Agree that there is a problem with comments, but there is also a problem with terrible or duplicate articles getting to the front page. I'd like the ability to downvote articles and we should all patrol duplicates - only allow linking to primary sources, etc.
Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
531–540 of 729 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#532Let's make karma actually worth something. To do this, change these items:
1) You can submit one link a day. Additional submits cost karma.
2) Costs karma to reply to any comment. Top level comments seem to already filter okay. If you get downvotes on the comment you made the karma cost is a multiple of that.
I also think some things would help in general:
1) Title/Domain Regex - Allow me to specify a regex to exclude things from the frontpage. For example /Apple|iPad|techcrunch/.
2) You have to have 10 or 20 karma to do anything besides top thread comments. It would be easy to get that with a little effort, but it would pretty much eliminate all the spam and low hanging crap.
3) Have a option to (turned on by default) to collapse comments using the common +/- interface and display the total score for that thread. I think then you would be able to focus and find the good threads quickly. Coming into this discussion 5 hrs after the fact like I am doing is where this is really needed.
4) This is a big one, but I will throw it out there. Create an API. With that I think a LOT of smart people (instead of a few) could play with all of this and maybe find somethings that no one here is currently thinking of.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#533The problem lies within the deeply nested threads that continuously go back and forth between a few select people. Most of the mean/dumb comments on the first level thread are downvoted or flagged and moved to the bottom. This makes it easy to read the high quality comments - just look at the top. The problem occurs when you start reading into a nested thread of comments. Users will sometimes argue 4 or 5 times back…
Occasionally intelligent discourse only begins several comments in. We wouldn't want to exclude that.
If "karma whores" drive the system, then the incentives created by this change would drive them away from commenting on sub-threads. I guess "kw" probably already post something snarky right under the top comment (and probably time it).
The third of your points is your best idea (imho). Comments among just a few people are less likely to be generally interesting.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#534Make 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 t…
http://www.previouslook.com/hnews/new takes snapshots of the HN new page periodically to let go back over the new pages easy. Feel free to try it out.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#535Cap the score that is displayed with a comment e.g., past 10 points, just display "10+". Don't display karma and average scores of users, again, past a certain point: this prevents (subconscious) game incentives which lead to e.g., posting comments that say something stupid or mean but which tend to agree with general tendencies of the site. For example, I can post a comment decrying Blub with a snide remark (e.g., "…
Actually, you just gave me a great idea (I think). The problem is mainly snide remarks, right? So make it impossible to make snide remakrs. How? Minimum comment length of ~50 words. This would A) get rid of casual snideyness, as those sorts of people wouldn't put in the effort to formulate a longer post; B) discourage crowd-pleasing one liners, which while enjoyable have a long term negative effect; C) still allow jo…
I generally try to keep my comments short. Verbosity isn't good per se.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#536Cap the score that is displayed with a comment e.g., past 10 points, just display "10+". Don't display karma and average scores of users, again, past a certain point: this prevents (subconscious) game incentives which lead to e.g., posting comments that say something stupid or mean but which tend to agree with general tendencies of the site. For example, I can post a comment decrying Blub with a snide remark (e.g., "…
The Kuro5hin solution of displaying averages plus number of ratings might give information in that direction, factoring out into two different numbers the average quality people thought the comment had, from the number of people who rated it. Not quite the same as a threshhold maximum, but it produces an asymptotic maximum instead. It's also, imo, useful to have them as two separate numbers, because they convey seman…
Trimean or winsorized mean could be useful in this case.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#537I'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.
Risk aversion and loss aversion might lead to excessive silence if every comment cost karma. Maybe the cost could kick in above a certain speed/number of comments, or above some other threshold.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#538May I suggest going back to earlier time of HN? Because of the success, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. You have to always increase the number of moderators as the input from users increases. We are all here to read/discuss pretty much the same news. Why not have a chosen few provide the links and start discussions. Maybe the moderators themselves? This will cut down on duplicate links/stories and it will cut down the noise tremendously. Those who are truly interested in HN, will stick around and discuss. Those who are not, will simply go find their news somewhere else.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#539The real problem is that it's difficult to encode social constraints into a system. StackOverflow tries it, and i think that they have erred on the side of restricting contribution in order to preserve their system.
It is far more effective to have members of the community, particularly people who are representative of the ethos that HN has had to point out bad behavior, and recommend more responsible courses of action.
In so far as we are a community, we should encourage behavior as a community. Ultimately the point of writing comments and posting links is for others to see them, karma is worthless otherwise.
To that end, i think there's interesting things that could be done with average karma. If we're trying to encourage hill-climbing behavior towards better karma, why not highlight comments w/ higher average karma than you have? If we are trying to encourage leadership, then perhaps we should point out who is leading, and the behavior which we should be emulated.
Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with that is that it's hard to say exactly what counts as politics. E.g. is an article about economic inequality like this one http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2402027 politics? I don't think so. Economic inequality is a very interesting social phenomenon, though it is often written about in a heated/political way.
Require articles about (say) economic inequality to be scholarly.
tptacek, it would be great to require everything on HN to be "scholarly" or sufficiently serious, no? But the question is how to do that.