I mentioned this in the Show HN thread but it's worth restating here:
Glad to see this. Show HN has always been my favorite part of Hacker News. Anything that can inspire more creation and help product builders find an audience, is a good thing, imo.
It's really interesting to see the difference in Hacker News and Product Hunt communities. I'm clearly biased because I spend more time here, but my drastically oversimplified opinion is:
- HN users are overly positive about anything YC, overly negative about anything consumer, and fair / supportive of anything technically complex. In many cases the tone reminds me of TechCrunch comments.
- PH users are overly positive in general and rarely say anything negative unless backed up with a lot of reason / thought. In many cases I think the positivity is a little much and people sugarcoat too much.
Makes sense for both, as one started with an engineering led base and the other started with product base. So both communities, in my eyes, have positives and negatives to them, but are so different.
@mulligan Agreed 100%.
If I have one complaint about both communities, it is that they aren't good w/ voicing negative thoughts or opinions. Creators appreciate support, but even more than that, we appreciate thoughtful constructive criticism. What can PH do to encourage more of this?
@alexshye@mulligan I agree that the discussion on PH errors on being overly positive often, lacking criticism. Creators ultimately want honest feedback, delivered respectfully. We'll be adding better feedback loops (e.g. upvoting of comments) to give the community the opportunity to encourage the right behavior, but it has to start by setting an example.
Product Hunt