New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines. • Hacker News Board

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#91

Post by niels_olson » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 9:50 PM UTC

Edward Tufte has a good thread of collected moderation advice and policies from over the years here:

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...

Here is the short essay he provides to anyone who cares to comment, at the top of the comment form:

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This board is only about evidence presentations and analytical design. For all business matters (book orders, courses, shipping, prices, delivery dates), please go to the Graphics Press contact information on our home page

On the Ask ET forum, we seek to publish questions and contributions that advance the analytical content of the thread, provide a good example, or raise an interesting question. Contributions should be relevant to the chosen thread. Please no marketing pitches, gratuitous links, or incivilities. There are about 6,000 contributions in the 500 threads now published on this board; they provide good examples of what has been accepted for publication.

Some new contributions go to a non-public queue, which is frequently reviewed by a member of the editorial board in order to decide whether the material should be posted. About 30% of submitted contributions are posted; after publication, about half survive the occasional reviews of published items. The editors are unable to reconsider their decisions or to answer any queries about editorial decisions (some of which may well be mistaken). Publication policies are described in detail at Moderating internet forums [Ed. the link I mention above]

If your contribution is published, your email address will be masked on the board, and your identifying IP number will not be published.

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Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#92

Post by whatusername » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 9:54 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #40

rw wrote: post #9

What has caused the spike in new users?

Leo Laporte also mentioned this site on TWiT I believe. I was already a member, but perhaps this drove some people this way.

http://twitter.com/LeoLaporte/status/1164672251

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#93

Post by thorax » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 9:54 PM UTC

freakball wrote: post #30

is there an IRC channel for HN?

Or http://chatterous.com/hnyc

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#94

Post by dreish » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 9:55 PM UTC

TooMuchNick wrote: post #12

Flemlord wrote: post #7

As a reddit convert myself, I'm terrified to post here. I hear that Paul Graham himself sometimes singles out dumb commenters and publicly ridicules them. ;-) Best to keep a low profile.

Unless you have a not-so-secret smirking attitude toward Paul Graham, having publicly ridiculed him in an earlier stage of your career and now being lucky enough to have no need for his money.

I can remember when -23 points would be reserved for something like a string of racial epithets, not merely a lame but inoffensive attempt at humor.

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#95

Post by SapphireSun » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 10:01 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #68

siong1987 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Michael Arrington mentioned YC News in Techcrunch??? http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/04/2009-products-i-cant-li...

Hacker News is another Digg-like news site that focuses on tech that I visit daily as well. Not only mentioned, but likened to Digg. People may have been expecting that what passes on Digg would pass here.

The post was on January 4th though. I wonder whether it's a chaotic system effect.

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#96

Post by SapphireSun » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 10:06 PM UTC

michaelneale wrote: post #20

tsetse-fly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it may be related to acangiano's "Let's all grow up" post. He mentioned Hacker News and it seemed to be a popular submission, particularly on reddit. A few curious trolls probably wandered over and created new accounts. Of course, that's not Antonio's fault. I liked his post. :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=455474 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7tbpl/lets_all_...

well if its just a few.. that is ok ;)

I'm not so sure about that. A single troll can do a lot of damage. A single person can acquire scripting software ( like the Arrington username ), abuse the page formatting on every page, and destroy the balance of conversation by pissing people off.

It takes the ethos of the entire community to keep this all in check. Some trolls might assimilate, but a determined person would be hard to deal with.

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#97

Post by almost » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 10:34 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #37

sh1mmer wrote: post #19

Curiously PG posting this gets 50 karma and counting, someone else posted a similar thing earlier in the week and got flagged dead. I don't want to see this topic regularly but maybe the guidelines could be made more prominent for new users?

Good idea. I should add some kind of welcome page.

How about "Don't say anything you wouldn't say to someone's face" next to the submit button for the comment box? It could be a link to the full guidelines page maybe.

Even for older users it could be good to have a little reminder to not be an arsehole (I could certainly use that sort of reminder on occasion).

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#98

Post by sam_in_nyc » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 11:03 PM UTC

kwamenum86 wrote: post #80

mcargian wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, I don't understand why someone should get 40 karma points for a two word witty comment, no matter how funny it was. Why isn't karma per comment limited to -1 to 10? Seems like it would limit karma bashing and karma mega-boosting.

If you limit the karma to 10 then a particularly good comment will eventually sink below comments that are upmodded later because of the way the ordering algorithm works. Similarly, a particularly bad comment will stay visible. I don't see anything wrong with karma mega-boosting. At the end of the day it is just a number on your profile.

I think he meant only credit the user with 10 karma points. The comment can still be boosted based on the number of up-mods it receives.

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#99

Post by Retric » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 11:15 PM UTC

dreish wrote: post #94

TooMuchNick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have a not-so-secret smirking attitude toward Paul Graham, having publicly ridiculed him in an earlier stage of your career and now being lucky enough to have no need for his money.

I can remember when -23 points would be reserved for something like a string of racial epithets, not merely a lame but inoffensive attempt at humor.

As more people use the site the Karma swings are going to increase. He got a + 24 on the same thread so IMO it balances out.

Re: New users: Welcome. Please read the site guidelines.

#100

Post by dreish » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 11:30 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #99

dreish wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can remember when -23 points would be reserved for something like a string of racial epithets, not merely a lame but inoffensive attempt at humor.

As more people use the site the Karma swings are going to increase. He got a + 24 on the same thread so IMO it balances out.

Yes, but it once was the case that noise comments were given a single downvote and left alone by everyone else.

Negative numbers here are like a slap in the face, and when overused they will be even more corrosive to the community than a flood of juvenile comments would be.

More to the point, those scores are not supposed to be used to represent entertainment value, because people are not participating here for pure mindless entertainment.