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503 sats \ 17 replies \ @benthecarman 7 Jun 2023 \ parent \ on: What sub should Stacker News add next? bitcoin
there's already a bitcoin sub, having 2/4 subs being bitcoin doesn't really make sense
Well, the site is still called Stacker News. I understand what you're saying, so if a sports or gardening sub was added,do you think the name of the site should be changed?
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I think people should be able to stack sats while talking about sports or gardening. If the stacker news model works, then it shouldnt just be limited to bitcoin topics.
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I never really understood this objection. Why can't the name be interpreted as news for stackers? We're clearly interested in all sorts of stuff. When I started using SN news, I didn't infer any sort of limitation on the topics from the name.
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Hacker News was the model for this site. Would you find it unusual for people to discuss types of fishing lures there?
I do think the name of the site matters. We may disagree, but I think the name Stacker News does limit the logical discussion topics. I agree that those can range far afield of bitcoin, but it's still limited. For instance shitcoins, nostr, general tech and programming, economics and money. They all make sense as discussion topics here. I don't think everything does.
Maybe the name should be changed at some point, or, the code could be forked to encompass any topic.
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SN is currently more like HN but the end vision is to be more like Reddit.
See the pitch deck here: #44287
I see your point regarding the name, but I think the name could also just be related to us stacking on whatever topic.
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Thanks for the link. I never saw the pitch deck before. That causes me to rethink my position. Two things:
- Nostr struggles to break free of the bitcoin only trap, as fiatjaf has warned about. There, the name and structure doesn't even suggest a relationship to bitcoin, but bitcoin is the payment system.
- Here, the name is Stacker News. The obvious implication is that the site focuses on news about stacking. It seems that quite a leap will have to be made at some point to have the topic reach of reddit, and it might require a name change.
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The name isn't "Bitcoin News", though. "Stacker" describes the audience, but doesn't place any inherent limitation on what news we might be interested in. The site can have a highly selected audience without arbitrarily defining the scope of conversation.
I also don't think there should be a goal of emulating Reddit's breadth. Rather, I think the goal should be to make SN as rewarding as possible for those of us who love coming here. The quality of interaction is really high here and it would be a shame to reduce the scope of those interactions.
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That just seems like extra work to me, for no clear benefit. Is there a problem I'm missing with allowing the topics to organically broaden out?
Unlike "Hacker News", I interpreted the "Stacker" in SN as refering to the mechanism the site operates on, rather than the subject matter. Even if that was a mistake on my part, why not let people embrace it?
Btw, my suggestion has long been to add a Misc. sub for all these other discussions. Does that strike you as betraying the intention of the site?
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I agree that the best thing is to allow topics to organically broaden out. Misc sounds like a good idea.
I know a lot of people want subs like sports. I think the SN model would be great for any forum, but I'm not sure it makes sense as a sub here.
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For the time being, there doesn't seem to be nearly enough volume of posts outside of the topics you listed to support their own subs.
However, a lot of sports content is related to wagering. If people are utilizing lightning for sports betting that seems on topic, but probably not something most readers of the Bitcoin sub are interested in.
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Ah, I guess that's where the idea for prediction markets came from ;)
Good idea, we wanted to have own posts types for subs anyway.
So prediction markets for a sports sub would indeed be really fitting.
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It's such a good idea! I've seen several people propose it and I push for it whenever I can.
I'm not a particularly good programmer, but I do have training in experimental economics, so if you guys want any help designing the mechanism, I'd love to pitch in.