Hacker News is depressing • Hacker News Board

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#31

Post by micampe » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:51 PM UTC

Udo wrote: post #12

I'm very sorry it has come this far. It's easy to forget we have a tendency to make remarks about people online that we would never bring up in a personal conversation. I'm not excluding myself here, I too feel I'm sometimes harsher online than offline - and it sadly also happened in the Dave Winer thread yesterday. People can come across in a certain way through their writing that we would never attribute to them if…

I agree with Dave. Many people on HN don't even try to apply critical thinking and judge facts as they are. They prefer to go with conspiracy theories or versions of stories that fits their existing ideas or make their favorite team look good, without considering any other possible explanation.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#32

Post by awj » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:51 PM UTC

mst wrote: post #4

Expected WHAARGARBL, received WHAARGARBL. Entertaingly so, though. (ref: http://www.popehat.com/2010/03/11/racial-babyocalypse-provok... )

Aren't there already plenty of other places on the internet to go find that?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#33

Post by chrisa » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

I like and value most HN comments, but I agree that there is quite a bit of negativity. One way to look at it is that if the average commenter even accidentally makes a negative comment once per year, and if 10,000 people view a thread, that's the potential for 27 destructive comments.

It doesn't help that negativity enforces itself, so it doesn't take long before a thread can be inundated with a hostile attitude. But how to address that?

I don't know how it might work, but what if there was an option for the author to include a picture of themselves (on HN)? That might humanize the discussion, by reminding people that they're talking to a real person...

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#34

Post by neogodless » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #11

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point, because above a certain tolerance it stops being a community and becomes a city. CIP: I'm in a rural town for a couple days and everytime I walk outside everyone I pass says "Hi" or "Good Afternoon," the first time that happened I was kinda surprised I tried to figure out if I knew that pers…

Theoretically, the size of the community is not exactly the issue. Certainly, as it grows, so do the challenges. But ultimately it's the core culture and the self-governance within. The tools and structure of the site help to build the culture, as do early members, but as the population grows, the culture can shift. Sometimes tools can be updated to better handle this.

Perhaps users who have more flags than karma/upvotes actually disappear (along with their comments) for a time period and/or lose their ability to post for a while?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#35

Post by rayvinly » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

I've been a reader much much more than a commenter here. But I developed a habit of ignoring any negativity expressed here. I think it is a skill not less important in dealing with life in general and in organizations.

However, yesterday I was really burnt out emotionally on some personal matters. And I've yet to fully recovered...

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#36

Post by maxerickson » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

There's about 6 top level comments that are negative.

In the big thread, there are 9 negative comments (the rest being sidetracks or push back). A couple of the smaller top levels have a second or third negative remark.

Of course these numbers are highly subjective. I wouldn't call it a torrent. Much of it certainly served no purpose.

Was there some other negative activity?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#37

Post by drivebyacct2 » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #11

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point, because above a certain tolerance it stops being a community and becomes a city. CIP: I'm in a rural town for a couple days and everytime I walk outside everyone I pass says "Hi" or "Good Afternoon," the first time that happened I was kinda surprised I tried to figure out if I knew that pers…

At the very least, there needs to be a rudimentary troll block. I so tire of HN comment threads littered with discarded opinions from one-off accounts. Make accounts read-only for the first two-weeks and make sure they're actually being logged into and aren't being harvested.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#38

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #11

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point, because above a certain tolerance it stops being a community and becomes a city. CIP: I'm in a rural town for a couple days and everytime I walk outside everyone I pass says "Hi" or "Good Afternoon," the first time that happened I was kinda surprised I tried to figure out if I knew that pers…

[deleted]

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#39

Post by DanBC » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #19

I respect Dave but he has to realize, experienced as he is at blogging, that...this is the Internet, where no one knows you're a dog...or even an Internet pioneer. And he's done his fair share of rush-to-judgment posting...my first knowledge of him was during the whole Suggested Users List spat, in which he accused organizations, such as the NYT, of participating in payola: http://scripting.com/stories/2009/03/12/why…

> this is the Internet,

The Internet is a big place. If you want YouTube comments ("Lol yuo dikk yo mama haet you die of cancer!!1!" you can go to youtube.

> at least it's one in which it's possible for any participant, big or small, to improve the discussion

Yes. Let's keep working at making HN better.

Comments like this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5731152) should be vigorously downvoted.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#40

Post by 127001brewer » Tue, May 21, 2013, 3:56 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #11

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point, because above a certain tolerance it stops being a community and becomes a city. CIP: I'm in a rural town for a couple days and everytime I walk outside everyone I pass says "Hi" or "Good Afternoon," the first time that happened I was kinda surprised I tried to figure out if I knew that pers…

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy.

Communities like this are like water: it changes constantly sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. The only thing to be happy about is whether or not it's thriving.

And, in my opinion, limiting the number of participants in this community would be a terrible mistake. Perhaps there's other ways to limit trolling, such as limiting the number of comments you can submit per day based on your karma, but it would unfair to exclude people to the great content here.