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To Paul Graham

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: To Paul Graham

#111

Post by mortenjorck »

jacquesm wrote: post #98
mortenjorck wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as this document retains the respect of the majority of the users: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html HN will thrive. It's the single best set of "social news" community guidelines I've read. The triumph of HN has been in attracting an initial audience that agrees with the spirit of that document, and in their subtly but firmly encouraging its adherence in newcomers. The character of a community is a…

> the self-referential and jaded territory of Slashdot, or even the sycophantic territory of Wikipedia In this thread that's richly ironic. It's about as self-referential and sycophantic as I've ever seen here.

Your criticism is fair, but I don't think it really compares.

Nowhere in this thread is anyone riffing on in-joke memes a la Slashdot, nor is anyone attempting to achieve advancement in rank like at Wikipedia.

There is plenty of self-reference here but it's purely practical, and certainly there's a bit of sycophantic behavior, but what does anyone stand to gain by it at HN? Honestly telling PG you like his site just makes both of you feel good, unlike pretending to like a high-ranking Wikipedia admin in hopes of getting a promotion next round.

Either way, I'd be inclined to agree that love-fests like this aren't particularly useful to the HN community. But they happen, and occasional ones are a good sign (and maybe over-frequent ones are a bad sign).

Re: To Paul Graham

#112

Post by coderdude »

gamache wrote: post #102
coderdude wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet Explorer pretty much guarantees that my statement is true.

Your statement pretty much guarantees that I wouldn't want you writing my view layer.

Since you specialize in HTML5, why would you need me to write your view layer?

Re: To Paul Graham

#113

Post by stanleydrew »

seunosewa wrote: post #101
stanleydrew wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I hate using craigslist. I only use it because I have to.

What do you hate about it?

I hate apartment search. It's so so painful. Their data model is all wrong.

Location is the most important thing about an apartment in my opinion. That should be the primary method by which you search. And they've tried, but you end up searching within these broad "neighborhoods" in the bigger US cities. And a lot of people mischaracterize their apartment's location in order to make it seem nicer or whatever.

Why is craigslist wasting my time? Require posters to put in the actual address or at least an intersection for their apartment. Then show me the postings on a map. Something like hotpads.com works really well for me, but they don't have the volume that craigslist does, so I'm stuck.

Re: To Paul Graham

#114

Post by gamache »

coderdude wrote: post #112
gamache wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement pretty much guarantees that I wouldn't want you writing my view layer.

Since you specialize in HTML5, why would you need me to write your view layer?

Since you would shrink from using CSS to mark up the comments on this site (child's play), I can't think of a reason.

Re: To Paul Graham

#115

Post by inerte »

jacquesm wrote: post #96
inerte wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will find? The crazyness about "social media" is exactly that, luring users around your product/brand.

Not really, in those cases the 'product' is the data about the users, not the actual engagement of the users to create value outside of the forum where the interaction normally takes place. It's hard to put the difference any clearer than that, but YC engages a small subset of their users in activities that they are peripherally engaged in on the forum. Other 'social' sites sell their users data wholesale, that's a c…

There are several websites calling for user engagement where the money source is not user data. It's about "creating a community" around your product.

I can assure you, in publicity and marketing circles, when social media is mentioned it is precisely to attract consumers for your product.

The type of interaction between HN and YC is not new. It's just hard to replicate. Companies are trying this since the dawn of the internet. Think about what is the forum on the World of Warcraft website. The social media craze is an attempt to apply this community feeling to other markets.

Re: To Paul Graham

#116

Post by coderdude »

gamache wrote: post #114
coderdude wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you specialize in HTML5, why would you need me to write your view layer?

Since you would shrink from using CSS to mark up the comments on this site (child's play), I can't think of a reason.

I didn't say that I would, actually. I was defending the decision made by the author of this site. I've been defending practicality over spending a lot of one's time trying to get certain kinds of layout elements working in all browsers across the board. If you cannot appreciate that then let's just agree to disagree.

Re: To Paul Graham

#117

Post by ebiester »

j_baker wrote: post #110
chaosmachine wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now it also considers among other things the average comment score of the submitter. Does this create a rich-get-richer type scenario, where users with high averages get more exposure, thus leading to higher averages?

It might. But that's only an issue if the rich don't deserve to get rich.

Alternative, it keeps away those who deserve to get rich but cannot overcome the artificial market barriers.

Re: To Paul Graham

#118

Post by thefool »

j_baker wrote: post #110
chaosmachine wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now it also considers among other things the average comment score of the submitter. Does this create a rich-get-richer type scenario, where users with high averages get more exposure, thus leading to higher averages?

It might. But that's only an issue if the rich don't deserve to get rich.

Exactly, in this, the rich only get richer if they continue posting valid comments.

Otherwise they get poor real fast.

Re: To Paul Graham

#119

Post by eru »

jacquesm wrote: post #73
jokermatt999 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it's possible to build a fairly good community in a smaller subreddit. The larger ones have those problems, but it seems like most small sized subreddits actually work out pretty well. Still, I find myself gradually spending more and more time here and less and less time and reddit. I think if I didn't mod a few subreddits there, I'd pretty much have solely switched to HN.

That's probably true, and in fact underscores the point even further, smaller == better.

I'd say, small is good. Because smaller might lead to too small.

Re: To Paul Graham

#120

Post by eru »

cenazoic wrote: post #30
LaPingvino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you participate enough with quality articles and comments (measured with upvotes) you get a higher karma and at some point this will grant you the ability to downvote. I am mostly passively participating here (although I see myself commenting and submitting a bit more now) so I didn't reach such a karma yet...

I'm another one of the mostly passive readers of the site, mostly because I'm teaching myself to program, rather than actually being a programmer. HN has raised my awareness, made me more thoughtful about how and what I actually think about things (part of the passivity comes from the idea that any sloppy thought will be immediately shot down (rightfully so)), and overall contributed to an ongoing desire to be a larg…

> (part of the passivity comes from the idea that any sloppy thought will be immediately shot down (rightfully so))

You can still make a meaningful contribution by asking questions, if you want to.

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