Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What I've Learned from Hacker News

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 126 posts

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#51

Post by GHFigs »

michaelvw wrote: post #41
davi wrote: post #10

What a disaster that would be, to attract thousands of smart people to a site that caused them to waste lots of time. I wish I could be 100% sure that's not a description of HN. The reason HN is so addictive is because it is filled with things we think might be useful someday. We're like pack rats at a flea market. The question is, what utility do we get out of what we find here? Idea: maybe there could be a second c…

I am less concerned by the implication of reduced productivity. Though reading Hacker News may negatively impact present productivity, it may improve future productivity by exposing readers to new concepts, approaches, etc. It reminds me of an article about Pixar (though a cursory search doesn't seem to find it...) which described their workspaces as having only a few central bathrooms in order to facilitate people r…

An important difference is that people actually need to use the bathroom anyway, so such chance encounters are not creating an interruption where one did not exist before. They are also self-limiting in a way that browsing the web (or RSS feeds, etc.) is not.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#52

Post by davi »

dcurtis wrote: post #42

I think a lot of the growth problems might have to do with the devaluation of karma. The solution to this might actually raise the quality of comments and front page stories. When I posted a comment here a year and a half ago, I felt like each vote was a real, actual smart person praising or agreeing with what I had said. Each point had a lot of meaning, and back then 5 points was considered a pretty good score. Now…

Interesting.

With a smaller population of users, each interaction becomes an investment in an individual relationship that may pay off later (financially or otherwise). And if someone upvotes your comment, you know they are endorsing you, personally.

With a larger population, this dilutes to something like a branding exercise.

So there's some balance between having lots of diverse perspectives and skill sets (large population) vs. having individualized relationships (small population).

Similar to the idea that companies may have an optimal size, maybe there's an optimal size for social news sites. And for social news sites where utility is part of the draw (HN), this optimal size may be smaller than sites oriented more around entertainment (digg, reddit).

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#54

Post by Zak »

Xichekolas wrote: post #50
unalone wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait - if you do better at Hacker News you get invited to Startup School? I know nothing about Startup School, but I didn't think it had anything to do whatsoever with things on Hacker News.

As I remember, it's not your karma score that really matters, but being recognized from here helps when they read applications. The same effect is obviously true everywhere. Being known by someone on the inside gets you a job more often than not, etc.

If I recall correctly, when I went in 2005, the application requested my reddit username. I had hardly any karma, but a few people, including Steve and Alexis knew me from my comments.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#55

Post by brlewis »

davi wrote: post #10

What a disaster that would be, to attract thousands of smart people to a site that caused them to waste lots of time. I wish I could be 100% sure that's not a description of HN. The reason HN is so addictive is because it is filled with things we think might be useful someday. We're like pack rats at a flea market. The question is, what utility do we get out of what we find here? Idea: maybe there could be a second c…

I have definitely found utility in HN, in direct feedback/advice that I've solicited, in examples from what other people are doing, in learning about sites that I could integrate with, and from principles that helped me prioritize.

If you look at the feedback I initially got here for OurDoings, and then look at what OurDoings is like today, there's no question I've learned a lot.

Oh, and from JavaScript code I copied from the HN. The Image() voting code looks like a hack, but if Paul Buchheit did it it must be OK. :-)

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#56

Post by JesseAldridge »

dcurtis wrote: post #42

I think a lot of the growth problems might have to do with the devaluation of karma. The solution to this might actually raise the quality of comments and front page stories. When I posted a comment here a year and a half ago, I felt like each vote was a real, actual smart person praising or agreeing with what I had said. Each point had a lot of meaning, and back then 5 points was considered a pretty good score. Now…

Sounds like a textbook example of Dunbar's number.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

Maybe a good solution is to break the community down into neighborhoods of ~150 people.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#57

Post by mangoleaf »

HN has reached critical mass. No need to worry about a quick death anymore. Add friction to keep the randoms out and to help make those that stay feel like they are part of an exclusive club. Friction = cost. Some micro payment, say .99/yr, that adds enough friction to slow the adoption by non-core types. Those that value this exclusive "club," like myself, would gladly render unto Caesar.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#58

Post by vlad »

run4yourlives wrote: post #35
edw519 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are. What a sad thought. "Gaming" hacker news to get invited to Startup School. Here's an idea: Why not just be yourself. Contribute what you can. Take what you need. Make a few friends along the way. And learn a thing or two that may change your life. I can't think of a better place to do it. Karma is a very minor byproduct. What you and thi…

I think I read that sentence as being the opposite as you did, i.e. He didn't game HN because he wanted to get invited again, even though he almost did.

Correct. While I was working actively on my software, my brain focused on the best ways to do X or Y in the fastest time using a software application. In other words, writing something to make me more productive or more time efficient, even if it wasn't something that would be sellable. If it saved me time, then I could therefore use that time to code something I could sell. So I let my brain wander around the karma concept and that's what I came up with (a long time ago). But no, I decided not to do it.

One corollary to that is by not having done it, all I can do is write a post on news.yc. But that does not mean that it should be confused with the act of actually doing it.

Another corollary is that maybe doing it wouldn't have been a bad idea. If karma is the measure of value, and users enjoy the stories, maybe developing an algorithm that automatically submits stories to news.yc (and judges how users vote on it to then submit better stories, the way a human might) would actually be something Paul loves, and the first release of such an app, of course, could basically submit everything indiscriminately to start with.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#59

Post by berntb »

dcurtis wrote: post #42

I think a lot of the growth problems might have to do with the devaluation of karma. The solution to this might actually raise the quality of comments and front page stories. When I posted a comment here a year and a half ago, I felt like each vote was a real, actual smart person praising or agreeing with what I had said. Each point had a lot of meaning, and back then 5 points was considered a pretty good score. Now…

I find technical news sites to be similar to how fashions work.

That is, a good model of changing fashion are some forerunners that starts doing something -- and then gets copied by lots of people. The ones that want to be fashionable then have to change or look like all others.

Technical news sites seems to be places with interesting discussion that gets overrun with wannabees that lowers the average quality. If this is correct, HN is doomed to be Diggified (the opposite of dignified). Like all non-invitation discussion sites.

(-: I also tried to be responsible for the average quality and only read, but now failed to keep my fingers controlled after a few months. :-)

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#60

Post by ivankirigin »

Too much navel gazing is really bad for a site. This isn't to say the essay lacks insight, just that Hacker News is diminished by frequent debates.

PG, have you considered invite only schemes?

What about explicit 'people rank', where friends can rate eachother in a reputation system? That might really help with the quality of comments.

It would also help conversation is you could follow people you like. Twitter and Tumblr both do a really good job of 'pick your peers'. I often track these two links: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ivankirigin

It would be nice if there was a thread stream of selected people. It would make me engage in conversation more often. Too many comments don't have an easy response, making them closer to declarations than discussions.

Also, have you considered adding an explicit cost to votes? You could weight those above a certain karma threshold higher if each vote were $0.10.

Post reply on HN