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

Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 142 posts

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#111

Post by xp84 »

fsckboy wrote: post #101
nunez wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Slashdot's UI refresh definitely killed the site for me. Reddit was a breath of fresh air by comparison. I still remember when a coworker told me about it back in 2012. I literally stopped browsing Slashdot ever since that day. Reddit had a lot of the same energy that /. did, but in areas other than tech, which I found fascinating. I've learned so much about so many things thanks to Reddit. It's a real shame th…

> Yeah, Slashdot's UI refresh definitely killed the site for me. Reddit was a breath of fresh air by comparison. the major exodus from slashdot to digg after a redesign was in 2007 Then the digg exodus to reddit after a resdesign was 2010

Heh. Clearly, Reddit only survived their redesign because they kept the old one around too. All the cranky nerds have still never accepted the new one what, 8 years later?

Tbh I find new Reddit far more usable than old, but perhaps if I had a slow computer or didn’t run JS or something, I could disagree?

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#112

Post by Etrnl_President »

isaacremuant wrote: post #110
yborg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impressive that you have evaluated 20k+ instances to summarize the Fediverse. I have accounts on 5 separate Mastodon instances, and on none of them is the experience as you describe it. You also seem to believe that if you get on an instance run by a reactionary martinet that you are somehow forced to stay there or stop using the Fediverse. Of course, a lot of people seem to believe this about Twitter.

It's impressive how you don't get that the point stands because of the paradigm of users being tied to instances and not having the ability to construct themselves, what they want to see. You're comfortable with whatever you're doing and that's fine but for someone who is looking for my usecase ,which is more akin to Reddit and being able to pick the subs I see for myself, it's absolutely limiting. I don't care about…

Sounds like what you need is more like an overlaid comment section, perhaps through an app or browser extension, which you can apply to any website and article. Would be cool if such a thing existed.

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#113

Post by mananaysiempre »

Etrnl_President wrote: post #112
isaacremuant wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impressive how you don't get that the point stands because of the paradigm of users being tied to instances and not having the ability to construct themselves, what they want to see. You're comfortable with whatever you're doing and that's fine but for someone who is looking for my usecase ,which is more akin to Reddit and being able to pick the subs I see for myself, it's absolutely limiting. I don't care about…

Sounds like what you need is more like an overlaid comment section, perhaps through an app or browser extension, which you can apply to any website and article. Would be cool if such a thing existed.

People did build things like that a couple of times, but it’s probably telling that my last vague recollection of one is several US newspapers piling up on one of them because people used it to put mean and perhaps even hurtful things on pages of news websites (opt-in via a browser extension, mind you).

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#114

Post by xp84 »

isaacremuant wrote: post #110
yborg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impressive that you have evaluated 20k+ instances to summarize the Fediverse. I have accounts on 5 separate Mastodon instances, and on none of them is the experience as you describe it. You also seem to believe that if you get on an instance run by a reactionary martinet that you are somehow forced to stay there or stop using the Fediverse. Of course, a lot of people seem to believe this about Twitter.

It's impressive how you don't get that the point stands because of the paradigm of users being tied to instances and not having the ability to construct themselves, what they want to see. You're comfortable with whatever you're doing and that's fine but for someone who is looking for my usecase ,which is more akin to Reddit and being able to pick the subs I see for myself, it's absolutely limiting. I don't care about…

Users can move to other instances on Mastodon without tremendous effort, and it seems like your main beef, about some admin limiting what you can see by capriciously de-federating left and right seems to be primarily hypothetical. Why wouldn’t one start out on a pretty open, well-connected instance, follow whomever they want (‘constructing what you want to see’), and defer worrying until/unless some actual admin actions bother you? Second, users absolutely can run their own instance for full control over federation decisions, which is, while out of reach for normies, well in the capability of most HN readers such as yourself.

I’m not even saying Mastodon or Lemmy is a good replacement for Reddit! It’s quite different and I think a Reddit-like thing offers way better threaded discussions, and find sorting through Twitter-style reply chains far, far worse than upvoted comments! But I’m still puzzled by the critiques you’ve chosen on the fediverse.

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#115

Post by xp84 »

ideamotor wrote: post #99
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have that backwards - Elon never wanted Twitter, he just wanted to see his name in some headlines and make people run around pulling their hair for a bit. However he messed up and put himself in a position where he had to buy Twitter for far more then it was worth and he was held to it. All the top people he fired day one were more then happy to parachute away - was the best thing for them. There is no wa…

I’m not following all that. Someone made an offer, the board legally had to sell as it was in the interest of the owners (the shareholders). What else matters? If it’s deemed to be in the interest of shareholders for Reddit to sell off every sub to a corporate, they’ll do that too.

You’re both kinda right — yes GP’s evaluation was (probably) why the Elon transaction happened, and also it would not have had to happen if the owners were a handful of private individuals who didn’t mind passing up a majorly overvalued offer like that.

Of course, anyone at all who cares about money would have been a fool not to force him to buy it once he screwed up by bluffing in a way that made him contractually obligated to execute the transaction! So in practice, since even super-rich people love getting more money and non-rich people really want to become rich, good luck in practice spinning a hypothetical where Twitter owners would have said no, especially considering what a dog the company was already in terms of making money.

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#116

Post by pxc »

jhbadger wrote: post #106
sam0x17 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was more a funy/quirky part of slashdot culture though. As a teen at the time this was a useful hook for getting me interested in tech news.

It also allowed you to upvote a comment in different categories. So you could, for example, ignore the upvotes for "funny" comments in favor of "informative" ones if that's what you wanted.

And 'funny' posting didn't earn you post karma, which eventually conferred moderation powers (by lottery, sort of). IIRC there was at least one other way that they nerfed using humor to farm visibility and karma, as well.

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#117

Post by isaacremuant »

xp84 wrote: post #114
isaacremuant wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impressive how you don't get that the point stands because of the paradigm of users being tied to instances and not having the ability to construct themselves, what they want to see. You're comfortable with whatever you're doing and that's fine but for someone who is looking for my usecase ,which is more akin to Reddit and being able to pick the subs I see for myself, it's absolutely limiting. I don't care about…

Users can move to other instances on Mastodon without tremendous effort, and it seems like your main beef, about some admin limiting what you can see by capriciously de-federating left and right seems to be primarily hypothetical. Why wouldn’t one start out on a pretty open, well-connected instance, follow whomever they want (‘constructing what you want to see’), and defer worrying until/unless some actual admin acti…

> Users can move to other instances on Mastodon without tremendous effort

Moving instances is unnecessary friction. I don't care if you qualify it as tremendous or not

> and it seems like your main beef, about some admin limiting what you can see by capriciously de-federating left and right seems to be primarily hypothetical.

What a disingenuous comment. You went from "have surveyed the 200k instances" to "it's hypothetical then".

No. It has already happened in a few of the instances recommended on Reddit. It happened in the first 2 I created accounts for.

> Why wouldn’t one start out on a pretty open, well-connected instance, follow whomever they want (‘constructing what you want to see’), and defer worrying until/unless some actual admin actions bother you?

I was following one that I thought was more open than the initial one I found myself in and suddenly it wasn't and the argument of some users was "of course the admin can defederate at any point for vague reasons"

> Second, users absolutely can run their own instance for full control over federation decisions, which is, while out of reach for normies, well in the capability of most HN readers such as yourself.

I'm also capable of hosting my own email and plenty other things but it's unnecessary effort for the value. It really is amazing how after disingenuous takes I get a ridiculous appeal to geekdom or something.

> I’m not even saying Mastodon or Lemmy is a good replacement for Reddit! It’s quite different and I think a Reddit-like thing offers way better threaded discussions, and find sorting through Twitter-style reply chains far, far worse than upvoted comments! But I’m still puzzled by the critiques you’ve chosen on the fediverse.

You're puzzled because you're unwilling to read them for what they are and instead produce strawmen in order to deny they are a reality.

Mastodon works for you. Great. But my points stand and are in no way rebuked by your "it's hypothetical", "wait, it's easy", wait, it's not easy but a HN type should do it.

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#118

Post by skilled »

teolandon wrote: post #93
skilled wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hacker News is wobbling on that space now. Clearly it's not. Not sure why I have to repeat myself though. ;-)

Because you quoted a passage with about 5 statements that he could have been "wrong" about, and didn't specify which one you were talking about. (insert snarky emoticon here)

It was literally one statement. Please don't pull my leg like this because this site does have guidelines and it is very hard to obey by them when you're being challenged with ignorance.

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#119

Post by teolandon »

skilled wrote: post #118
teolandon wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you quoted a passage with about 5 statements that he could have been "wrong" about, and didn't specify which one you were talking about. (insert snarky emoticon here)

It was literally one statement. Please don't pull my leg like this because this site does have guidelines and it is very hard to obey by them when you're being challenged with ignorance.

Not doing any leg-pulling.

The passage you quoted is the following:

> Hacker News is awesome. It is probably my number one RSS feed right now. But it's getting too big. They've crossed the line that reddit crossed a long time ago. The value on reddit now is on the subreddits, not on the main page. Hacker News is wobbling on that space now. If I could just find someone who made a Hacker News digest, with the 10 best items from Hacker News, that would be a really good Slashdot.

The statements that could have been interpreted as the subject of your "at the time he was completely wrong" sentence:

1. Hacker News is awesome. 2. It's getting too big. 3. The value of reddit now is on the subreddits, not on the main page. 4. Hacker News is wobbling on that space now. 5 A digest of the 10 best items from Hacker News would be a really good Slashdot.

Hey thanks for following the guidelines despite my "ignorance", but you're basically telling me that if you could, you would be insulting me right now.

I'm not typing all of this to be snarky or to do a "technically..." gotcha. I also didn't know which statement you were actually talking about when I read your comment.

Re: Slashdot founder Rob Malda on why there won’t be another Hacker News (2013)

#120

Post by isaacremuant »

jszymborski wrote: post #56
isaacremuant wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad fact is that the fediverse has the worse of both worlds where, in the end, it still seems like following a block list of an admin who is accountable to no one (instead of a popular person with some specific track record) and the fragmentation means the discoverability and interaction is minimal. Until there's a way where one user can decide what instances to see, it will be a crap experience unless you agree…

Join a member-owned co-op instance :) If set-up correctly the admins/mods are legally bound to be responsible to the members of the co-op. Judging by your comment though, I think we prefer very different levels of moderation, and I'd agree that culturally Masto trends towards heavier moderation.

I don't know why everyone is talking about mastodon. I'm not taking about mastodon. I've never used it nor do I like twitter as a space for conversation.

I'm talking about the fediverse in general (activity pub protocol) and the paradigm of "basically following a block list" which, after seeing how mono narrative and US centric some online spaces tend to be, I don't find appealing.

In particular my qualms were comparing it to the likes of reddit, which is usually heavily moderated.

I appreciate the suggestion of co-op. Don't think it will solve the "as an individual I don't want to be bound by the majority's Blocklist when people are so prone to behave like mobs" but I do understand the appeal. It works as a small wrbbof trust. För very small communities, it can work. But not much chance to grow and be an interesting compendium of ideas and shared content.

Post reply on HN