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Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

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Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#31

Post by sabat »

mapleoin wrote: post #22
sabat wrote: post #20

I don't see HN going downhill in terms of submissions or in discourse. Things are mostly the same as they were 2-3 years ago. I do worry -- perhaps unnecessarily -- about the killing of submissions for no obvious reason. Apparently using a URL shortener is verboten, although the HN guidelines don't mention this. But using one will get your story autokilled. Yesterday, I tried to submit what I thought was an interesti…

What do you need the URL shortener for? I find it very annoying to have to click in order to see who the author of the content is when I can just look at the domain name at the end of the HN submission.

What do you need the URL shortener for?

Actually I don't use them here; never have. I just noticed a post having been killed, and saw a followup from HN staff explaining that using a URL shortener will cause a post to be autokilled.

I don't care about URL shorteners. I am concerned about what the rules are, and particularly the rules that are not explictly stated in the HN Guidelines.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#32

Post by bpyne »

As long as someone has opened up a guideline discussion....

"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

Agreed in full.

However, downmodding without constructive criticism leaves the downmodded with no sense of what to improve in the next comment. A downmod could easily be due to underdeveloped point, style, or disagreement about an opinion. At least 2 of the 3 reasons can lead to better future comments.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#33

Post by j_baker »

boredguy8 wrote: post #11
swombat wrote: post #7

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

I agree, it's a fairly constant theme. But... 1) It's been a while, so worth the reminder; and 2) It's actually a submission from someone whose been here a while. The last several were from people with So: worth a little bit of +1 action, but I certainly hope it doesn't 'stay at the top for a while' as someone else said. Hoarding one of the 'above the fold' slots would be a bummer.

Yes, but I don't see this as being helpful. Be honest. Did you reread the guidelines? And more importantly, do you think the people that didn't read the guidelines the first time around will reread it because of a thread like this?

All in all, I think this is less about helping newbies integrate into the site and more about giving "old-timers" a chance to vent.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#34

Post by DeusExMachina »

swombat wrote: post #7

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

I think that reminding people to read the guidelines does not necessarily mean that HN is becoming bad.

I incur sometimes in posts that do not follow the guidelines and get a lot of downvotes. Half the time they are from new users that maybe do not even know about those guidelines, so maybe they do not even understand why they are getting downvoted. Of course they can learn it the hard way, but reading the guidelines is a lot faster and wastes less of everybody's time.

In the same way there are some posts that are not appropriate to this community. In the last days I did not find many interesting posts in the first page, but that's just my opinion and the community as a whole decides what goes up or not. Nonetheless some days ago I even found a link to thisisphotobomb.com (a websites of the cheesburger network, like the lolcats) and this is clearly against the guidelines. Again, there are the voting system and the flagging system, but it wastes less of everybody's time just to know the guidelines and it's better not to pollute the new posts section.

In each of these cases I think "you should read the guidelines", but don't write it because it's against them. But the fact that lately I've been thinking it more often, means that a kind reminder is not totally out of place.

Does this all mean that HN is becoming bad? I don't think so. It just means that we have guidelines we care about because they made HN a place we all like.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#36

Post by elblanco »

DavidSJ wrote: post #12
swombat wrote: post #7

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

I think the reality is more that it goes in cycles, and it does seem to be at one of its low points currently. A reminder of the guidelines seems in order.

What's also interesting is how the appropriateness of this particular metadiscussion seems to also come in waves. Today this is top of the front page. Tomorrow the same post might be flagged or comments downvoted into oblivion.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#37

Post by elblanco »

jng wrote: post #30
Vivtek wrote: post #10

I'm pleased to see that I am officially allowed to complain that HNN is getting to be just like Reddit.

Hacker News is starting to feel like programming.reddit.com a year ago. Now, Reddit is getting more and more like Digg a year before that. Digg certainly looks like Youtube comments one year before. Now, Youtube, that surely is now just like Myspace some time before. And Myspace now is somewhere close to what the AOL forums used to be. But AOL - don't look at the AOL forums! they now look as bad as Usenet did when ev…

It'd be an interesting day when forum degeneration can be solved via circular migration around ring of sites vs. Linear migration like today.

"everybody barrel shift!"

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#38

Post by kscaldef »

pg wrote: post #16
DavidSJ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reality is more that it goes in cycles, and it does seem to be at one of its low points currently. A reminder of the guidelines seems in order.

What I find is that randomness produces the appearance of cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion The last couple days were particularly bad, with lots of articles about controversial but fundamentally boring topics. But I think it was a coincidence, as usual.

Do you collect any metrics on user behavior?

For example, it seem to me like downvoting (and particularly the abuse of downvoting) is on the rise. But this is just a gut feeling based on my particular comment history.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#39

Post by jjcm »

Vivtek wrote: post #10

I'm pleased to see that I am officially allowed to complain that HNN is getting to be just like Reddit.

As someone who was previously a reddit guy (although I found out about HN via irc), I'll do my best to make sure that I don't contribute to the change. I came to HN because I liked the culture and the discussion here; changing that culture and discussion would defeat the purpose of coming here. Thanks to all you HN oldtimers (in internet-years) for creating and contributing to what HN is today (and hopefully will be for years to come).

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#40

Post by lionhearted »

swombat wrote: post #7

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

Indeed, though the worst trend I see is emotional comments getting voted up more. Maybe I'm seeing the past more warmly than it was, but it seems like clear, logical, consistent, coherent comments got voted up and emotional based comments stayed around 1 or got voted down. It seems like a lot of emotional reactions are getting voted up even when they're not coherent, consistent, and logical - which seems a bad trend.
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