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A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

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Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#121

Post by MartinCron »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #89
MartinCron wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing is that his proposal was a proposal to "improve" Hacker News, not a promise to "fix" hacker news. Trying to do a grand massive "fix every problem" is more likely to introduce new problems than just making relatively safe improvements.

This is essentially the old argument over whether it's better to patch old bad code, or whether it's better to rewrite old bad code. I think all of the same responses would apply, i.e., whether or not new problems might be preferable to the existing ones. Since much smarter people than I have written carefully-considered essays on that argument (and without coming to a clear conclusion), I'll just let them speak for…

It is OK to have an in-context opinion, though. My opinion on this is to change as little as possible, and one thing at a time.

Let us not forget the object lesson from Digg's big redesign.

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#122

Post by connortomas »

danielweber wrote: post #115
connortomas wrote: post #111

I'm relatively new to the Hacker News community, so forgive me if this is totally off-base, but in my opinion the issue is that the community feels relatively anonymous. Perhaps this is by design, the point being that the comment should be more important than the commenter, but it has its downsides. It's easy to act viciously when you're only identified by a username, and this lack of identification, I think, breeds…

I think there is a lot of identity associated with users. I'm relatively young, and often I will see one user identifying another user by their first name, which I don't know at all. People know each other here. This might be bad. If so, I'd say all comments should be anonymous for 2 days. Give out a pseudo-random pronounceable handle to each user for posting on each thread. People making dick comments will still hav…

That's interesting, and it's probably something I'll come to recognise as I spend more time here. However, from where I'm standing, it does seem as though the issue is that those ties are breaking as the community grows. I'm not totally sure adding a further layer of anonymity would strengthen discourse (though it could be an interesting experiment).

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#123

Post by rdl »

jhuckestein wrote: post #7

I think showing veteran users in another color would really help a lot to set the tone. If the community rewards snarky posts with many upvotes, this alone will not be enough though. Perhaps marking up veteran users by karma and/or seniority and weighting upvotes by the same metric?

I agree with showing certain users in certain colors. I don't think karma is the right metric for it.

I'd like to see green for new users, maybe some specific color for throwaway accounts of someone with a real account, let people with special other colors reveal that color if they wish, and maybe good and bad colors for people who meet other requirements -- there are some people who probably deserve a "red flag" for 30+ days, but not hellbanning, and others who deserve the honorary purple.

The only karma related way I'd award purple is for submission points, or for being early upvoters on submissions in /new which are later upvoted by a lot of other people. Sheer accumulated comment karma is probably not a great metric, since someone who is on HN a lot, chooses to write "populist" comments, etc. is likely to accumulate a lot of karma without adding much value.

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#125

Post by comatose_kid »

There is a tendency to upvote comments you agree with, and downvote comments you disagree with.

This has two ill effects: 1) Witty and popular viewpoints rise to the top, creating an atmosphere of superficial groupthink 2) People with unpopular (but insightful!) viewpoints may be discouraged from posting them.

Given this, would the level of comments improve with the following change?

Replace the up/down vote buttons with a single button next to each comment that reads: 'insightful', and use that to vote up comments. Forget about downvoting stuff - the low content viewpoints and rudeness will both sink to the bottom. Or if you wish, add a 'flag' box for comments made in poor taste.

Using such specific labels would make people think twice before voting, both about the purpose of their vote and if the comment needs a vote at all.

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#126

Post by freehunter »

jimmytucson wrote: post #107
thaumaturgy wrote: post #51

This, and many of the suggestions in the original thread, and pg's default response, are all falling into the same trap: they are attempting to fix a people problem using technical solutions. Technology can make community management easier. Better algorithms and visual design and so on can improve the way that a community polices itself. But, I think eventually you'll run into vanishing returns from that kind of stuf…

>they are attempting to fix a people problem using technical solutions That's catchy but isn't that what a large handful of pg's startups are doing? Don't get me wrong. I'm glad we're not throwing "technology" at the problem. But I'm glad for a selfish reason. I think adding features and modernizing the site would draw attention and users, probably the "wrong" kind.

A comparable social site, reddit, didn't draw attention from the wrong kind of user by changing their site. They drew attention from the wrong kind of user because their biggest competitor changed their site (Digg).

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#127

Post by [deleted] »

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #3

Reward users for browsing "New" This is an interesting suggestion. I think of looking at new submissions as a kind of "service to the community"-- more specifically, to the community I want HN to be. If the front page is filled with links I don't value, then it's partly my fault if I've failed to upvote submissions I would rather see on the front page (this, of course, means browsing "new" is a reward unto itself, bu…

[deleted]

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#128

Post by twelvechairs »

Surely one badly-needed feature is needed is more different views. As the community gets bigger, the single 'front page' doesn't cut it anymore.

Reddit's subreddits have become enormously successful in this vein (probably to the detriment of its main page, which nobody in their right mind would read anymore). I'm not saying this system is perfect for HN, but other systems in the same direction might be very nice eg. tags for things like 'please provide feedback on my new page/product' (I'd love to see them on one page), or different types of comment view on a per-user-basis (how do I want to see comments, not one system for all HN). For my mind, an encouragement of diversity along these lines would help the site thrive whilst allowing users to keep (and define) their own community standards.

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#129

Post by noblethrasher »

I suggested this on a previous 'improve HN thread' (instigated by pg himself):

Shutdown HN for a week or so and when reopening only let a certain quota in per day/week/month. Give priority to old and/or high karma members. I think that it will have the effect of churning the low quality membership. 

Perhaps allow these elected to elect others to enter "promised land".

Re: A Proposal To Improve Hacker News

#130

Post by pedalpete »

peterwwillis wrote: post #69
brk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck average karma. Who even looks at it (besides the owner of the karma)? I post a relatively high volume of comments on articles that get little visibility. Sometimes I answer an Ask HN type question with what ( I thik) is a good/useful answer and don't even get an up vote from the asker (but I have gotten 'thanks!' replies). Oh well, I come here to discover new things and try and return knowledge I've contributed…

Fuck karma in general. I can't think of a practical use for publishing the karma number. Real karma ripples throughout the world on it's own, you don't need a number to record it. There's far too much ego worship in communities like HN, where nerds are often too concerned with it to begin with. The whole 'honoring the most popular community members' is the same. It's horrifically vain and just gives otherwise normal…

Though you are correct in theory, I think the karma points are beneficial in driving the community. I didn't know what it was before I signed up, but now I check it out every now and then (though you can tell by my score, I don't obsess over it). Though maybe having a user know their overall score is a detriment.

It doesn't matter how much Karma is accumulated overtime, but consistently benefiting the community is valuable. Maybe we shouldn't be shown an overall karma score, but just how your karma has changed over the last month. While keeping th e overall score hidden from users.

Just an idea.

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