1–6 of 6 posts
Startup News Becomes Hacker News (2007)
ycombinator.com
This one simple rule should keep comment quality high, but it's so hard to remember and follow. Maybe PG should always display it when someone's typing a comment.
What HN brings in addition to that though is real social validation. If the HN crowd have voted up a story, I usually know its worth being curious about.
The curiosity point is a good one. I often find at the end of a day that I've read most of the posts on the front page here, even on sites that I probably wouldn't have browsed to of my own volition. What HN brings in addition to that though is real social validation. If the HN crowd have voted up a story, I usually know its worth being curious about.
don't say anything in a comment thread that you wouldn't say in person. This one simple rule should keep comment quality high, but it's so hard to remember and follow. Maybe PG should always display it when someone's typing a comment.
I haven't been incredibly active for a while, and I remember one distinct downturn in the quality of discussion, likely due to a surge in popularity, but it was responded to, and from what I can tell the popularity surge didn't have the same accretion of annoyance as it could have.
Sure, it's easy to get caught up in the moment, but honestly it's not that hard to do that in real life either. As such, I think "don't say anything in a comment thread you wouldn't say in person" should be followed by "if you do, or someone else does, resolve it like you would in person". That is, in a community that cares about itself and is comprised of people with strong opinions, admission of being rash and apologies go a long way.
I personally prefer occasional taps on the shoulder to individuals in a community by members of the community than a constant reminder-banner. The banner just becomes noise, the "hey, stop that" is not so much.