Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#91

Post by Carpetsmoker » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #78

I replied to the author on Mastodon earlier. Copypasta: >huh, I totally disagree. The moderation on Lobsters is really self-interested and fickle, and there's little done to protect any opinions which differ from the mainstream. I've seen a lot of trolls and hateful threads go unmoderated just because they agree with the party line. The platform also has a censorship problem, in which they merge new posts into old po…

I don't recall ever seeing "hateful" content go unmoderated. Do you have any examples?

Also not sure what you mean with "protect opinions outside of the mainstream"? What kind of opinions do you mean? And how should they be protected?

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#92

Post by ecliptik » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #46

laumars wrote: post #23

The down-vote feature (for those who didn't read the article: you have to provide feedback to down-vote) is something I've spent years saying HN badly needs. These days I just don't bother posting most of the time because while I shouldn't be bothered by abuse of negative rep; you can't help be pissed off when you've spent a short while including detail only for someone who doesn't understand the subject or has a per…

I think that a better solution, at HN scale, would be to limit the number of downvotes in a 24 hour period. Not clear what the ideal number is; maybe 5 at 500 karma, and 5 more per 500, possibly up to some limit (25?). Otherwise, 'you must provide a reason' is trivially gameable, it just means downvotes are two clicks instead of one. I suspect that the recent trend to low-quality downvotes is because 500 is a relativ…

The Slashdot karma system sort of had something like this. It’s been a few years, but comments weren’t given point totals but tags like “insightful”, “funny” for positive or “troll” for negative. This way a comment had feedback on why it was ranked higher or lower. A moderator only had so many points to give for a limited period of time as well as other guardrails. In order to get mod status you had to do things like history of reading comments in articles and posting articles and comments which in turn had high marks. This made a positive feedback loop where more positive participation gave more chances for mod status.

See: https://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml

On top of that there’s a meta-moderation system where in turn mods in comments are evaluated if they were modded fairly or not. If marked fair the original mod got more karma, and less if deemed unfair.

https://slashdot.org/story/99/09/07/155233/slashdots-meta-mo...

I don’t know if such a system can exist in modern day, but out of all comment systems I always found the Slashdot style both simple and fair for the complexities of large comment volumes.

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#93

Post by Carpetsmoker » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

blocked_again wrote: post #36

aleph- wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so, it's a method for dealing with spammers/marketers and the like who would post low effort or off topic content regularly.

Its true that this system blocks spammers and marketers. At the same time it also prevents a large amount of genuine users who want to take part in the dicussions because its hard to get an invite. So overall the system does more harm than good.

I got an invite by just asking nicely on IRC with some details about myself.

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#94

Post by smitty1e » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

As with licences, I've got a "hand-wavy" opinion that the sum is greater than the components.

Hacker News and Lobste.rs together is greater than either in isolation.

Some of the pummelings I've received on here have been justified rebukes of jackassery.

A couple have seemed burnings at the stake for violations of orthodoxy. But asbestos nickers are just what you wear.

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#95

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

blocked_again wrote: post #36

aleph- wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so, it's a method for dealing with spammers/marketers and the like who would post low effort or off topic content regularly.

Its true that this system blocks spammers and marketers. At the same time it also prevents a large amount of genuine users who want to take part in the dicussions because its hard to get an invite. So overall the system does more harm than good.

It's not that hard to get an invite. Ask in an HN thread and there's a good chance somebody will hook you up, assuming they either know you, OR can tell from your HN comment/submission history that you're not some weirdo who is going to spam lobste.rs with crap.

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#96

Post by slg » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #90

slg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have complained about this to moderators before. There are certain topics that are almost off limits on HN not due to the rules, but due to the heavy flagging they always receive. Articles by, about, and for women are one common example. These articles being flagged results in this community being pulled further into a dangerous realm of misogyny that already exist in some pockets of the tech world. EDIT: Another e…

I'm not a mod and I don't have any inside track, but I've been around a while. I suspect that this item has fallen not because of flags, but because it's got 80 comments and only 75 votes. There is a mechanism as a proxy to detect flame wars, and is not necessarily because of flagging. If you think this has been sunk inappropriately then email the mods. They are quite open to getting honest, constructive comments and…

I have scrolled through several pages and this post is no longer in the top 200 on HN. I have never seen the flame-war penalty hit anything close to that hard that quickly. I am pretty sure this is from user flagging.

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#97

Post by HeWhoLurksLate » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

NoahTheDuke wrote: post #31

rowathray wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of Apple Music? Spotify? Youtube?

Laughable to compare the obsessive curation of music on what.cd with any of those platforms, not to mention the fidelity and the vast range, far exceeding what’s available on the other platforms.

@rowathray

It's not so much because of the pirating that this service was successful, it's because of the dedicated userbase it held.

If something like what.cd integrated with something like Spotify- a legitimate way of accessing lots of music- say "here's a button to stream" somewhere on the site, it would probably be successful.

Mind you, one of the other reasons that these sorts of things with torrent or whatever backends get so popular is because there isn't a particular gatekeeper that can decide what can and can't be on the platform [1.] Destroying and damaging the effort of people who help your platform on their spare time tends to garner ill will.

[1] Spotify removing R. Kelly and XXXTentacion from their service: https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8455549/new-spot...

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#98

Post by yborg » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #46

laumars wrote: post #23

The down-vote feature (for those who didn't read the article: you have to provide feedback to down-vote) is something I've spent years saying HN badly needs. These days I just don't bother posting most of the time because while I shouldn't be bothered by abuse of negative rep; you can't help be pissed off when you've spent a short while including detail only for someone who doesn't understand the subject or has a per…

I think that a better solution, at HN scale, would be to limit the number of downvotes in a 24 hour period. Not clear what the ideal number is; maybe 5 at 500 karma, and 5 more per 500, possibly up to some limit (25?). Otherwise, 'you must provide a reason' is trivially gameable, it just means downvotes are two clicks instead of one. I suspect that the recent trend to low-quality downvotes is because 500 is a relativ…

This is a very good idea, and I think the quota should be even lower. I also think the old Slashdot mechanic of allowing a set of tags on user mod votes is useful to provide additional feedback.

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#99

Post by bnjms » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

gonzo41 wrote: post #38

solatic wrote: post #14

And HN is arguably better for not being invite-only. There are so many articles on HN where the top comment is by somebody with deep domain knowledge who provides some kind of original insight that fits into the low length and polish expectations of a comment, but would never have become a formal blog post. Invite-only communities intentionally give up on that kind of discourse for... what? Easier moderation?

I will jump on and add that the filter options that the OP talks about are a weakness, not a strength. I like HN because I get exposure to ideas and topics that are out of my normal orbit. A lot of the web is very narrow these days and I know HN has it's limitations but it still feels very diverse.

I’m this case you can have your pie and eat it too. All that is missing is a popularity page.

It’s true that random professional posts are the best part of HN but I mostly care about the posts that appear in /best for things outside my interests.

Re: Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News

#100

Post by superasn » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

laumars wrote: post #23

The down-vote feature (for those who didn't read the article: you have to provide feedback to down-vote) is something I've spent years saying HN badly needs. These days I just don't bother posting most of the time because while I shouldn't be bothered by abuse of negative rep; you can't help be pissed off when you've spent a short while including detail only for someone who doesn't understand the subject or has a per…

HN can use one other thing, that is not showing the OP's name in the story.

The OP can still reveal himself by a comment (maybe different color name of OP in comments) but there is no other way to know who submitted the story.

This would greatly encourage upvotes by merit of article than people just following influencers.