A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post • Hacker News Board

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#251

Post by tripzilch » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:19 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #53

bluedanieru wrote: post #34

Am I the only one who hasn't noticed this huge drop in quality that has everyone bitching and moaning lately? The signal-to-noise ratio has dropped slightly compared to when I started reading about four years ago, but this is still a great place for technical discussion. Comparisons to Reddit and other such nonsense are baseless. HN does not need any major overhaul or whatever else. I think a lot of this is just old-…

I feel like there was a fast slide to content-free echo chamberism a while ago. HN was starting to become painfully predictable if it didn't talk about: - Apple in glowing terms - a LISP - how massive overvaluations were not a bad sign Certain HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments and the fanboyism towards a few specific companies, products and people was so thick you could cut…

> - Apple in glowing terms

Not really. People on both sides are just repeating the same discussion over and over again. Somewhat guilty of that myself, too. (disclaimer: generally not on Apple's side)

(also, maybe I'm reading it wrong but is the Steve Jobs remark not a little bit in bad taste? no matter your thoughts of him or Apple... )

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#252

Post by wonginator1221 » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:22 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #224

You can test how well this would work by collecting a corpus of whatever sort of comments you think HN could do without, and then checking to see how many of those commenters would have run out of karma using whatever combination of initial karma and cost to post you have in mind. I'd be open to experimenting with charging karma to comment if someone did a study of that type and showed that it would work. (I realize…

I think that there's also a chance that charging karma for a comment could also alter the quality of discussion here on HN. Although it may reduce comment "spam", commenters would have a stronger incentive to follow popular opinion to ensure that the cost of posting a comment is recouped. This could potentially reduce the number of dissenting (yet still intellectually provoking) comments.

This hivemind mentality is a major problem in many online communities, but I do think that the hiding a karma on is definitely a step in the right direction.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#253

Post by tripzilch » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:25 AM UTC

sin7 wrote: post #130

debacle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Karma being invisible is a huge factor. While I understand the idea behind the decision, I think it prevents the community from really seeing what its broader sentiments are.

More than that, I don't want to read all the comments. I just want to read the good ones. Without knowing which comments are good, I read the first set and move on to the next story.

I agree, I could easier skim through the comments by first reading the higher-voted ones.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#254

Post by tripzilch » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:27 AM UTC

zem wrote: post #206

bane wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there was a fast slide to content-free echo chamberism a while ago. HN was starting to become painfully predictable if it didn't talk about: - Apple in glowing terms - a LISP - how massive overvaluations were not a bad sign Certain HN rockstars would receive hundreds of upvotes for the most minor of comments and the fanboyism towards a few specific companies, products and people was so thick you could cut…

i still feel the hn engine is optimised for expounding rather than discussion. the threading is nice, but in the absence of a reply notification, and with the nesting depth capped, having an actual discussion tends to be difficult.

It's true. There's no use replying to a comment that's a few days old, because I won't expect even the commenter to page that far back on their comments page, so likely nobody will even read it (given that it's far enough down the page).

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#255

Post by snogglethorpe » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:37 AM UTC

aswanson wrote: post #158

mixmax wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an old-timer who used to be very active but isn't anymore I agree with you. When I first created an account 1883 days ago I thought this place was amazing, and that I'd never seen such high quality discussion on the Internet before. Now I don't find the quality to be quite as high, but after thinking about it I've realised what has changed: Me. It's been 5 years, and I've changed. I've become much more knowledgeab…

Oldhead here as well. Yeah, the magic of discovering this place back then was incredible, and the discourse so intelligent. There was more of a kinship I felt with the old squad; I really cared what everybody thought and was much more engaged. I miss the old group, a very small village. There are newer posters who are just as intelligent, but the S/N ratio has definitely declined. Or maybe I've just changed.

This happens on many sites, and in many cases I'd attribute it less to a reduction in "quality," and more to a decrease in homogeneity: a successful site attracts more people, with increasingly disparate backgrounds.

For the original users, who were charmed by the fact that "everybody has (more or less) the right opinion, and we can discuss rather than argue!" this can be a shock, but I'd venture that it's often actually a rather healthy thing, even if you unfortunately also get more trolls and flamers along the way. Pleasant as it is to talk with one's close peers, one can often learn more by talking to people one disagrees with...

It can go bad, of course, but HN certainly doesn't seem to show the usual symptoms of an internet cesspool; based on my short time on HN (~1 year), the S/N ratio isn't bad at all.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#256

Post by dwwoelfel » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:49 AM UTC

wonginator1221 wrote: post #252

pg wrote: post #224

You can test how well this would work by collecting a corpus of whatever sort of comments you think HN could do without, and then checking to see how many of those commenters would have run out of karma using whatever combination of initial karma and cost to post you have in mind. I'd be open to experimenting with charging karma to comment if someone did a study of that type and showed that it would work. (I realize…

I think that there's also a chance that charging karma for a comment could also alter the quality of discussion here on HN. Although it may reduce comment "spam", commenters would have a stronger incentive to follow popular opinion to ensure that the cost of posting a comment is recouped. This could potentially reduce the number of dissenting (yet still intellectually provoking) comments. This hivemind mentality is a…

Users also might try to nest their comments under one of the top comments instead of under the submission where they belong.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#257

Post by jerf » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:13 AM UTC

timtadh wrote: post #246

pg wrote: post #224

You can test how well this would work by collecting a corpus of whatever sort of comments you think HN could do without, and then checking to see how many of those commenters would have run out of karma using whatever combination of initial karma and cost to post you have in mind. I'd be open to experimenting with charging karma to comment if someone did a study of that type and showed that it would work. (I realize…

I think it would be good to do a targeted posting rate eg. 30 posts per hour[1] or something of that nature. If last 20 min when regressed predict under 30 posts in the next hour it should cost 0 karma to post. However, for every post/hour over the target rate should cost the user some karma eg. karma_loss = floor(alpha*max(PREDICTED_RATE - TARGET_RATE, 0)) where alpha is a tune-able "cost" constant. The posting page…

Don't forget second-order effects. Your proposal encourages people to post quickly, to try to get in before the costs start kicking in. Encouraging people to crank posts out faster is probably not a net win.

I've noticed that trying to engineer communities isn't entirely unlike trying to secure software. You're not defending against straight-line attacks, you're defending against a hostile adversary with more time, resources, and collective brainpower than you, who will actively react to any move you make. The miracle is that any community ever works at all/any software is ever secured at all.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#258

Post by nhebb » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:24 AM UTC

I only have one wish for improving HN: randomly rotate the top comment. As it stands, the discussion usually veers off into a meta discussion around the first comment.

At the time of this posting, the thread is 14 hours old and has 239 comments, so even if HN'ers agreed with me on this point, the odds are they will never see it.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#259

Post by rbanffy » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:31 AM UTC

mbrubeck wrote: post #245

wensing wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been around for 2,017 days. Number of comments has gone down steadily, but I agree with mixmax as for the reason. Would any old-timer care to use the open-source HN code and create a vintage HN by automatically inviting anyone with an age of >N days?

http://news.ycombinator.com/classic is a version of the front page sorted only by votes from accounts over one year old. Generally the ranking is not too different, at least for top items. (I know this is not the same thing you're talking about; it just reminded me of it. Also note that /classic was created at a time when there were far fewer accounts that old; perhaps a higher threshold would be more interesting now…

Even old-timers rarely browse the /newest page to mod those up. This creates a bias favoring the ranking produced at /news because said old-timers will upvote those more than the ones at /newest (or /classic)

The problem is not only the home page ranking: it's the discussions. I see a lot of low-quality (as in "it's more important to be right than it is to debate in civilized ways") discussions. I did not correlate that to account age.

Re: A proposal for improving HN : it should cost a user Karma to post

#260

Post by aeontech » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:55 AM UTC

simon wrote: post #242

calebmpeterson wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any conversation that mentions evolution triggers it. I've noticed the same trend. Even if no one questions or faults the point(s) being made re: evolution, a vitriolic jab at religion (particularly Christianity and, to a lesser extent, Judaism) is quite common in the comments. This is a loss. To quote Richard D. Alexander (professor of Zoology at Univ. of Michigan and an evolutionist): "...indeed, at this moment c…

I agree. It's a huge loss. As an ex-atheist who previously believed in evolution and is now a young earth creationist, such conversations have the potential to be very interesting. Sadly, they end up with subtle (if you're lucky) or less subtle jabs about how believers are all anti-science and uneducated and just want to brainwash people, especially children. And that is generally considered to be the ultimate slam o…

Unfortunately even if you are willing to debate evolution intelligently, almost nobody else describing themselves as a creationist is. This leads to a general feeling of, how shall I say, beating our heads against the wall when talking to these people, because they refuse to accept any evidence we offer.

As always, people holding the most extreme views color the perception of the whole community - even if most people who believe in creationism are perfectly willing to have an intelligent conversation and have no problem with their kids learning science, the vocal few that campaign ferociously against science in education make everyone on that side look bad.

Unfortunately nobody in the "sane" segment of the religious community seems to be speaking up against them or reining them in, which is why it is so frustrating.

I am sorry you had to deal with outbursts against your religion however - it can't have been too pleasant.