Earlier quoted context omitted.
The results are messy
You’re usually not sure which language to use
You’d guess Danica McKellar is good at it
Programming Is Like Sex
11–20 of 43 posts
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#12you wouldn't show your mom your latest trick
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#13Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#14[deleted]
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#15Wow. Add a few puns and one C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker, this could be a comment thread on reddit. That ain't a good thing.
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#16Wow. Add a few puns and one C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker, this could be a comment thread on reddit. That ain't a good thing.
Yeah, this is worrying. A crap link and a crap thread, and it's number 2.
The fundamental problem on any site like this is that it's so easy to upvote lightweight stuff. When a link sounds like it's going to take a while to read, people say "maybe I'll read it later," and never do. And since they haven't read it, they don't upvote it. Whereas e.g. a cartoon people know will only take a few seconds, so they click on it. And if they like it, they upvote it. Sounds harmless enough, right? And yet repeat and the result is a disaster.
What is the solution? The Right Thing would be to somehow scale votes by how easy/hard it is to vote on something. Or I could add a downarrow on stories for users over a certain karma threshold.
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#17Not a perfect analogy though.
For example, I really do prefer to program alone . . .
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#18[deleted]
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#19Wow. Add a few puns and one C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker, this could be a comment thread on reddit. That ain't a good thing.
Yeah, this is worrying. A crap link and a crap thread, and it's number 2. The fundamental problem on any site like this is that it's so easy to upvote lightweight stuff. When a link sounds like it's going to take a while to read, people say "maybe I'll read it later," and never do. And since they haven't read it, they don't upvote it. Whereas e.g. a cartoon people know will only take a few seconds, so they click on i…
The downarrow is a good idea, until you start to consider the cabal of greasmonkey jerks auto-downvoting everything on the new page that wasn't submitted by one of their cretin brethren. Perhaps there could be some kind of difficulty weight a user inputs when they submit a story. More demanding stories get a 10. Cartoons get a 1. Then give more weight to upvotes on the more complex stories. Obviously, this has the potential for abuse with folks misrepresenting the complexity of their article. But that wouldn't be hard to spot.
Re: Programming Is Like Sex
#20Wow. Add a few puns and one C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker, this could be a comment thread on reddit. That ain't a good thing.
Yeah, this is worrying. A crap link and a crap thread, and it's number 2. The fundamental problem on any site like this is that it's so easy to upvote lightweight stuff. When a link sounds like it's going to take a while to read, people say "maybe I'll read it later," and never do. And since they haven't read it, they don't upvote it. Whereas e.g. a cartoon people know will only take a few seconds, so they click on i…
I've been meditating about this over the last couple of days, and I'm pretty sure there are three stages in the life cycle of social news site discussion quality.
1. "You're wrong because" (intelligent arguments)
2. "You're wrong" (no reason given, baseless opinions)
3. "You're a fag" (ad hominems)
Of course there will always be some of each in any given stage, so the way the community reacts to comments is probably almost more important than the comments themselves. Good users will put up with stupid links, but they'll leave if it becomes clear that their contributions aren't being valued and they start to feel alienated from the community.
Up until recently the discussion quality on news.yc has been in stage one, but I feel like it's been drifting toward stage two over the last couple of weeks. I'm especially worried as we get closer to the deadline for YC apps, since quality always goes downhill during those periods.