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When I see someone being rude I always point it out and ask them to behave. More often than not people get offended and start defending their "right to be rude". I just hope that enough people do what I do, and the cumulative peer pressure will calm everyone down.
:)
The quality of comments has been declining very gradually for years. There's a lot we already do about it, and probably other techniques that are yet undiscovered. This is somewhat uncharted territory. I'm medium hopeful.
It's not just the comments, I'm more concerned about the submissions. Look at the front page right now, and see how many items are not "Hacker News" even with a very lax definition of "stuff that's interesting specifically to hackers." For example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3497331
I'd strongly suggesting policing OT posts more proactively. Like PG said in his essay about starting Hacker News, this is a social problem, not a technical one. We need to refrain from doing things that make jerks feel like this is the place for them.
The quality of comments has been declining very gradually for years. There's a lot we already do about it, and probably other techniques that are yet undiscovered. This is somewhat uncharted territory. I'm medium hopeful.
It's not just the comments, I'm more concerned about the submissions. Look at the front page right now, and see how many items are not "Hacker News" even with a very lax definition of "stuff that's interesting specifically to hackers." For example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3497331
It seems that hacker news may be getting too popular for it's own good. At which point, you start getting submissions from people who are more interested in promoting themselves or some agenda and finding ways to game the ranking system to get content on the front page.
The quality of comments has been declining very gradually for years. There's a lot we already do about it, and probably other techniques that are yet undiscovered. This is somewhat uncharted territory. I'm medium hopeful.
Yes I realize there is always the inevitable discussion of "HN is declining" and like most things, perception is reality.
The quality of comments has been declining very gradually for years. There's a lot we already do about it, and probably other techniques that are yet undiscovered. This is somewhat uncharted territory. I'm medium hopeful.
Are you willing to share or discuss some of the ways you're quantifying "quality"? It seems like an extremely difficult problem, and relevant to the problems many of us are trying to solve. I can come up with plenty of simple metrics, but they all fall apart pretty fast, especially if the community quality starts to tank hard. Think of the sheer number of upvotes that most inane meme references get on reddit. Situati…
Quality is discourse, not peanut gallery, vacuum sucking commentary that builds on puns, memes, insults and karma whoring.
Inflammatory comments often devolve into nothing. No insights, no evocative call to action. However, constructive assertions backed by reason are not inflammatory and equally capable of evocative statements that can be challenged.
"ass" doesn't seem to be that extreme...rude yes...but not that "bad". Didn't see that particular discussion, so might have been worse. The whole deification of pg by some people on here is pretty weird if you ask me.
I don't see any "deification" of pg, personally. I see people being very respectful and grateful for him, for providing this site (which he certainly does not owe us) and for being an active supporter of the startup scene and promoting entrepreneurship. He also has established credentials as a sharp technologist and all-around smart guy, so why wouldn't he be respected here.
That said, you are allowed to disagree with pg, and people do it from time to time. It's not like you get auto-banned for not agreeing with everything the man says or anything. But you can disagree with pg (or anybody else) in a polite and respectful manner, without being rude or inflammatory.
"ass" doesn't seem to be that extreme...rude yes...but not that "bad"
It was uncalled for and it goes outside of the norms this community tries to maintain, IMO.
My favorite forums are ones that don't allow the discussion of politics or religion. The same is true for real-life discussions with acquaintances that you don't thoroughly know yet. There is nothing to be gained from a discussion when everybody's emotions are fully inflamed.
The quality of comments has been declining very gradually for years. There's a lot we already do about it, and probably other techniques that are yet undiscovered. This is somewhat uncharted territory. I'm medium hopeful.
It's not just the comments, I'm more concerned about the submissions. Look at the front page right now, and see how many items are not "Hacker News" even with a very lax definition of "stuff that's interesting specifically to hackers." For example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3497331
My question was asking if there may be a correlation between the quality of the content and the actual name of Hacker News being misrepresentative due to the ambiguity in the definition of "hacker."
Which I asked because my thoughts seemed to wander a bit too far from what you were asking.
I wouldn't mind moving the articles whose discussions have completely gone to seed into a separate subforum. My favorite forums are ones that don't allow the discussion of politics or religion. The same is true for real-life discussions with acquaintances that you don't thoroughly know yet. There is nothing to be gained from a discussion when everybody's emotions are fully inflamed.