The Difference Between Hacker News and Reddit

I tend to read Hacker News quit a bit and Reddit on occasion. On Hacker News I also spend my time reading the comments, something I generally never do on Reddit.

Quit simply, the disparity between the quality of comments on each site is appalling. Witness “Too Few Women in Tech? Stop Blaming the Men”, a recent editorial by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch. The article made it to the top of both Hacker News and Reddit.

The very first comment on Hacker News is

I’m always slightly puzzled as to why this is an issue. Surely the goal is to have lots of innovative and successful startups, and the gender of who is founding them is irrelevant.

There aren’t, as far as I can tell, any real barriers to women starting a tech company; being able to code, having a lot of mental resilience and having some starting capital is not something that’s only possible if you’re male.

A thoughtful post, an inquiry for clarification that then led to more interesting comments.

The very first comment on Reddit

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

It speaks for itself.

At least Reddit isn’t Digg. This story also made it to #1 on Digg and the first 14 comments there are about some boycott of Digg itself. One has to get to #15 to find the first vaguely relevant comment, and it is this gem

f**k off Techcrunch… You have submitted so much s**t over the last few hours that there are 4 auto-submitted news from your site.

I guess it all comes down to the kind of community the users want to create.