How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#41

Post by jcitme » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

dageshi wrote: post #29

peterwwillis wrote: post #5

What the front page of the internet looks like today: * Image with overlayed snarky text * Another image * Another image... * The Daily Show clip * Another image * Another image * News article about Julian Assange * Another image * News article about guy doing something strange (which is actually really old) * Reddit question thread about Tarantino films * Youtube clip * "Ask Me Anything" request thread * Story on mo…

I find it depressing when holier than thou hipsters pop up to whine about how depressing popular things are... which seems to occur with increasing frequency on HN nowadays.

You know what? YOU are the problem. The reddit type who feeds off drivel. A website might be popular because it is good, but do not ever conflate that something is good because it is popular.

HN still has not fallen into the pit of content for content's sake. The people here complain not because they are hipsters, but because we do not want to be fed drivel, meaningless content that rots the mind rather than feeds it.

I want to put it as harshly as possible, so I have one thing to say: Fuck off. We do not need content that lacks content here.

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#42

Post by planetguy » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:03 PM UTC

Adaptive wrote: post #18

We are doomed to reinvent Usenet until we finally break the cycle and improve upon it. This has all happened before and will happen again.

One day we'll discover that arguing about random crap with complete strangers via our keyboards actually isn't all that interesting, and rediscover the world outside.

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#43

Post by TillE » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

planetguy wrote: post #40

dalore wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that you can make it "your" front page of the internet with just the topics that interest you. If you go by the default it's got the most mass market appeal because of popularity but if you're someone who reads hackers news that is not what you want. So customize it. The internet has become popular and just like pop music it will appeal to the lowest common denominator.

If you go by the default it's got the most mass market appeal Well, not really "mass market" appeal, just appeal to the incredibly narrow and apparently homogeneous subslice of the world's population that fits into the reddit demographic. If you're not aged 15-25, college-educated (or college-bound), left-wing, atheist, obsessively interested in every one of the typical geeky pursuits, and already intimately familiar…

Don't forget overwhelmingly male.

Also, I've noticed anecdotally that the average age on Reddit seems to have dropped over the past couple years. It used to be early 20s, but now I'm seeing tons of comments from high school kids and younger whenever I dare step out of the few subreddits I still bother to read.

I won't even get into Reddit's more serious developing issues like the explosion of casual racism.

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#44

Post by mibbitier » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #5

What the front page of the internet looks like today: * Image with overlayed snarky text * Another image * Another image... * The Daily Show clip * Another image * Another image * News article about Julian Assange * Another image * News article about guy doing something strange (which is actually really old) * Reddit question thread about Tarantino films * Youtube clip * "Ask Me Anything" request thread * Story on mo…

Not to mention the massive bias.

If it's anti-rich people, pro-gay, pro-drugs, anti-corporation, anti-government, anti-religion, anti-foxnews, socialist etc etc then it'll get upvoted endlessly.

The worrying thing is that people who constantly moan about how misinformed and biased fox news viewers are, are on a website with a ridiculous bias, which also often carries untrue stories because they fit the agenda.

There's a reason why news sites are still very very popular. We need editors. If you allow people to upvote what they want, you end up with complete rubbish and endless circlejerking. The front page is often (When you remove the funny pictures) lots of "We all obviously agree with this. Who agrees with me?!!"

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#45

Post by mvid » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

Alexis Ohanian built AOL?

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#46

Post by muhfuhkuh » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:19 PM UTC

jcitme wrote: post #41

dageshi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it depressing when holier than thou hipsters pop up to whine about how depressing popular things are... which seems to occur with increasing frequency on HN nowadays.

You know what? YOU are the problem. The reddit type who feeds off drivel. A website might be popular because it is good, but do not ever conflate that something is good because it is popular. HN still has not fallen into the pit of content for content's sake. The people here complain not because they are hipsters, but because we do not want to be fed drivel, meaningless content that rots the mind rather than feeds it…

Wow, you are so "The WELL" circa 1997. Communities grow (and thrive, even) as the swell of users come and, ultimately, go.

Besides, there are more than enough subreddits to subscribe to that are almost completely devoid of any "drivel" you refer to (r/science and r/TrueReddit being just two; and I contend that r/programming and r/coding are even more useful to hackers than HN).

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#47

Post by mibbitier » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:24 PM UTC

planetguy wrote: post #40

dalore wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that you can make it "your" front page of the internet with just the topics that interest you. If you go by the default it's got the most mass market appeal because of popularity but if you're someone who reads hackers news that is not what you want. So customize it. The internet has become popular and just like pop music it will appeal to the lowest common denominator.

If you go by the default it's got the most mass market appeal Well, not really "mass market" appeal, just appeal to the incredibly narrow and apparently homogeneous subslice of the world's population that fits into the reddit demographic. If you're not aged 15-25, college-educated (or college-bound), left-wing, atheist, obsessively interested in every one of the typical geeky pursuits, and already intimately familiar…

This is also IMHO why the whole 'karma' thing doesn't work. It's a measure of how much time you waste on the website, rather than any actual merit.

The people who waste the most time upvoting, commenting, etc, are the ones who decide the editorial. So you end up with a front page comprised of stories that people who like wasting their time online agree with.

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#48

Post by roshangry » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:26 PM UTC

tylermenezes wrote: post #6

peterwwillis wrote: post #5

What the front page of the internet looks like today: * Image with overlayed snarky text * Another image * Another image... * The Daily Show clip * Another image * Another image * News article about Julian Assange * Another image * News article about guy doing something strange (which is actually really old) * Reddit question thread about Tarantino films * Youtube clip * "Ask Me Anything" request thread * Story on mo…

You can log in and customize it. The default set of subreddits is bound to be low-quality.

This.

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#49

Post by drivebyacct2 » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #5

What the front page of the internet looks like today: * Image with overlayed snarky text * Another image * Another image... * The Daily Show clip * Another image * Another image * News article about Julian Assange * Another image * News article about guy doing something strange (which is actually really old) * Reddit question thread about Tarantino films * Youtube clip * "Ask Me Anything" request thread * Story on mo…

The worst part is, there's an easy correlation, not just between volume of users but age of users to the site, and the quality of content. The subreddits that have exploded in popularity recently, and the ones that were only more recently added to the homepage, have some of the lowest quality content ever. Even when compared to subreddits that have been around longer, or were formerly on the homepage.

Re: How Alexis Ohanian Built a Front Page of the Internet

#50

Post by drivebyacct2 » Wed, May 30, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

mibbitier wrote: post #44

peterwwillis wrote: post #5

What the front page of the internet looks like today: * Image with overlayed snarky text * Another image * Another image... * The Daily Show clip * Another image * Another image * News article about Julian Assange * Another image * News article about guy doing something strange (which is actually really old) * Reddit question thread about Tarantino films * Youtube clip * "Ask Me Anything" request thread * Story on mo…

Not to mention the massive bias. If it's anti-rich people, pro-gay, pro-drugs, anti-corporation, anti-government, anti-religion, anti-foxnews, socialist etc etc then it'll get upvoted endlessly. The worrying thing is that people who constantly moan about how misinformed and biased fox news viewers are, are on a website with a ridiculous bias, which also often carries untrue stories because they fit the agenda. There'…

There are regular posts and plenty of white knights that defend opposing views. The problem is that most people, as I find with many anti-gay, anti-drug, pro-government people in my day-to-day life, lack the ability to articulate a mature thought supporting their view.

On the weird case that there is a good discussion, the opposing view is upvoted. There were several discussions yesterday stemming from gay marriage and there were several posts that basically said "I'm disgusted purely by the thought of homosexual acts, thus I'm opposed to gay rights" in a more eloquent tone and they were upvoted to foster the discussion.

The frontpage yesterday had a very balanced discussion regarding how MJ does not affect MS in some of the ways that people had hoped. The comments were full of discussion back and forth and first hand accounts from MS sufferers.