums. Corporate social media is designed to bring you harm.

[reducesuffering]

https://www.lesswrong.com/

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/

And their associated discord channels

[cpach]

It can be quite difficult to find online oases like that. HN is quite unique.

Have you considered starting your own Slack, invite interesting people and build a new oasis? (Or Matrix channel.) It would take some work to get people to join, but it’s not impossible.

[cpach]

As to why Usenet/NNTP failed, there are many interestings comments here from 'tptacek:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[kosasbest]

Tildes[0] is worth having a look at. They rely on donations to keep running, and last time I checked membership is by invite-only.

HN is mostly technical banter and sharing techne[1]. Tildes has a similar technological bent.

[0] https://tildes.net/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne

[rschachte]

Anyone know any good forums for video stuff? Encoding, h264, distributed systems, etc

[trevyn]

https://forum.doom9.org/

[ActorNightly]

The best info I ever got was on Discords related to the projects I am interested in. Almost next to no spam, everyone is on those to either learn or contribute.

[tedyoung]

Same. Discords (and open Slacks) are great places to discuss very focused topics. I belong to a bunch and run my own (focused on Java, Spring, etc.), because I couldn't find forum for experienced developers instead of only new and junior devs.

[FractalHQ]

Discord is my favorite place to hang out with like minded people. The Svelte discord is awesome. My private discord has grown a lot with friends I’ve made over the years. My other interests like Blender/Music Production/AI all have great discord channels too.

[bradneuberg]

I’ve been looking for folks like on Hacker News but for conversation in VRChat in VR. It’s been pretty fun to hang out there but the caliber of conversation isn’t great.

[nmonsey]

slashdot.org still has some activity.

[Ygg2]

Specialized Reddits usually.