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

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

#451

Post by ShinyObject » Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 1:14 AM UTC

kls wrote: post #234

mhartl wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to your point, but I fear that the worst offenders are among those least likely even to read the guidelines, much less adhere to them.

Unfortunately I agree, it is no big secret that tech as a segment has a fairly sizable portion of it's population with smartest guy in the room syndrome. The problem with smartest guy in the room syndrome is they already know the answer. Therefore they are not information seekers and they disregard anything that is objective to their world view. It is what killed Slashdot and sadly it is becoming unbearable here. Sel…

I like this post a lot. It perfectly sums up why I quit reading Slashdot. There was a time when reading Slashdot posts could expose you to new ideas, real world examples of technical solutions, and other people trying to learn more. Now it's mostly pedantic sniping, and lame cliched jokes from socially frustrated wankers.

I do most of my reading on Reddit (front page reddits are just cotton candy, but there are good ones to be found). I only started reading HackerNews about a year ago, and mostly just for the articles from lesser known blogs that don't get posted on Reddit. Being something of a HackerNews newbie I haven't been around long enough to notice a change, but I hope it doesn't go the way of Slashdot.

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

#452

Post by freakball » Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 6:02 AM 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…

I haven't been here in quite awhile, and immediately I see meta-threads about how this site operates...

But the latter half of your comment intrigues me...

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

#453

Post by Mitchella » Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 6:54 AM UTC

Tip: On Favilous lighten up the black just a little bit. It's unnaturally dark and is constantly drawing my attention thus preventing me from focusing on the text on the page.

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

#454

Post by lessnonymous » Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 7:12 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #294

scoot wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I please be the first to say "WTF"? I know who you are, I know what you contribute, but... WTF?

It's an old joke. You make a request and somebody acquiesces more easily than you expected, so you follow up with an absurd request like "Also, can I have a million dollars?" And now I went and explained it. Sorry, tptacek.

Oh, thanks. Now I get it. I think the problem was I missed that this was a reply to pg's acquiescence. It was several pages down by the time I read it so the joke was lost.

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

#455

Post by novaleaf » Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 9:05 AM UTC

I'm new here, so maybe I'm a bit of the "bad new crowd" OP is talking about, but seriously, this guy doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on.

His last (current?) venture 11kclub http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4323459

1) asks for your PII

2) wants you to do viral MLM on it's behalf

3) has ToS http://www.11kclub.com/tos.aspx that explicitly state "you are applying to join a club you know nothing about"

4) and finally, the submitter lied about his affiliation (in the comments)

That said, maybe the behavior he's stating does go on "nowadays" (again, I'm too new to know) , but really from what I see of 11kclub, He as a person does not gain my sympathy.

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

#456

Post by devbug » Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 10:03 AM 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…

I've thought about this for quite a while and have concluded: you could start a community and weight comments based on concurrence with the community (most likely from the get go) but unfortunately it's a fine line between stagnation and simplification.

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

#457

Post by Moseman23 » Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 3:44 PM UTC

niels_olson wrote: post #260

pg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll try that too.

If you would ever consider putting a quote in the guidelines, I heartily recommend and humbly submit Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who er…

Great stuff, love TR, should be read by all entrepreneurs and my kids too. But I would point out, snark off, that the Man in the Arena in ancient Rome was a slave, butchering another slave while rich citizens watched.

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

#458

Post by ffumarola » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 12:24 AM UTC

stfu wrote: post #380

sachitgupta wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an example, Tim Ferris has this right above the comment submission box (getting to users right when they're about to take an action): Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter…

How about just adding a flagging option for each comment and making the flagging weight related to the karma of the account. Therefore the opinion of people who have in the past made high quality contributions are weighted stronger than those of the others. And this is something I am suggesting with an almost pathetic karma...

That sounds like a second voting system, or am I understanding incorrectly?

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

#459

Post by jack-r-abbit » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 1:13 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #403

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the current rule applies that says you don't get to down-vote until you reach N karma, the "new kids" don't really get to do much. I for one would value a system that forced a down-vote to be accompanied by some sort of explanation of why. I suppose at less than a year old I am still a "new kid" so I will say in my infancy (a few months old) I had a comment down-voted for reasons that were not obvious to me. I was…

The tone of that comment came across badly. You pointed out they had made a typo - that was your only feedback. You suggested they might not be a human. You used the word "regret", but you clearly have no regret. There is no irony as to why you were voted down. It was entirely justified.

I think you may have misread my comment here and are addressing the wrong comment. I was talking about months ago... not in this thread. I understand why I was down voted on the comment you are talking about. Clearly I was being a smart ass... taking the OP's suggestion to the extreme. Some people got it.

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

#460

Post by jack-r-abbit » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 1:21 PM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #418

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SMF forum? Or another forum running SMF? I only ask because SMF (well actually its predecessor YaBB SE) was what got me active in contributing to open source projects. Solid software that SMF.

No, no, another forum running SMF. But solid software, really? I give them one thing: it works . Can't recall encountering any real big bad bugs either, so yeah in that sense, quite solid. But given that you contributed to it I assume that you've seen the code? I've had to make some modifications/hackery here and there myself and the amounts of time I've cursed at it for being a tangled and obscure mess... combine th…

I've not contributed for a good number of years. I just didn't have the time. I assumed it was still running smooth. Maybe it has fallen off in recent years. Sad. But they had a pretty good MOD system I thought for the time. But I agree that the code was not organized all too well.