101–110 of 179 posts
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Its true that this system blocks spammers and marketers. At the same time it also prevents a large amount of genuine users who want to take part in the dicussions because its hard to get an invite. So overall the system does more harm than good.
There are like five people in this thread offering invites, it's not that hard.
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I'm not a mod and I don't have any inside track, but I've been around a while. I suspect that this item has fallen not because of flags, but because it's got 80 comments and only 75 votes. There is a mechanism as a proxy to detect flame wars, and is not necessarily because of flagging. If you think this has been sunk inappropriately then email the mods. They are quite open to getting honest, constructive comments and…
I have scrolled through several pages and this post is no longer in the top 200 on HN. I have never seen the flame-war penalty hit anything close to that hard that quickly. I am pretty sure this is from user flagging.
I haven't, but I can see why others would. Like it or hate it, the purpose of the voting system is to provide a direction for the content. You may disagree, but it's like elections - you get what "the community" deems valuable or relevant.
There's a lot of stuff I post that sinks without trace, and other things that get downvoted into obvlivion even though I personally think they are of positive value.
The community decides - you have to accept that.
As a Reddit / Hacker News-alternative (or supplement), I've been far more impressed by Tildes.
The down-vote feature (for those who didn't read the article: you have to provide feedback to down-vote) is something I've spent years saying HN badly needs. These days I just don't bother posting most of the time because while I shouldn't be bothered by abuse of negative rep; you can't help be pissed off when you've spent a short while including detail only for someone who doesn't understand the subject or has a per…
I really liked this idea too until I realized that it's really easy to come up with an excuse like "this doesn't make any sense". Which often times, is the real reason. I don't think mods have time to investigate each little spat and confrontation if someone chooses to "abuse" the system. I think HN's current system of keeping a limited window open so that comments that in general are disagreed with will be downvoted…
One thing I noticed is that the search feature on there is far worse than HN's. Doing a side by side comparison, I have to go to the 2nd or 3rd page on Lobste.rs to get the results that I would have expected to be first.
I'm curious what you use search for that often on a forum whose posting activity is largely temporal. Are people using HN etc as an info repository?
One of the nice things about HN is that people with way more experience than you in any given field make posts and comments about their work at times. While generally not useful for specific step-by-step instructions, there are good tips here and there that are at least worth considering, or alt viewpoints that may be interesting to consider in the future.
I think the invite only aspect of it can be a problem. The invitee needs to get the invite from someone that they either know in real life or someone who can vouch for them online. The former isn't a great solution because it requires users to be linked to their real identity by at least one person. Real identities have some advantages, but requiring it bars a lot of good discussions that people don't want linked to…
I have to disagree with the false dichotomy you are presenting wrt to the invite system. Specifically, being forced to reveal your real identity to at least one other user vs. "inviting people that they don't know the real identity of" which you say means that "the invite system isn't really adding anything beyond making it slightly more complicated to join." There are many people online whose real identities I don't…
Appearing to be a good user on one site doesn't guarantee that a person will be a good user everywhere. Personally knowing someone and having that real life connection to provide consequences is a much stronger deterrent to bad behavior.
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I have scrolled through several pages and this post is no longer in the top 200 on HN. I have never seen the flame-war penalty hit anything close to that hard that quickly. I am pretty sure this is from user flagging.
It may be. I've also now read through most of this thread and I can say categorically that for me, this thread is now mostly full of dross, and I'd be tempted to flag it as being of negative value to HN. I haven't, but I can see why others would. Like it or hate it, the purpose of the voting system is to provide a direction for the content. You may disagree, but it's like elections - you get what "the community" deem…
Is it better to limit access to limit access to only those you personally know? Sounds like a great way to limit exposure to differing thoughts, experiences, and opinions. If you’re only hearing from those in your friend circle, it’s just another glorified chat room... nothing new here
It’s not only those that you personally know. I was invited by a complete stranger, for example.
Is it better to limit access to limit access to only those you personally know? Sounds like a great way to limit exposure to differing thoughts, experiences, and opinions. If you’re only hearing from those in your friend circle, it’s just another glorified chat room... nothing new here
But .. but .. its written in Rust! That has got to count for something right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its true that this system blocks spammers and marketers. At the same time it also prevents a large amount of genuine users who want to take part in the dicussions because its hard to get an invite. So overall the system does more harm than good.
It's not that hard to get an invite. Ask in an HN thread and there's a good chance somebody will hook you up, assuming they either know you, OR can tell from your HN comment/submission history that you're not some weirdo who is going to spam lobste.rs with crap.
That works for users who have seen this thread. How does a person who has not seen this thread knows that they have to ask in some random HN thread to get an invite? What about users who don't have an HN account?