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A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

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Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#201

Post by neilk »

larrys wrote: post #128
bane wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there was a fast slide to content-free echo chamberism a while ago. HN was starting to become painfully predictable if it didn't talk about: - Apple in glowing terms - a LISP - how massive overvaluations were not a bad sign Certain HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments and the fanboyism towards a few specific companies, products and people was so thick you could cut…

"HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments" It would be interesting to test the same thesis that I have which indicates there is a halo effect on anyone considered a rockstar which allows them to get more upvotes than they would w/o the rockstar status. This is of course the way life operates. The only question is to what extent it happens. People tend to pay more attention to some…

Maybe there should be an "anonymous week" where usernames are hidden. Just to see if there are any different patterns.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#202

Post by wensing »

tommi wrote: post #185
wensing wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

def cutoff(): return min([leader.age for leader in get_leaders("http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders")] I leave you to define get_leaders. :)

Or, as humans would say that, the cutoff could be the youngest of leaders. However, that really doesn't answer the problem when you don't define what a leader is. If it's the highest amount of Karma past 7 days, then the youngest leader could even be a day old user. Please respond with solutions, not http wrappers.

If you go to the URL in the code, it defines what a leader is: the 100 people with the highest karma. By define get_leaders I meant write the scraper, not come up with the definition. Heh!

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#203

Post by wensing »

malandrew wrote: post #167
sstrudeau wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked mine ... 1337 days seems like a good number :)

I'm at 730 days and I can support 1337 days, so long as I can read. I don't mind waiting just shy of two to be able to comment so long as the comment and post quality is exceptional. TBH I'm fascinated to know how the community would differ from HN of 4 years ago, since all the older participants would be 4 years more experienced in life and hacking.

Re: the TBH - exactly. I just might have to try this.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#204

Post by zgembo »

guptaneil wrote: post #188
zgembo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think early TechCrunch. No tech stories, only direct links to products and services are allowed. http://pivoted.co/

Is this your site? The search page prints PHP code at the top, just so you know.

correct. thanks for that, will fix it. have a great weekend!

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#205

Post by shinratdr »

bane wrote: post #53
bluedanieru wrote: post #34

Am I the only one who hasn't noticed this huge drop in quality that has everyone bitching and moaning lately? The signal-to-noise ratio has dropped slightly compared to when I started reading about four years ago, but this is still a great place for technical discussion. Comparisons to Reddit and other such nonsense are baseless. HN does not need any major overhaul or whatever else. I think a lot of this is just old-…

I feel like there was a fast slide to content-free echo chamberism a while ago. HN was starting to become painfully predictable if it didn't talk about: - Apple in glowing terms - a LISP - how massive overvaluations were not a bad sign Certain HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments and the fanboyism towards a few specific companies, products and people was so thick you could cut…

So people talked about Apple positively in the past. Now they don't. That somehow reflects on HN... why?

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#206

Post by zem »

bane wrote: post #53
bluedanieru wrote: post #34

Am I the only one who hasn't noticed this huge drop in quality that has everyone bitching and moaning lately? The signal-to-noise ratio has dropped slightly compared to when I started reading about four years ago, but this is still a great place for technical discussion. Comparisons to Reddit and other such nonsense are baseless. HN does not need any major overhaul or whatever else. I think a lot of this is just old-…

I feel like there was a fast slide to content-free echo chamberism a while ago. HN was starting to become painfully predictable if it didn't talk about: - Apple in glowing terms - a LISP - how massive overvaluations were not a bad sign Certain HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments and the fanboyism towards a few specific companies, products and people was so thick you could cut…

i still feel the hn engine is optimised for expounding rather than discussion. the threading is nice, but in the absence of a reply notification, and with the nesting depth capped, having an actual discussion tends to be difficult.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#207

Post by simon »

wensing wrote: post #104
edw519 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe it's more like this: 2007. edw519: blah blah blah. Community: You should speak less and build more. 2008. edw519: blah blah blah. Community: You should speak less and build more. 2009. edw519: blah blah blah. Community: You should speak less and build more. 2010. edw519: blah blah blah. Community: You should speak less and build more. 2011. edw519: blah blah blah. Community: You should speak less and build m…

I've been around for 2,017 days. Number of comments has gone down steadily, but I agree with mixmax as for the reason. Would any old-timer care to use the open-source HN code and create a vintage HN by automatically inviting anyone with an age of >N days?

2025 days! Woohoo! :-)

Sorry about that ... back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#208

Post by forrestthewoods »

Any solution relying on karma is doomed to fail imo.

Karma is easy to min-max. I've gotten good at it. Only ~1200 karma but I'm averaging over 10 per post. It's easy with a bit of practice.

None of my comments are particularly good. They typically express a mostly safe opinion in a mild manner. I don't like to make non-root posts as they rarely get upvotes and I hesitate to post in a large thread (like this one) as it's easy to get buried.

I don't even know why I post this way to be honest. I was mostly just curious to see how high I could get my average. The bar to get upvotes on HN seemed really high at first and I wanted to be a good poster. Now I see the road to karma is paved with safe, fluffy comments.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#209

Post by SeanDav »

larrys wrote: post #128
bane wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there was a fast slide to content-free echo chamberism a while ago. HN was starting to become painfully predictable if it didn't talk about: - Apple in glowing terms - a LISP - how massive overvaluations were not a bad sign Certain HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments and the fanboyism towards a few specific companies, products and people was so thick you could cut…

"HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments" It would be interesting to test the same thesis that I have which indicates there is a halo effect on anyone considered a rockstar which allows them to get more upvotes than they would w/o the rockstar status. This is of course the way life operates. The only question is to what extent it happens. People tend to pay more attention to some…

I go back to the days when karma was visible and there was a clear and easily visible "rockstar" effect. I learned early on, from personal experience and watching other posts, to not disagree with a rockstar as it was likely to lead to being downvoted to oblivion.

I once disagreed with a rockstar member (someone currently in the top 10 or so on the all time karma list) and had to delete my comment quite rapidly as I was getting buried. My comment was not personal or flaming in any way - just a disagreement.

Since hidden karma I think voting is far more fair.

I too think that HN is better in many ways than before, although I would say the noise ratio has increased. Still easily one of my favourite news and discussion forums.

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