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Solving The Hacker News Problem

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Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#221

Post by InclinedPlane »

pault wrote: post #215
buro9 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of now (9:10GMT) I've read every post on this page, and I think as short as it is, the parent (Eternal February) perhaps is the one that is closest to what I think has happened. I think this is a people problem, not a technology one. For those who haven't heard this phrase before, the "Eternal February" apes the "Eternal September". Pre-1993, each September would herald the start of a new university year and an in…

No snark intended, but I feel like you are basically describing reddit, with its subreddits and customizable front page. If you unsubscribe from main, funny, pics, politics, askreddit, and add programming, computer science, mathematics, etc to your front page, you will get a pretty high quality experience, IMO (at least no 4chan garbage). The main difference that I perceive between the two sites is that reddit seems…

In simplest terms the HN community & culture fosters open minded discussion while reddit fosters group think.

Even if HN has lost its edge over time that fundamental difference is worth fighting for and worth coming back to HN.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#222

Post by InclinedPlane »

moultano wrote: post #195
sophacles wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have recently begun to realize that there are 2 aspects to "website degeneration". One is the obvious new people showing up because they heard it's cool psuedo python paradox situation. The other comes from the old-timers themselves. I'm not particularly that old-timer, but in the 3something years I've been here, I can say I have experienced this: I've grown. The "5 awesome vim tips" or "super deep closure stuff" a…

A similar effect: The average age on the internet is younger than you, and will be for the rest of your life. Think about what effect that has on the density of quality user generated content.

Umm, what? In the limit of everyone going online the average age of internet users becomes the average age of the population at large. Perhaps younger internet users would be more active, especially on social media sites, but that's a different matter.

Current estimates put the average age on the internet at about 37.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#223

Post by silvestrov »

Dylanlacey wrote: post #133
malandrew wrote: post #46

Forking of sites has the same problems as forking open-source projects. It exacerbates conflict, forces people to choose sides, and ultimately both forks typically end up poorer because of members lost. Instead, the best solution is to evolve Hacker News as a product. My personal opinion is that we should put Hacker news in the hands of the YCombinator alumni. Founders and first employees (CEO, CTO, lead designer, fi…

Even game mechanics have a problem. Say your valued members have a certain mindset, ethos and style. Let's call it YC-meme. Everyone with YC-meme contributes in a manner that exemplifies YC-meme. If someone comes along and doesn't have that meme, their posts tend to not be what the memesters want. So, members use their voting powers to reduce that person's karma. Eventually they either leave, get ignored by all, or b…

2. A very high bar for moderation, with active participation.

The reason this is doomed is: there is currently much more stuff needing moderation than the selected few can handle. They would soon wear out and you'll end up with a site with almost no moderation at all.

The trash needs to be stopped at the front door. When it gets into the house, it takes too much effort to clean up.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#224

Post by gjm11 »

wazoox wrote: post #212
tastybites wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of landlords are stupid and will raise rent beyond the market clearing rate just to make a quick buck, resulting in empty units and shitty communities.

No, actually it's rent control that gives way to that. Landlords don't rent at a loss, and prefer keeping their apartments empty, resulting in shitty communities, then squatters, etc.

Both mechanisms seem somewhat plausible. Either of you got any evidence about how often each actually happens?

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#225

Post by [deleted] »

Alex3917 wrote: post #196
edw519 wrote: post #182

Quality of HN Comments Over Time | . . | . . q| . . . . u| . . . . . . a| . . . . . l| . . . . . i| . . . . . t| . . . you are here -->. . y| (that's all) |________________________________________________________ N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F '09 '10 '11 (It must be that time of year again...) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1646871

When HN first started it was kind of like r/truereddit but with an emphasis on startups. HN today has almost nothing in common with this. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think it's correct to say that the quality level is just an oscillation.

[deleted]

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#226

Post by JonnieCache »

sachinag wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the threshold HN crossed where it started needing active moderation? Because '08 HN threads were just better than '11 threads. Is it just a number of users, past which no set of guidelines restrains pathological conversations? Why? If you can trace it back to what thing happens when you get to your 50,000th user, maybe there's some passive moderation mechanism you can identify to keep it in check.

For me, I noticed it when people started posting things from investor blogs and the VCs and angels themselves started commenting here. I think that spurred some small handful of users to start showing off how smart they were in hopes that they'd get a response from fredwilson or whoever, and that just naturally spread the way it did. (There's a certain high when you get fredwilson or msuster to respond to your commen…

SomethingAwful was (is?) good because of the membership fee, and because of the viciously strict moderation.

You could have your account deleted, with no warning, for:

    * Persistent lack of punctuation or grammar
    * Posting tired memes
    * Persistent inability to cite sources for claims (in some subfora)
    * Dozens of other things I can't remember
    * Basically anything the mods decided to ban your for
The reason this worked is because the mods were drawn from the community. The admins would look at a subforum, see who was trusted on there, had good judgement and was there a lot. They would then make that person a mod, without asking them or even telling them! That person would just log in next time to be confronted with lots of extra widgets on the UI.

Because the community was so cohesive across the site, that person would then know immediately it was their duty to post a thread saying "Hi, I'm XYZ, your new Moderator" and christen their new powers by stickying the thread.

Again, they were not told to do this, but they would immediately and without fail, because the criteria for being chosen as a mod means that anyone who is chosen would be aware of this tradition, and in fact every other aspect of their role, having learned by example.

The SA forums were operating lots of quite deep game mechanics stuff nigh on ten years ago. It's very interesting. Most of the measures wouldn't be appropriate for here though, a lot of them involved strategically fostering antagonism for the benefit of wider community cohesion. It really worked over there for a long time though.

EDIT: I seem to remember that for a long time they only took payment by actual credit cards, visa and so on, and not debit cards, paypal etc. This was deliberate to prevent kids from signing up.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#227

Post by stcredzero »

sophacles wrote: post #202
moultano wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar effect: The average age on the internet is younger than you, and will be for the rest of your life. Think about what effect that has on the density of quality user generated content.

Haha great... I'm barely 30 and you punks are already calling me old. :)

College students started calling me old at 27. Just wait til you hit 40!

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#228

Post by [deleted] »

buro9 wrote: post #211
oconnor0 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, of course, are we entering the Eternal February?

As of now (9:10GMT) I've read every post on this page, and I think as short as it is, the parent (Eternal February) perhaps is the one that is closest to what I think has happened. I think this is a people problem, not a technology one. For those who haven't heard this phrase before, the "Eternal February" apes the "Eternal September". Pre-1993, each September would herald the start of a new university year and an in…

[deleted]

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#229

Post by JonnieCache »

derefr wrote: post #168
JonnieCache wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this would just breed resentment, or at worst Lord Of The Flies/Robbers Cave style anarchy. [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Realistic_con...

When you have two groups that have no reason to not be the same group, the fact that they're separated breeds resentment. When you tell them that there's a criteria they were ranked upon to put them into these groups (in this case, age + karma), they understand. For example, there's no big rivalry between grad students and undergrads; one graduated to become the other.

>For example, there's no big rivalry between grad students and undergrads; one graduated to become the other.

All undergraduates know that they will soon be at least graduates, if not later postgrads. The transition is inevitable.

Any kind of stratified internet community would have to have the eventual prospect of transfer from one strata to the other, as an inevitable consequence of good/bad participation.

As soon as it becomes set in stone, or the transfer becomes a deliberate choice rather than an inevitable consequence of behaviour, I think people will forget about the criteria that originally divided them and slowly regress to hatred of the other.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#230

Post by die_sekte »

groby_b wrote: post #156
mkr-hn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting to see how that model holds up to another 2-3 years. The few invite-based communities I've been a part of started to degrade as the social graph grew out and started to pick up the occasional undesirable. It was harder to get rid of them because they knew someone who knew someone, and trying to push them out had a network effect. It might be obvious to someone removed by 3+ levels that a bad elem…

I am seriously considering pruning branches, not just leaves of the social graph to keep communities healthy. I.e. if you invited a bunch of bad apples, you will be pruned too. I have no idea if it would work, but it's pretty obvious that open social graphs beyond a certain threshold are not conducive to high-level discussions.

Zed Shaw's Utu had that idea. Doesn't seem like he's still working on it.
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