Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#601

Post by bhousel » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:18 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #546

EwanG wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is that we all KNOW what the answer to the problem is, but no one is going to go out on a limb and say it. So let me do so - HN needs a paid, full time, editor who will go through the submissions not to approve of what he/she likes (though you could go with a council of three if you're really worried about that), but to make sure they are real links to real articles - and that have the time to do t…

I didn't feel like I knew what the answer was, so I was very curious to see what it would be. I'd actually been considering hiring someone to run HN, though not to moderate it in quite as hands-on a way as you're suggesting. Interesting idea though.

Hey PG, have you read Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody? It has lots in there about the problems inherent in big communities, especially in how they function on the internet.

The later parts of the book (chapter 8 and beyond) seem applicable to the problems HN is facing.

PM me if you want, I'll send you my copy of the book.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#602

Post by rbarooah » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:19 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #47

Have comments start at -1. (Or, better yet, -thread_depth).

That would probably make things worse. Populist snide remarks would still get lots of votes, but intelligent slightly longer comments that just don't attract attention would carry a risk.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#603

Post by 13Psibies » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:26 AM UTC

1/ The point of the karma system, as far as a user is concerned, is to increase one's karma number.

2/ External values such as "democratic" likely oppose the actual objectives of HN.

3/ Within HN culture, there is an element of gate-keeping.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#604

Post by siculars » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:28 AM UTC

Vote scarcity. The way all these karma systems work now is that you, the user, have unlimited votes. But ask yourself, when did you ever value anything you had unlimited quantity of? There needs to be some limit to the number of up or down votes a user can cast in any given time frequency or other metric. The key point is to make votes 'cost' something.

Also, weighted votes based on the karma of the user casting said vote.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#605

Post by rbarooah » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:29 AM UTC

jedsmith wrote: post #401

Complete the fledgling environment of selectivity in one fell swoop and explicitly say, in the guidelines, that low-karma users are no longer allowed to participate. Remove the ability to vote, comment, and perhaps read from all users below 5,000 karma. These meta posts, the how to vote posts, the discussion here and in other threads, the lamenting about comment quality in general: all of this aggravation is dancing…

A less totalitarian way would be to give each user a karma slider that would act as a threshold for just their view.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#606

Post by gregwebs » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:30 AM UTC

gnosis wrote: post #586

Implement something like a recommendation system for comments. Any time any two users vote on the same comment, the HN system should create a number representing the "affinity" between the two users. This affinity should increase if the users voted the same way on that particular comment, and decrease if they voted differently. Then, instead of displaying the number of upvotes or downvotes next to a each comment, wha…

I was just going to suggest decentralization. The core of HN is summing votes- a popularity contest. As the number of community members grow, the likelihood of a popularity contest working declines.

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#607

Post by spin » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:38 AM UTC

gridspy wrote: post #544

gridspy wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, your comment is too short (as is mine)

It's telling that this comment got more upvotes than any of my other (much more constructive) comments in this thread

I think that gridspy's comment is worthy of some upvotes. He made a valid point, and in a meta-joke kind of way. I'm perfectly happy with flippant posts, so long as they're not mean, and they add something to the discussion (be it humor or insight or both).

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#608

Post by gnosis » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:39 AM UTC

dochtman wrote: post #221

pg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do like that idea. I think I tried it a while ago, but users complained that without comment scores it was too hard to figure out what were the most interesting comments in a thread. Is there some other way to show what the most interesting comments in a thread are? How about if I displayed the point totals for subtrees, but not for individual leaves? Would it solve the problem if you could follow other users, and…

So you have two problems: users need to be able to figure out what are good comments to read, and correspondingly you want users to vote on comments that make good reading. Have you thought at all about discerning between vote value based on some metric? You'd need something that doesn't disproportionately disadvantage new users.

Elsewhere in this thread I proposed a scheme that meets both of your requirements: it discerns votes based on a metric (how closely the voters vote to your own preferences), and it doesn't disadvantage new users:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2405266

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#609

Post by gnosis » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:44 AM UTC

chaosmachine wrote: post #395

This is probably 300 comments too late, but I mocked up a solution: http://i.imgur.com/nY4X4.png It's something I've suggested before, getting rid of downvotes and replacing them with flags.

An interesting idea. But, unfortunately, it's very open to abuse. There is no guarantee the flagged comment has been flagged correctly.

Really, you're stuck with the same problem: just as there could be mass upvotes of "poor" comments and mass downvotes of "good" comments, there could be mass flagging of "good" comments as "spam", "dumb", or "mean".

Re: Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?

#610

Post by joseakle » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 4:51 AM UTC

bhousel wrote: post #601

pg wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't feel like I knew what the answer was, so I was very curious to see what it would be. I'd actually been considering hiring someone to run HN, though not to moderate it in quite as hands-on a way as you're suggesting. Interesting idea though.

Hey PG, have you read Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody ? It has lots in there about the problems inherent in big communities, especially in how they function on the internet. The later parts of the book (chapter 8 and beyond) seem applicable to the problems HN is facing. PM me if you want, I'll send you my copy of the book.

I haven´t read that book, looks interesting.

On the topic of moderation I would suggest the ability to somewhat "follow" good commenters, and even perhaps block bad submitters. This way, reputation is not only karma, but quality of followers.