there is a "real' hacker news clone called Cryptoanalys.is [1] that posts news items related to cryptocurrencies.
what does that tell me -- you didn't do your homework before setting up a rival list.
instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, you should be contributing to a list aka community resource that has been in existence for the past year or so.
and most of us that are subbed to that list, don't have to reveal our identity or tip our hand to our friends and colleagues as to what we're interested in, in order join.
what's next? registering with the feds.
My apologies, i forgot to mention coinspotting, another out of the box, hnc. [2]
I think there's an argument to be made for an invitation only group. There's a psychological advantage of making users feel exclusive and invested in a community, as well as a practical advantage to scaling server hardware and moderation time.
And curious, why hide the fact that you're interested in crypto from your friends / colleagues?
Over the years it seems there have been a fair few 'Hacker News for X' (see https://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/hacker%20ne...). Presumably each time people implement the whole site from scratch (users, commenting, ranking, etc). Have there ever been any open-source attempts at creating a generic Hacker News style site that people could self host for specific topics? The only thing that I can think of is self-hosting your own copy of reddit.
From the discussion yesterday on "HN for data scientists"[0], there was mention of a service which enables one to deploy "HN for X"[1], as well as some discussion that (some version of) the code for HN is available[2].
Stamplay is a BaaS similar to Firebase (think of it like IFTTT for backend dev). They open-sourced a HN-clone with their service that gets you up and running super quickly: https://github.com/Stamplay/stamplay-hackernews
I know this has been tried a couple of times before (sorry I can't remember the URL) but those sites died just 1 or 2 days after they disappeared from the HN frontpage.
r/bitcoin is full of bitcoin fanatics who will bury any cryptocurrency-related news that isn't bitcoin. Mention XRP, BTS, ETH, or really any next-gen blockchain tech that doesn't ride on bitcoin and you are called a heretic.
In all fairness, here are 2 points from their submission guidelines...
* News articles that do not contain the word "Bitcoin" are
usually off-topic. This subreddit is not about general
financial news.
* Submissions that are mostly about some other
cryptocurrency belong elsewhere. For example,
/r/CryptoCurrency is a good place to discuss all
cryptocurrencies.
So it seems that if you submit something that isn't bitcoin-related, you should /expect/ that it will get downvoted, or moderated.
is it just me or is there an inherent contradiction here.
posting links -- for all the world to see -- and then insisting that the list is "by invitation only." why not just set up a private email list.
not only are you setting your site up for less than stellar performance, but you are going to end up with unintended consequences... like a moribund community for starters. instead of growing a community you are going to shrink it. dare i say, sub-traction.
i don't have the figures as to the percentage of users who post to news sites on a regular basis -- the activity on hn is, imho, an exception -- but i would image it adheres pretty closely to the 80/20 rule and may even be less if you take into account factors like waning interest, user attrition; and last but not least, not enough articles being posted on a daily basis to retain interest.
plus you are encouraging free-riders. they way bit.ink is set up, i can visit everyday and read what i want and never feel compelled to participate. i think there are better ways to ward off the spammers, like creating a committed userbase who won't tolerate abuses or tos violations. just step out of line on hn and you'll see how quickly you are put in your place.
what does that tell me -- you didn't do your homework before setting up a rival list.
instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, you should be contributing to a list aka community resource that has been in existence for the past year or so.
and most of us that are subbed to that list, don't have to reveal our identity or tip our hand to our friends and colleagues as to what we're interested in, in order join.
what's next? registering with the feds.
My apologies, i forgot to mention coinspotting, another out of the box, hnc. [2]
[1] https://cryptanalys.is/
[2] http://coinspotting.com/news