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

Solving The Hacker News Problem

al3x.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 284 posts

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#71

Post by redthrowaway »

jacques_chester wrote: post #18

Ah yes, the cycle of website life. * Hot new community forms at Site X. * Site X residents refer to themselves as the New Wave of whatever. Much better than older Site W because of features/members/dynamic/demographics 1, 2 and 3! * Site X's reputation spreads to former hot new sites T, U, V and W. Site X begins to attract more and more new users. * Site X denizens begin linking articles at T, U, V, W and vice versa.…

Interestingly, this isn't a problem related to any particular category of site. Hell, look at 4chan: bitching about newfags and how /b/ isn't good anymore, how /b/ was never good, different factions with different ideas on how to fix the problem (or what the problem is, or if there even is one), spinoff sites where the early adopters migrate to...

This isn't an HN problem, it's an Internet problem. pg could probably do some things to ward off dilution, but it won't last forever. Interestingly enough, Something Awful seemed to be pretty damned successful in this regard by doing the unthinkable and charging people to post there. I'd hate to suggest it as a solution, but it has been effective in the past.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#72

Post by mkr-hn »

jraines wrote: post #67
pg wrote: post #24

I think if we could see random frontpages from days a few years ago, we'd find that the top stories weren't that different, and that there was the same "jack of all trades, master of none" aspect to the site that Alex complains about. It may be that a site whose design spec is to satisfy hackers' intellectual curiosity would necessarily feel that way. Maybe I'll write something to regenerate past front pages, so we c…

I think this may be due in part to people learning how to target Hacker News readers with their article and blog post headlines, so while the front page would look similar, the newer linked content is more fluffy. I mean, there has to be some explanation like this, because it just seems so clear from regular reading that the quality has gone down. Then again, maybe I'm projecting the decline of comments onto the cont…

The fact that HN hasn't been overrun by marketing zombies is why I'm not too worried about its direction. If linkbait titles are the big complaint about submissions, it's a good sign.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#73

Post by jdp23 »

cletus wrote: post #40
jacques_chester wrote: post #18

Ah yes, the cycle of website life. * Hot new community forms at Site X. * Site X residents refer to themselves as the New Wave of whatever. Much better than older Site W because of features/members/dynamic/demographics 1, 2 and 3! * Site X's reputation spreads to former hot new sites T, U, V and W. Site X begins to attract more and more new users. * Site X denizens begin linking articles at T, U, V, W and vice versa.…

While I basically agree with you--I too have seen this cycle many times before--what I don't understand is why people feel the need to slap down newbies in an attempt to recapture some since-passed golden age. If I get bored of a site or simply get nothing more out of it, I just move on. If I see topics that are boring or simply have no interest to me, I just ignore them. If I see rude, insulting comments or personal…

People who are deeply invested in a site want to defend their view of how it should be. Change is threatening, and it's easy to react with knee-jerk hostility.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#74

Post by JonnieCache »

derefr wrote: post #52
jacques_chester wrote: post #18

Ah yes, the cycle of website life. * Hot new community forms at Site X. * Site X residents refer to themselves as the New Wave of whatever. Much better than older Site W because of features/members/dynamic/demographics 1, 2 and 3! * Site X's reputation spreads to former hot new sites T, U, V and W. Site X begins to attract more and more new users. * Site X denizens begin linking articles at T, U, V, W and vice versa.…

How about, instead of a single community, the site runs as a set of "cohort" communities that each only allow direct sign-ups for their first year in existence, but then run a bit like leagues thereafter? If people like you on HN/2011, you might be invited into HN/2010, then HN/2009, etc. It could also be automatic/karma-based: if you earn enough karma on HN/2011, you start again on HN/2010 with 1 karma point (though…

I think this would just breed resentment, or at worst Lord Of The Flies/Robbers Cave style anarchy.

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Realistic_con...

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#75

Post by petercooper »

It's definitely not what Alex is semi-proposing but I've been running RubyFlow - http://rubyflow.com/ - for a few years now and it totally stole the MetaFilter model, just for Ruby-only stuff. No "votes" and points scoring - just interesting posts from people in the Ruby community coupled with me editing posts for format and deleting anything that's blatantly spam or offtopic. Seems to work though I have been tempted to go in the voting/Reddit/HN direction with it.. maybe I shouldn't!

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#76

Post by petercooper »

pg wrote: post #24

I think if we could see random frontpages from days a few years ago, we'd find that the top stories weren't that different, and that there was the same "jack of all trades, master of none" aspect to the site that Alex complains about. It may be that a site whose design spec is to satisfy hackers' intellectual curiosity would necessarily feel that way. Maybe I'll write something to regenerate past front pages, so we c…

You (pg) will not need this since you have the data.. ;-).. but for anyone else interested in doing analysis over time, HackerSlide stores JSON representations of the HN front page every hour (starting Oct 15 2010).

http://hackerslide.com/data/YYYY-MM-DD-HH.json gets you what you want. For example: http://hackerslide.com/data/2010-10-15-23.json

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#77

Post by stcredzero »

pg wrote: post #24

I think if we could see random frontpages from days a few years ago, we'd find that the top stories weren't that different, and that there was the same "jack of all trades, master of none" aspect to the site that Alex complains about. It may be that a site whose design spec is to satisfy hackers' intellectual curiosity would necessarily feel that way. Maybe I'll write something to regenerate past front pages, so we c…

I wonder what Google's reading level rating mechanism would make of changes over time? Disturbing thought -- what about comments by poster?

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#78

Post by tastybites »

malandrew wrote: post #68
tastybites wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget it happens in the actual cities we live in as well! Hipster-ism gives way to gentrification and then the cool kids move because there are way too many yuppies. Same things happens with suburbs - they get too crowded and people start moving to the country to make new suburbs. This is just human nature, it manifests itself in the clothes we wear, the cars/bikes we drive, the places we live, it certainl…

Rent control has been a pretty effective way of preserving the identities of communities in cities. It's not perfect, but it helps. Concepts similar to rent control can and should be applied to sites trying to preserve certain characteristics.

In my experience (SF, LA) the rent control is there to prevent the gouging of yuppies, not to keep the poor people in. The idea is the city wants to keep rent just high enough to retain the rich people for the tax and spending base but low enough that the landlords to squeeze them out, which they most likely would do if given the chance.

It might be different in places other than California though, like New York.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#79

Post by Mz »

I'm probably one of those darned newbies who isn't a real hacker and is screwing the place up. (Sorry.) So I wasn't around in 2008 (or whenever the Glory Days were). I don't feel like this article or other discussions about the issue have really given me a good idea of what HN supposedly once was that it isn't anymore. I wish I could get such info. I think that kind of information would hold out some hope of figuring out a real solution -- a means to raise the bar or deepen the discussion or whatever it is that people are wanting.

I know there are other large forums on the internet but this is the largest one I have personally participated in. I think such large forums are breaking new ground, socially, in ways that do not compare to sites like Facebook. Where else can I actually speak with my 80K closest friends? If I am in a room of 500 at work (and not on the stage, because I am not one of the big wigs), only a handful of people around me can hear anything I say. We all can listen to the presentation, but we cannot converse. Here, any and all of us can converse. It is unlike anything you can do "IRL". I suspect that is part of the issue: No one really has a model for how you manage that kind of social interaction. And the models we do have break in that setting.

Just thinking out loud.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#80

Post by cachemoney »

pg wrote: post #24

I think if we could see random frontpages from days a few years ago, we'd find that the top stories weren't that different, and that there was the same "jack of all trades, master of none" aspect to the site that Alex complains about. It may be that a site whose design spec is to satisfy hackers' intellectual curiosity would necessarily feel that way. Maybe I'll write something to regenerate past front pages, so we c…

The frontpage content is fine. I'm much more concerned about the comment quality.
Post reply on HN