I mean, some might cringe, but Reddit can be pretty amazing. They tend to be more QnA based, but you can still learn a lot.
/r/PersonalFinance for not-super-technical-finanace. I'm more familiar with PersonalFinanceCanada which has single-handeldy taught me how to think about money and finance. Can definitely get a bit toxic sometimes.
/r/Guitar is surprisingly small but still fun, and /r/Frugal is another favourite of mine. I also frequent the many FIRE subreddits but I don't think those are as popular as other forums about FIRE.
In a similar vein, Stack Exchange can be VERY interesting. I often casually sift through WorkplaceSE and TravelSE, though I supposed that is more entertainment than educational.
True, but too small isn't great either. /r/opencv or /r/ComputerVision or /r/JetsonNano rarely have more than 3-10 replies to any post. Too hyper-specific?
The key is to have different accounts for different areas of interests in your life.
When I used to use Reddit heavily, I had 5 different accounts, easily managed by the app and RES on Firefox.
One was for Physics, Astronomy, and Math (earlier in life), one was for books subs only (suggestmeabook, books, etc.), one was for CS, programming, language subs, and so on, one was for everything else- i.e. memes, short videos, etc, and another one was for skills I was learning- piano, drawing, etc.
I find the sweet spot for a good subreddit is between 10k-100k subscribers. Less than this range results in low activity (posts from 6 months ago still on front page) but more than this range just attracts karma farmers, memes, and witty one liners at the top that don't add much to the discussion
Of course the subreddit still needs to be focused on a specific topic
Reddit is honestly my favorite community site by a good mile. I sometimes forget that the horrible content exists because I’ve honed it so well to quality subreddits. It’s the only place where I can consistently get quality interaction related to my interests. r/programming is my fallback for HN, and sometimes it’s a better source of actual programming content.
In terms of quality, Reddit mods are hugely important. I was a mod for my city’s sub, and it was a constant effort to filter out the low-quality or toxic content.
I would like to recommend checking out /r/ExperiencedDevs/[0] on Reddit. It's a much better place than most other general cs subreddits because the questions are from and geared towards senior engineers.
It's in German but this is a place for nerds to talk about home automation and lighting. By this I don't mean just getting an Alexa and calling it a day, actually automating your home using professional equipment like that used in commercial buildings.
One of the big topics I'm following right now discusses a Chinese lighting manufacturer who makes high CRI tuneable white lights (think a professional version of Philips Hue), and the forum members have banded together to get a set (min order 1000 pieces) of custom lights made.
That would be nice! Despite being a CS major, I get so much information from Hackernews on implementation, hacks, industries, motivation. So I believe sites like these would definitely help newcomers get into a completely disparate interest!
Well, while I really enjoy the broad topics on HN, it does present all topics through the lens of technology and tech-work which can lead to the impression that this is all there is to it.
If you're into electronic music, WATMM is and always has been a pretty great forum. Only catch is there's a minimum $3/year membership fee to support the site, but it's way more than worth it IMO.
I’ve been wanting the same structure of hacker news but for other topics too.
Im currently building one of fashion as it’s a huge interest of mine.
I realised while I’m building this, the solution is not the tech but actually the community providing the posts abs the moderation. I love hacker news because of the highly safe space to be able to have great open discussions.
I get more value from the discussion thread than the link that this shared.
As with other comments, there are plenty of well moderated forums, but most of them are very small and specific. When they are small, it lacks enough diversity. But when they are big or up to a certain size, moderation no longer works at all.
HN is not perfect, but I have yet to find anything that is close to HN.
Readit News
/r/PersonalFinance for not-super-technical-finanace. I'm more familiar with PersonalFinanceCanada which has single-handeldy taught me how to think about money and finance. Can definitely get a bit toxic sometimes.
/r/Guitar is surprisingly small but still fun, and /r/Frugal is another favourite of mine. I also frequent the many FIRE subreddits but I don't think those are as popular as other forums about FIRE.
In a similar vein, Stack Exchange can be VERY interesting. I often casually sift through WorkplaceSE and TravelSE, though I supposed that is more entertainment than educational.
Talking with actual workers in a field is super valuable...I think that's what makes HN great - most of us work in tech.
With Reddit, you get tons of 'oh, I like guitars, I'll join that' people giving advice instead of say, professional musicians or luthiers.
Note: I didn't mean to insult r/guitars, I've never been, just used it as an example.
When I used to use Reddit heavily, I had 5 different accounts, easily managed by the app and RES on Firefox.
One was for Physics, Astronomy, and Math (earlier in life), one was for books subs only (suggestmeabook, books, etc.), one was for CS, programming, language subs, and so on, one was for everything else- i.e. memes, short videos, etc, and another one was for skills I was learning- piano, drawing, etc.
This was, I had everything managed.
Of course the subreddit still needs to be focused on a specific topic
In terms of quality, Reddit mods are hugely important. I was a mod for my city’s sub, and it was a constant effort to filter out the low-quality or toxic content.
[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/
Top level comments need to be sourced and verified and mod-approved on these, but great places to lurk and learn:
History: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ – also has an amazing weekly newsletter that you can get DMed to you!
Economics: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/
Also, a subreddit exclusively for experienced devs, but nice to lurk for everyone:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/
Thankfully, Lobsters is invite-only to post and comment. This filters out the usual garbage.
Deleted Comment
It's in German but this is a place for nerds to talk about home automation and lighting. By this I don't mean just getting an Alexa and calling it a day, actually automating your home using professional equipment like that used in commercial buildings.
One of the big topics I'm following right now discusses a Chinese lighting manufacturer who makes high CRI tuneable white lights (think a professional version of Philips Hue), and the forum members have banded together to get a set (min order 1000 pieces) of custom lights made.
https://watmm.com/
Im currently building one of fashion as it’s a huge interest of mine.
I realised while I’m building this, the solution is not the tech but actually the community providing the posts abs the moderation. I love hacker news because of the highly safe space to be able to have great open discussions.
I get more value from the discussion thread than the link that this shared.
Only if you can create a replica of Dang.
As with other comments, there are plenty of well moderated forums, but most of them are very small and specific. When they are small, it lacks enough diversity. But when they are big or up to a certain size, moderation no longer works at all.
HN is not perfect, but I have yet to find anything that is close to HN.