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

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131–140 of 142 posts

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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Them's the risks of freeze peach.

Interestingly, it turns out, free speech by far benefits the poor more than the rich.

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-economics-free-speech-benefits...

So I'm willing to accept a few mean comments.

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

#133
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://hackernews-insight.vercel.app/user-analysis

Whoa. What happened in December?

Apparently something that quadrupled "How many text stories created per month?" but left all the other overview metrics unchanged.

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

#134
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Yea. Owners can say no if and only they really are the owners. Being privately owned does not ensure good stewardship but it allows it. Case and point will be Reddit once it goes public. Every single person in tech should take a corporate law class and it should be required in undergrad.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In hackernews you're supposed to explain WHY. Some have been constructive points and I've answered. None really countered the problem and some accepted it's part of the paradigm. You went with an ad hominem and double down on having no arguments.

> Signal vs noise ratio is too high. This isn’t saying anything other than your not a fan. Which as I said is fine. > My point is that the model of Blocklist from others is not enticing for any individualistisc user who values diversification of ideas and the fact that the default makes it a bad burden for the user who wants to try that, means that communities won't be formed that don't have that blocklist mindset, o…

You're repeating your points without refuting mine. You're endorsing my points with the "you're free to choose your own Blocklist", which: - you aren't as an individual except through an admin who decides on their instance or the high barrier of running your own.

The choice I have is it to love or leave each instance and pay the price of fragmentation and user registration per instance, plus having to switch.

In any case, you've unwillingly agreed with me by explaining my "choice" after calling me uninformed and now vague.

It's funny how you also see diversity as an unfortunate. Says a lot.

Fundamentally, it's not putting the true power of granularity and easy choice on the user but forming small very narrow minded communities at the whim of an admin, with a high cost of transfer (unlike a sub where you might disagre with a mod decisiom).

Funnily enough, feels less free choice than Reddit in some aspects.

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

#136

I thought this was a good interview, and interesting to see what has changed in the past 13 years. IMO HN still has by far the best commentary compared to any aggregator. I think there is a lot shittier commentary than there used to be, but that still tends to get downvoted to the bottom or flagged, and dang somehow manages to keep the flame wars to a minimum. One glaring omission in this interview, though, was how S…

Fuck Beta.

Soylent News was a nice spinoff that the refugees founded, and it is still going, but it does suffer from a bit of a dearth of userbase. The codebase is pretty old, but design wise, it's the old Slashdot you remember from decades ago, in red rather than green.

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

#137
post #75

I thought this was a good interview, and interesting to see what has changed in the past 13 years. IMO HN still has by far the best commentary compared to any aggregator. I think there is a lot shittier commentary than there used to be, but that still tends to get downvoted to the bottom or flagged, and dang somehow manages to keep the flame wars to a minimum. One glaring omission in this interview, though, was how S…

When old.reddit goes it will have the same effect for many browser users I'm sure.

Assuming that crowd isn't mostly the crowd that's already left over the API and nsfw issues, as well as the general unpleasant attitude the CEO has toward the user base. Lemmy sure has gotten a lot more traffic in the last few weeks.

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

#139
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moderation and meta-moderation system was a thing of elegant beauty.

I'm till flabbergasted that noone stole it, it worked so well.

Technically soylent news did, but then, they also used the whole codebase and just changed the site red.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you tracking the number of HN users over time?

https://hackernews-insight.vercel.app/user-analysis

Why do numbers in most voted and most stories look identical?
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