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Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

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Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#251

Post by paulsutter »

jedberg wrote: post #142
pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

One possible solution (that you might already be doing) is to make the value of the vote proportional to how long the user has been a member, especially down-votes. That solves the problem of more recent arrivals not having the same qualities as the original members. To be very clear so as to prevent conspiracy theories, this is something that we never did on reddit because we didn't want to put that much power into…

It will never be as simple as throwing in a single tweak like that.

Google is the best example to learn from. Search is a misnomer, Google is about ranking. They've put many PhD-centuries of effort into deciding which of the three million matches to put first (ranking). Choosing the three million matches (search) isn't where Google adds its value.

Lots of lessons have been learned there, I'm sure HN can tap into that pool of knowledge by opening up data to the right people.

HN is an awesome resource. I often read the comments before the articles because I expect them to be more useful. It's completely worthwhile to invest a lot of effort in maintaining that greatness as it scales.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#252

Post by digisign »

Aloisius wrote: post #109

I spent the time and read your post for reviewing Favilous* and I have no idea why you think there was nothing constructive there. Frankly, it looks like mostly constructive. Most of the comments are even in your format of 'I like this but this needs work' for goodness sakes. I don't know what you expect. If anything, they pulled a lot of punches. I've had the exact opposite reaction as you. I disliked the old HN com…

There is a difference in tone between the commonts of the favilous site and the newer one 11k...

I wondered though, if the new site was a significant part of it. People don't seem to like signing up for something they don't know anything about.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#253

Post by Jun8 »

tptacek wrote: post #182
pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

I wish you'd consider investing less time in technical countermeasures to dumbness (all of them are gameable, and the brand of dumbness you're fighting is not at all incompatible with an intuitive talent for that gamesmanship) and more time into just setting better community norms. It is hard to imagine that the site guidelines you write years and years and years ago when this place was tiny are, intact and without c…

"... community should have a default position of supporting entrepreneurship (and, more generally, of supporting attempts to build anything) --- and, that should be a norm."

I disagree and find such a community engineering approach dangerous for the health of the very community it's trying to "save". I think there are two big problems with it: (i) It gives too much power to the gatekeeper(s), be it software or human, and (ii) it creates a bias for positive comments.

This is the typical dilemma: Bad comments and a free forum are two sides of the same coin. Although I hate snarky, nonconstructive comments as much as everybody else, I think that trying to curtail one may also damage HN's innovative and free atmosphere, which is its main asset.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#255

Post by jack-r-abbit »

tripzilch wrote: post #220
tptacek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you'd consider investing less time in technical countermeasures to dumbness (all of them are gameable, and the brand of dumbness you're fighting is not at all incompatible with an intuitive talent for that gamesmanship) and more time into just setting better community norms. It is hard to imagine that the site guidelines you write years and years and years ago when this place was tiny are, intact and without c…

Having used to be mod/admin on a rather busy and strife-filled SMF-forum the past 6-7 years, I can confirm that this works surprisingly well. I say "surprisingly" because, like a lot of tech hackers, I often think about a technical solution before I think about the simple social one. But I've noticed time and time again just how much effect the simplest changes in user-interface can have on the entire "mood" of a com…

The SMF forum? Or another forum running SMF? I only ask because SMF (well actually its predecessor YaBB SE) was what got me active in contributing to open source projects. Solid software that SMF.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#256

Post by sachitgupta »

pg wrote: post #197
tptacek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you'd consider investing less time in technical countermeasures to dumbness (all of them are gameable, and the brand of dumbness you're fighting is not at all incompatible with an intuitive talent for that gamesmanship) and more time into just setting better community norms. It is hard to imagine that the site guidelines you write years and years and years ago when this place was tiny are, intact and without c…

Ok, I'll try that too.

As an example, Tim Ferris has this right above the comment submission box (getting to users right when they're about to take an action):

  Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s 
  how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re 
  rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in 
  the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or 
  initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off 
  like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the 
  conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration).
Screenshot: http://cl.ly/Ipex Guidelines are nice, but most people won't see them. It might work better to get to them right when they're taking the action.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#257

Post by bceagle »

What a stupid post. Man, are you dumb.

Just kidding. Yeah, I see what you are saying, but I guess my view is that the nature of a community is that you can't fully control it. I see some people here coming up with different ideas about how to protect HN and make it a more friendly place, but the reality is that there is no full proof way to maintain the culture of an open community. The interesting thing is that while it is very easy for a community with a positive culture to start to slowly degrade to negative over time, it is extremely difficult to bring a negative culture back to positive. Does that mean HN is doomed? Not necessarily, but I guess I don't expect things to all of a sudden change for the better overnight.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#258

Post by briandear »

mibbitier wrote: post #151
pg wrote: post #114

It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger group. I've spent many hours over the past se…

Why not simply limit the size of the community? Heck charge a membership fee... Making it invite only would have (IMHO) improved things a massive amount. Have people do a test to gain entry. Any community that is free and open will just deteriorate over time.

The problem with invite-only is that you get an exceptionally inbred set of ideas and it becomes little more than a self-congratulatory circle jerk.

I wouldn't mind a small membership fee which would confer voting rights.

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#259

Post by alecco »

Aloisius wrote: post #109

I spent the time and read your post for reviewing Favilous* and I have no idea why you think there was nothing constructive there. Frankly, it looks like mostly constructive. Most of the comments are even in your format of 'I like this but this needs work' for goodness sakes. I don't know what you expect. If anything, they pulled a lot of punches. I've had the exact opposite reaction as you. I disliked the old HN com…

The 11kclub post (mod deleted, it seems)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4323459

BTW it seems OP has multiple accounts sw1205, sw007 and mdoyle at least. So it's a bit tricky to get the context of what is this about.

It seems the sour end of the 11kclub thread was about a witch hunt by some HN users finding out the submission had conflict of interests. (Myself, I don't see it and I don't care)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325159

Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..

#260

Post by niels_olson »

pg wrote: post #197
tptacek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you'd consider investing less time in technical countermeasures to dumbness (all of them are gameable, and the brand of dumbness you're fighting is not at all incompatible with an intuitive talent for that gamesmanship) and more time into just setting better community norms. It is hard to imagine that the site guidelines you write years and years and years ago when this place was tiny are, intact and without c…

Ok, I'll try that too.

If you would ever consider putting a quote in the guidelines, I heartily recommend and humbly submit Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena

  It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points 
  out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds
  could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man
  who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
  and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who
  comes short again and again, because there is no effort
  without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive
  to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great 
  devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the
  best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and
  who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring
  greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold
  and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic
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