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Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#111

Post by jacquesm »

noosphr wrote: post #107
jacquesm wrote: post #47

HN is hard to game on purpose. So stop looking for the levers and participate , that's all there is to it. I've made friends here, have been helped by people on projects that I was busy with, did the reverse, found friends and business partners and spend way too much time. HN is a very interesting slice of the online world, a place that is unlike the rest, sometimes a bit dry but always interesting and extremely usef…

Hacker news is there to promote ycombinator companies. So long as you know and avoid this it's surprisingly high quality. But that's there to lend more ligitimacy to ycombinator. Its also the currently last man standing in the continual growth and death of tech sites - Slashdot, digg, reddit - and the most surprising one to make it big. You know a tech site is useful when you write about a bug and the maintainer come…

> Hacker news is there to promote ycombinator companies.

That's up to you, really, you can just ignore them. I know I do.

> So long as you know and avoid this it's surprisingly high quality. But that's there to lend more ligitimacy to ycombinator.

Probably, or maybe that is just an overly cynical take. If it were as bad as that I can think of a couple of very easy things they could do to improve on that and they aren't so for now I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Note that I'm not particularly impressed by anybody associated with YC except the mods here.

> Its also the last man standing in the continual growth and death of tech sites - Slashdot, digg, reddit - and the most surprising one to make it big.

So you're saying there is hope for Haskell?

> You know a tech site is useful when you write about a bug and the maintainer comes out of the woodwork to fix it, something that I've seen happen in the last week on nh for the first time.

There are some pretty funny instances of such interaction here, the best of which still has me in stitches after more than a decade.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#112

Post by jacquesm »

WalterBright wrote: post #81
dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

Thank you, dang. Your forum is the best one on the internet, and it's in no small part thanks to your moderation efforts.

I like that, this really is Dan's forum by now. Maybe YC should gift wrap it and make it a nice Christmas present.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#113

Post by robin_reala »

dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

Would you be open to making changes that improve the accessibility, without changing the fundamental setup of HN? I’m not proposing a redesign, but for example the textarea I’m typing in has no label (visible or invisible) and the table layout structure could be at least marked as presentational. Unfortunately, regardless of their curiosity, groups of people are finding it harder than necessary to gratify it at HN.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#114

Post by armchairhacker »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #35
dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

A great take, and thanks for your all hard work dang. Yesterday the top comment on two stories I went to discuss had deep and meaningful content, before the last line which was a "and I talk about this stuff all the time on my newsletter [link]", and I was conflicted. Same poster each time. The poster had done the HN thing: responded with thoughtful examination of TFA, unique and interesting insight, and I don't feel…

I have a different take. If someone uses effort to post something genuinely interesting just so they can advertise their blog, good. You don't have to click the link, and it's better than nothing (assuming other comments here aren't as interesting).

Like https://xkcd.com/810/

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#115

Post by ErroneousBosh »

jacquesm wrote: post #112
WalterBright wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, dang. Your forum is the best one on the internet, and it's in no small part thanks to your moderation efforts.

I like that, this really is Dan's forum by now. Maybe YC should gift wrap it and make it a nice Christmas present.

I was going to say, isn't "(I'm a mod here)" kind of an understatement? Oida, he has a pager for it.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#116

Post by jesusofsuburbia »

dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

Honest question: was an LLM involved in writing this comment? The em-dash style stood out to me

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#117

Post by Spare_account »

nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #103
TomasBM wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First two sentences are key. The reason why HN is so much better than other fora (IMO) is that the mods don't allow lever-pulling and astroturfing to overtake regular contributions. Yet it's also popular, so you're bound to get some activity on most posts. Sure, it can be frustrating if you're trying to promote a product or farm karma on posts. But the fact that mostly nobody cares about karma means that you can post…

How do you know they don't? How can you show this? It's fine if it's just vibes but just want to know what is known and can be said.

The mods are active (and have even commented in this thread) and have a clearly stated set of objectives:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46309399

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#118

Post by nacozarina »

MathiasPius wrote: post #74

It sometimes blows my mind how questions which essentially boil down to "How do I best manipulate you for personal gain?" can be asked in such an unabashed fashion.

Hello, fellow nerds! How do you recruit other nerds? They mostly seem to be into their own thing. How can I energize engagement?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#119

Post by TomasBM »

nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #103
TomasBM wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First two sentences are key. The reason why HN is so much better than other fora (IMO) is that the mods don't allow lever-pulling and astroturfing to overtake regular contributions. Yet it's also popular, so you're bound to get some activity on most posts. Sure, it can be frustrating if you're trying to promote a product or farm karma on posts. But the fact that mostly nobody cares about karma means that you can post…

How do you know they don't? How can you show this? It's fine if it's just vibes but just want to know what is known and can be said.

I can't know for sure. For me, it's just the "eyeball method" of comparing HN and different subreddits on Reddit.

As to how I (or anyone) could show this, here are a few example questions:

1. How many examples of stealthy but otherwise blatant promotion do you see in the comments? Not every astroturfing campaign will be successful or original, so you'd be able to notice some patterns. Plus, HN is already commercially oriented, and there's the "Show HN" option, so it reduces the incentives for astroturfing.

2. Alternatively, how much controversy is there around the specific type of forum? For some subreddits, for example, you'd be able to see counter-subreddits popping up when participants feel the mods are abusing their power to promote one type of opinion.

3. Is a certain type of political/brand-related opinion or interpretation always at the top of your comment feed? For example, if upvotes determine the order of the comments, do you consistently see fewer critical comments on things that you'd expect the community to react to in different ways.

4. Do you consistently see some contributors having more power in discussions over others? Other than the mods, obviously. If this is the case, karma (i.e., number of upvotes) often has more value.

Still, I could be wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#120

Post by matsemann »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #35
dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

A great take, and thanks for your all hard work dang. Yesterday the top comment on two stories I went to discuss had deep and meaningful content, before the last line which was a "and I talk about this stuff all the time on my newsletter [link]", and I was conflicted. Same poster each time. The poster had done the HN thing: responded with thoughtful examination of TFA, unique and interesting insight, and I don't feel…

Yeah, this "btw I have a newsletter here" seems overly promotional. HN as a forum doesn't have support for "signatures", then it feels a bit off to end every post with something not really relevant.

The grey area is people constantly linking to their own blog, but the linked post is relevant (example [0]). Like, it's good when people post relevant links to diver deeper, but when it's constantly your own content, that irks me a bit.

[0]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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