Considering the perspective of a logged in user, simply give them the opportunity to deselect others by username and then record their deselections with their account. This wouldn't require unique pages to be served, except for a deselected_users array to be picked up and processed at the client side. The same lightweight approach can be used give shape to a user's own view with stuff like: 'preferred users', 'out-right scum' etc. Same principles apply to personal topic preferences and their viewed ranking.
Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
101–110 of 297 posts
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#102Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
Possible solution 1: Smaller communities; Dunbar's number. I know it's been suggested before, but here it is again... When everybody knows everybody, people are nicer. Just create one unique, isolated instance of the site for every X number of users. Distribute current users randomly (or whatever) among the instances. Assign new users to the least populous instance. If an instance gets over max_number of users, split…
Solution 2 is very interesting and a form of instant personalization. "You will like this if this is the sort of thing you like." People who want to seek out disagreement/incongenial views might be able to turn it off should they so please.
With the right data structure you could do this with a single matrix-vector multiplication per page view.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#103Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
Educate people on flagging inappropriate comments, like offensive ones, instead of downvoting. Downvoting can be used for disagreement, but nasty comments deserve to be flagged and then eliminated.
Then, put a heavy fine on it: for example, if a user has a comment eliminated due to flagging, he loses a big amount of karma (20%?) and he cannot comment/submit for one day.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that the less anonymous a forum like this is, the more polite it will be. You have said you want people to speak to each other here as they would in the real world: well, I believe the more strongly you tie their real world identity to their account here, the more polite they would be. My suggestion, similar to that experiment in the past, and similar to twitter, add a "verified user" badge in the users pro…
I haven't found anonymity to be very well correlated with politeness on tech discussion forums I'm on. Some of the most abrasive ones are filled with people posting under their real names, and folks like rms, Theo De Raadt, Ulrich Drepper, and a bunch of the comp.lang.lisp crowd have no problem flaming you under their real names.
But that's real life. The goal is to make the conversation here equivalent to how people talk in real life, not be more polite than that.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#105Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
It was already suggested often that people should "pay" karma to post and maybe even to comment
Users should be encouraged to comment LESS, only if they have something useful to say.
That's what I'm doing anyway, because I really don't care about karma and speak only when I have something worth to say, would be cool if anyone was acting like this since we have no shortage of users.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#106Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
I'd like to see the karma system dispensed with entirely. I don't think it encourages thoughtful and productive discussions.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#107Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
Perhaps clearly stating the policy/approach at the top of the HN page?
Not of the form "You must do this". But rather of the form "The mission of HN is to supply stimulating, insightful, {insert mission here}... Therefore always be polite, thoughtful, engaging and supporting".
That'll be enough I think. It's currently not immediately clear what the mission is unless you explore and delve deeper.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#108Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
Perhaps clearly stating the policy/approach at the top of the HN page? Not of the form "You must do this". But rather of the form "The mission of HN is to supply stimulating, insightful, {insert mission here}... Therefore always be polite, thoughtful, engaging and supporting". That'll be enough I think. It's currently not immediately clear what the mission is unless you explore and delve deeper.
It's also the simplest non-tech thing to try first ;)
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#109Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
Possible solution 1: Smaller communities; Dunbar's number. I know it's been suggested before, but here it is again... When everybody knows everybody, people are nicer. Just create one unique, isolated instance of the site for every X number of users. Distribute current users randomly (or whatever) among the instances. Assign new users to the least populous instance. If an instance gets over max_number of users, split…
Possible solution 1 sounds like a horrible idea. By fragmenting the community it would fragment the knowledge, quite a high price to pay for clean comments.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#110Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.
How about you add a little note just above the reply button. Something like: Does this comment add value/insight/healthy debate to this topic? Very low tech I know, but sometimes people need a little reminder to think about the tone of their message and how it will be received by the community before they hit that reply button.
Totally agreed. I made a similar comment above. I think it'll work.