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Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

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Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#91

Post by alexgartrell »

gleb wrote: post #36

I'd try to severely decrease total # of comments. Really bad comments are not the root of the problem. Simply having large number of mediocre comments crowds out and discourages thoughtful discussion from starting at all. I'd say: * create some real cost to making comments * make bad comments disappear/not display at all with time * make things less democratic -- to encourage good behavior identify users who have thi…

One possible implementation is to scale the number of comments a person can make in a time period dependent upon his median comment score over some previous last time period.

I've got no citation at all, but I'd bet that people who have N comments left in the next week will be more miserly about using them. You could also make exceptions for replying to replies and that kind of thing, so as not to artificially limit back and forth (which is sometimes a good thing; for example, tcptacek and zedshaw always have good conversations, if a bit argumentative).

It'd cut back on people who shotgun "funny" comments and have them land occasionally without disrupting people who try to only comment when they have something valuable to say.

A set of super voters would also be good, but, again, not super democratic.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#92

Post by rexreed »

pg wrote: post #81
gleb wrote: post #36

I'd try to severely decrease total # of comments. Really bad comments are not the root of the problem. Simply having large number of mediocre comments crowds out and discourages thoughtful discussion from starting at all. I'd say: * create some real cost to making comments * make bad comments disappear/not display at all with time * make things less democratic -- to encourage good behavior identify users who have thi…

Making it cost karma to comment would be one way to do that. I could also do something like slashdot and reddit do, and not show comments below some threshold.

You think it's a good idea to penalize people for commenting? How does this help people new to the scene? "Thanks for joining in the conversation, here's a penalty" This only rewards people who have been around in the scene for a while, while penalizing all the new people.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#95

Post by jjcm »

I'd suggest that there are more tiers to functionality than are currently in place. At the moment, after 500 points you're given the ability to downvote comments. Perhaps there should be additional barriers in place, such as this:

0 - Ability to comment on threads

50 - Ability to upvote comments

500 - Ability to downvote comments

1000 - Ability to submit articles/stories

2000 - Ability to downvote articles/stories

etc. While this may reduce the number of incoming stories, perhaps there could be a way for power users to sponsor stories submitted by those who aren't able to submit them to the feed themselves. The more I think about it, the more I like this approach - create a queue of "pending stories" that anyone can submit to, but only those who have sufficient experience on the site can approve them (or remove them from the queue).

For those who say that I'd be pandering to myself here, note that I'm at 620 points right now - with this proposition I'd be reducing my current abilities. However I think that it's a small price to pay to improve the quality of submissions.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#96

Post by euroclydon »

jacquesm wrote: post #75

I think it is in part the comments but also very much the articles. One very simple suggestion: an 'off topic' tab where stuff that does not fit the HN bill can be moved to. An 'offtopic' link similar to the 'flag' link for users with more than 5K karma, that answers the questions 'what do you get for karma' nicely as well too.

Not having sub-HNs is refreshing. Introducing them would be to simultaneously give up the fight and alter the nature of HN forever.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#97

Post by randall »

geuis wrote: post #31

Make voting on comments cost karma. Alternately, make new story submission require at least 100 minimum karma level. I suspect the effect here would be to reduce the number of frivolous and spammy submissions. When more high quality submissions are the topics of conversation, the quality of comments will go up.

Slippery slope... I think Digg is the ultimate example of where the "elder statesmen" become the only people that matter.

Anyone who's smart should be able to contribute w/o passing some sort of exclusionary bar.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#98

Post by [deleted] »

kwis wrote: post #78
mgkimsal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what 'founders' and 'CEOs' have to do with hacker news.

I assumed that the target market for HN is people in startups and people about to start startups. That said, if the target market is just 'hackers', just modify my question to refer to 'hackers' rather than 'founders'.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#99

Post by b_emery »

gleb wrote: post #36

I'd try to severely decrease total # of comments. Really bad comments are not the root of the problem. Simply having large number of mediocre comments crowds out and discourages thoughtful discussion from starting at all. I'd say: * create some real cost to making comments * make bad comments disappear/not display at all with time * make things less democratic -- to encourage good behavior identify users who have thi…

Great ideas. The act of commenting on a thread should cost you a few Karma points. Right now there is now down side to commenting. If you comment and it cost you say 5 points, and you don't get 5 back, you'd probably think about it a little more next time.

Also, on the 'less democratic' idea, up-votes from users with more karma could be weighted heavier. Quality comments would rise up faster.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#100

Post by psawaya »

Make it easier for new stories to get noticed before they fall off the new page. It's a crapshoot if your submission gets noticed, and (it seems at least) the stories on the front page come from the same domains and submitters, probably because people tend to vote based on name recognition.

I realize that doesn't directly relate to comments, but I think some of the declining quality of conversation owes to the fact that it's getting a bit stale. How many blog articles about productivity can we discuss without some decline?

I don't think we should ban political articles at all. In fact, I think less blog posts about "are we in a bubble?" and more articles on economics, science, philosophy, etc would make HN much more interesting. The median comment here is still of much higher quality than at sites like reddit. And although certain subjects can be sensitive, I doubt that banning these topics will actually reduce meanness, it will just make the change in decorum harder to notice.

Finally, a more extreme idea: why not add a second kind of vote? Perhaps we could vote comments agree/disagree in addition to up or down. These could be right and left arrows, to drive home the point that disagreeing with something ought to be orthogonal to whether it adds to the conversation. We could weigh these votes less, so that rankings more reflect how insightful we think something is, instead of how popular.

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