Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News.. • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#171

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #152

jedberg wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible solution (that you might already be doing) is to make the value of the vote proportional to how long the user has been a member, especially down-votes. That solves the problem of more recent arrivals not having the same qualities as the original members. To be very clear so as to prevent conspiracy theories, this is something that we never did on reddit because we didn't want to put that much power into…

On one hand, it seems like having the value tied to the voter's karma would make more sense, since someone here from the beginning with little karma says very little about their contributions or judgement. On the other hand, either of these solutions seems destined to increase the inevitable echo-chamber herd mentality groupthink that already tries to creep into any community.

Wasn't Digg killed by "power users" with all the power? I worry this might happen here too.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#172

Post by raffi » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #162

pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

Sometimes saying an idea is pointless is positive feedback, there are a lot of people here that 'launch a startup' which basically means some half-assed website that does something utterly pointless and then expect the community to be like some kind of benevolent uncle and pat them on the back and say what an awesome idea and execution. Many many ideas really are pointless and negative criticism is very much a part o…

I joined Hacker News 1,570 days ago (~4 years). I launched my first two ventures here. One of them, Feedback Army, was concieved and built entirely from my interaction in this community. Three years ago, the feel of this community was very much one of support and maybe, a little self esteem boosting. It certainly worked for me and I was very grateful to this community for what it contributed to helping shape me as an entrepreneur.

I still come here for the articles and I occasionally read the comments but I don't participate much. I feel the same way as the original poster. I see someone post something genuine and then I see someone else rip it apart in a condescending way.

I used to come to HN and on the other side of the usernames, I pictured the leaders in our field, the pioneers of the next steps of our information age, and people who I wanted to emulate.

It's not this way for me any more.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#173

Post by MattSayar » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

kafkaesque wrote: post #150

pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

I'd like to make a somewhat unrelated observation as a new user and someone who is new to programming. I've noticed a submission might get a huge amount of upvotes yet the highest voted comment goes against the article/post submitted. I understand there are a few things that could be going on: you can learn from bad articles/posts; those who like the article/post submitted find it unfair to downvote just because they…

I'm in the same boat with you on upvotes. If my voting activity is going to be tied to the quality of my posts and comments, please decouple the upvotes with the saving.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#174

Post by brianto2010 » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #125

pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

maybe the new kids don't know any better? can we crowd-educate them as to acceptable comments? stackoverflow has used strict categorization of "reasons for flagging post" to great success in influencing how the crowd moderates. "-1, poor tone" "-1, offtopic" "-1, factually incorrect"

That's a neat idea. -1 doesn't mean much without a comment explaining why.

I do have a concern, though. If this system is implemented, doesn't that mean that the "new kids" will also have access to this system and may use it to exasperate HN's "new kids" problem?

What about modifying the existing HN guidelines to include comments and promote the guidelines more? For example, cite a downvote with an appropriate quote from the guidelines.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#175

Post by danielweber » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:19 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #123

HN is just like any other social network. I've run a social network for writers called Scribophile for almost 5 years now. People have said exactly what you're saying in this post about my site, all the way from day 1 to the present day. Too much negativity, people are out to get me, everybody is mean, person X is poisonous but I'm actually very nice, things used to be better in the "good old days". But as an imparti…

long-timers will grow bored and decide to drift off

This is why the community needs to always bring in new users. I see some people talking in other comments on this page about how to stop the new users, but if you aren't bringing in anyone new you are only shrinking.

In HN brings in no new users, it will be dead in 5 years.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#176

Post by dean » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:19 PM UTC

ktrgardiner wrote: post #167

georgemcbay wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand, it seems like having the value tied to the voter's karma would make more sense, since someone here from the beginning with little karma says very little about their contributions or judgement. On the other hand, either of these solutions seems destined to increase the inevitable echo-chamber herd mentality groupthink that already tries to creep into any community.

But that would only work to a certain extent. All you would need is one lucky submission (think Steve Jobs' passing) to get around this.

Perhaps only consider the karma earned from comments and exclude the karma earned from article submissions.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#177

Post by danielweber » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #4

Sigh. Personally, I don't have a problem with people being negative. 99% of startups fail, and I think it's worthwhile reminding people of that every now and then. Hacker News shouldn't live in some magical land where everyone is going to make the next billion dollar company. If you truly, genuinely, believe in your idea then you can take the negativity in your stride. There will be plenty of constructive feedback bu…

If someone wants to build a billion-dollar company they deserve (and need) a lot of criticism.

However, if someone just wants to get a couple hundred thousand dollars over the next 2 years, the same level of criticism is not needed.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#178

Post by sbierwagen » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #162

pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

Sometimes saying an idea is pointless is positive feedback, there are a lot of people here that 'launch a startup' which basically means some half-assed website that does something utterly pointless and then expect the community to be like some kind of benevolent uncle and pat them on the back and say what an awesome idea and execution. Many many ideas really are pointless and negative criticism is very much a part o…

Here's a thread from 847 days ago full of people being mean and negative about Groupon: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1288116

Today, Groupon stock is worthless, and the company is doomed. Should the people in that thread be penalized for being right, but mean?

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#179

Post by raleec » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

What if the poster had an option to restrict the ability to comment on a submission to members with a certain threshold of karma or account age, not to exceed the poster's own level?

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#180

Post by paulsutter » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

Please consider releasing a dataset, even to a limited set of qualified folks under NDA.

There are lots of ways to spread the work out. A number of the people here have backgrounds in search (which is really all about ranking and not much about searching). Even a closed Kaggle competition could yield some really interesting algorithms (Anthony is a great guy and would be happy to discuss it I'm sure. Note that a closed competition is done under NDA by only the most qualified participants).

Spreading it out might be fun, hope your consider it. Lots of smart guys love HN and would probably want to help.