Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#31

Post by walterk » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 1:55 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

I tend to find myself influenced by the karma count more than anything else. I have to log myself out after commenting to increase the cost of checking the change to my net karma.

I'm a strong advocate of hiding the karma counts entirely (for users, submissions, and comments). That greatly reduces the conditioning effect, not to mention karma-related drama and groupthink (as Surowiecki argues, crowd wisdom is best procured when evaluations are performed independently). Submissions and comments can still be ordered by net karma over time, as they are now.

Whatever you choose to do, I think there's a strong argument in favor of experimentalism. Especially since the site isn't a commercial undertaking and can deal with the occasional disruption.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#32

Post by zacharydanger » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 1:58 AM UTC

I avoid the "check HN every n minutes" addiction by using Google Reader to give me a static view of what's come to the front page. This way I'm never re-parsing the entire front page every visit.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#33

Post by DavidSJ » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:09 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

Serious question: don't you think people should be expected to be responsible for themselves?

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#34

Post by jwilliams » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:14 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

I had a couple of thoughts, but hard to imagine how effective they might be:

1. Limit the number of votes users get a day/hour/time_period - This might make people more discerning (in general, but also perhaps where they put their time).

2. No karma for story votes. Still have voting, but just don't count it (either that or have it as a separate score) -- Possibly make people more focused on comments on a few more sticky topics rather than a constant stream of topics... Right now the karma system (perhaps) encourages more and more articles.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#35

Post by anewaccountname » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:15 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

How about a slow feed that I could check once a week and only get the week's 30 best stories?

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#36

Post by GHFigs » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:16 AM UTC

If you have to ask, you've passed the point where it is.

Reading the news is the kind of thing you do to fill in interstitial time that is not fungible with other activities, not something you do for its own sake, or should ever "make time" for, or that is ever inherently important. There may be important news, but the defining property of news is not importance, but newness.

I think that many here (and elsewhere) likely suffer from (to some degree) a kind of information-age malaise akin to scrupulosity (obsession over sinfulness). It's a condition where people feel anxiety over not being completely informed, or at least informed enough to have an opinion on every subject.

How often do you read an article (or bookmark it, or InstaPaper it, or tag it "toread", etc.) not because you want to read that article, but you feel like you should know more about that subject? How many unread items do you have in your RSS reader that you keep thinking you're actually going to read someday? That's what I mean.

It's an impossible task, but trying can very easily consume all of your time. You "just" have to learn to flip the switch from input to output without ever feeling "done".

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#37

Post by jwilliams » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:16 AM UTC

ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #27

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

1) Limit the number of submission (posts and/or comments) people can make in say an hour. This might limit the number of new things people can see. 2)Show fewer stories per page. Or perhaps, show far more. The larger number of stories may seem daunting and remind the person of the sheer number of many interesting things out there, and consequently, the diluted interest of any one. 3) Make the time spent more explicit…

#3 is a good idea - Although time might be difficult to calculate reliably. Page views might be a better metric.

I sort of have this system already - I watch my karma and try and use that as a negative feedback loop (i.e. try and keep in the same general increase as other peers).

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#38

Post by enki » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:26 AM UTC

TLDR

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#39

Post by randallsquared » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:35 AM UTC

DavidSJ wrote: post #33

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

Serious question: don't you think people should be expected to be responsible for themselves?

I'd agree that they should. However, if someone's on the fence, pushing them in a productive direction might be something that serves our (well, pg's) goals, in which case it's not really about responsibility, but about pg's effect on others, something he will likely want to take responsibility for, at least to some extent.

Or, to lift a more succinct phrase, "lead us not into temptation". ;)

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#40

Post by randallsquared » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 2:36 AM UTC

froo wrote: post #30

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

Hey PG, what about enforcing procrastination filters? EG just removing the override link?

Encouraging and enforcing are very different: one increases usefulness, and the other decreases it.