Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 141 posts

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#121

Post by SwellJoe »

robryan wrote: post #99
SwellJoe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be hesitant to hire someone that had huge karma on any site (including HN), unless they had real projects to show that their passions include shipping rather than just talking real pretty about it on the Internet. Someone can be clever and knowledgeable, and still be a poor employee or co-founder. (And, my least productive times are often when I'm most interested in what's happening on reddit/HN/etc.)

Decently large karma means there would be a lot of comments to browse through though which can give you an idea about the person. To a point be knowledgeable on startups and the tech scene is an advantage but yeah there is a point where time is better spend getting something done.

My comment should be taken with the knowledge that I have pretty big karma at both reddit and HN (and StackExchange, though I've never browsed or considered signing up for quora). Obviously, I like to think I'm a pretty useful person to have around in a company. So, my comment is definitely one of balance rather than "don't hire people who talk a lot on the Internet".

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#122

Post by Locke1689 »

Joakal wrote: post #112
Locke1689 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful. If a user bypasses a warning dialog from the operating system to run a program they download from the Internet, is it still the OS's fault if it is malware? Sometimes providing a perfect user experience is equivalent to solving the halting problem and not recognizing this is as big a problem as believing that all problems are the user's fault.

Yes. It's likely a 'Cry wolf' issue where the OS sends warning dialogs about every download, even safe ones. So the user thinks it's similar file so it's no problem. Users had complaints about Windows UAC doing this for every instance (not just downloads).

It's likely a 'Cry wolf' issue where the OS sends warning dialogs about every download, even safe ones.

Right. This misunderstanding was the entire point of my post. Distinguishing between the "safe" downloads and the "unsafe" downloads is an instance of solving the halting problem.

Also, I was thinking of the Chrome "Run Application" dialog, not the UAC.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#123

Post by spicyj »

mattwijas wrote: post #92
spicyj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you let unregistered users vote?

That would probably make the system more susceptible to gaming by spammers.

How does forcing registration help? The main barrier is that you need to answer a couple of questions and get upvotes before you can upvote others.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#124

Post by Locke1689 »

chc wrote: post #110
Locke1689 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a certain extent, security will always have to make the user think. There's simply no way around that without complete service dictation.

Yes, but Stack Overflow's signup screen takes more thinking than most sites (by virtue of being different, not to mention its complexity). Amazon's signup is far simpler and it does not seem to be terribly insecure.

Actually if you have an older Amazon account it was shown to be pretty terribly insecure.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#125

Post by Locke1689 »

patio11 wrote: post #120
codinghorror wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you this Alain? http://answers.onstartups.com/users/502/alain-raynaud if so then your account looks up to date to me, and you were able to log in through Facebook. Realize that this was a legacy SE 1.0 site we imported over, so your account may have had some very old stuff in it, and it may not be representative of SE 2.0 logins.

Respectfully, "We did something on the backend and now some logins no longer function" is a fairly common implementation flaw with OpenID. This is a pretty serious Oops for an identity system. The traditional username/password pair is virtually immune to this, if we assume the developers are competent. (Competence will not solve OpenID delegation, as one example. It is virtually immune to comprehension by mortal mind…

With all due respect, I think you're completely wrong about this. I do not assume that most developers are competent.

In fact, when it comes to security, I assume most developers are about two steps away from handing out root on request.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#126

Post by patio11 »

Locke1689 wrote: post #125
patio11 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, "We did something on the backend and now some logins no longer function" is a fairly common implementation flaw with OpenID. This is a pretty serious Oops for an identity system. The traditional username/password pair is virtually immune to this, if we assume the developers are competent. (Competence will not solve OpenID delegation, as one example. It is virtually immune to comprehension by mortal mind…

With all due respect, I think you're completely wrong about this. I do not assume that most developers are competent. In fact, when it comes to security, I assume most developers are about two steps away from handing out root on request.

Speaking generally, I agree, competence is a risky assumption. It isn't risky about the SO devs: I've met some, they're sharp. They're certainly well-past sharp enough to get username/password working right.

But OpenID is easy to screw up. Practically everyone has enormous problems with their implementations. (This goes seven times over for yours truly.) Which is (yet another) knock against choosing OpenID for anything important, versus systems which evidence exists can be implemented correctly. It is possible to bork username/password, but it is possible to implement it mostly correctly, too. I do not think it is possible to implement OpenID correctly. (For what it's worth, StackOverflow's is the best implementation I've seen from the user's perspective.)

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#127

Post by lsc »

Locke1689 wrote: post #111
keiferski wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An exception can be found for every rule, in just about anything. Nitpicking specific examples and then saying "oh, well this disproves it" proves nothing. 99 out of a 100 times, blaming the user isn't the right move. For the sake of brevity, I used ever and always .

Ah, but we're discussing a specific domain, security, where I think "the user is always right" is often wrong. Requiring a user to memorize 10+ essentially random characters, for example, is an awful user experience, but it is required for security purposes.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/06/write_down_you...

Personally, I prefer keys (long, randomly-generated passwords stored in a file or device) to passwords, but I don't know of any reasonable way to authenticate to a webapp with a key.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#128

Post by rmccue »

fleitz wrote: post #84
Simucal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see why a non tech-savvy user would be confused by OpenID but I it surprises me how many programmers are confused by it. On the login page they list a bunch of common providers you can login with if you already have an account with them: Google, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, etc. Click their icon, type in your credentials. If you don't have an account with one of those or don't wish to use them then it has a big regist…

OpenID makes absolutely no sense to me. Unless they have the sites in a drop down it takes about 5 minutes to read the OpenID spec, google around for where to get the openID url and paste it into the box. OpenID is a solution in search of a problem. It may have actually been useful if it leveraged DNS SRV records so you could login as foo@bar.com and it would query SRV _openid.bar.com for the URL.

I'm working on a spec similar to this, but using TXT records (as they're URLs, not just servers). I wonder if anyone would be interested in me putting up what I have on this already?

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#129

Post by arethuza »

kayoone wrote: post #28

SO is a very successfull Site without all the koolaid, wich is great. Hell, the even run everything on Windows... On HN you would probably get beaten to death when saying something like that.

Argh - fat fingers, ipad, morning - downvoted by mistake!
Post reply on HN