alt Hacker NewsThe HN you are yearning for disappeared about 8-10 years ago when it was largely taken over by normies and people way outside the hard-core-tech fold. It's not very different from Reddit front-page now if the topic is even remotely political.
For purely technical topics you expect good quality discussion, but those threads barely get comments in the two digits.
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Yes sometimes the loudest voice definitely rises to the top and it’s annoying, but I also think it’s a condition that too many new members don’t know how to use the upvote button.
I also think it’s a symptom that HN does not allow enough people to use the down vote button. you could be a commenting member for years and not be able to downvote or you could be somebody who posts a few click bate links you copied from another aggregator and all of a sudden you have the ability to downvote. It’s pretty dumb.
Yeah, normies suck. I totally only want to hear from people obsessed with the latest computer Science minutia!
If you think HN users are normies, I think you might be in a bubble. Normies ain’t this literate.