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I remember the early days of slashdot fondly, although I didn't actually make an account until a few years later. It was such an interesting mix of serious disc
by AndrewStephens 9y ago
I remember the early days of slashdot fondly, although I didn't actually make an account until a few years later. It was such an interesting mix of serious discussion, in-jokes, and amusing trolls (even the infamous goatsx troll that I fell for more than once.)
I still think that the moderation and meta-moderation was one of the most interesting experiments in a self-governing commenting system, even though it was clear that it was mostly a failure in the long run. My conclusion is that a site needs hands-on human moderation to maintain quality.
Slashdot is also a perfect example of the general life-cycle of cool social site. Humble beginnings -> lots of interesting people -> own little subculture -> lots of interesting content with some impenetrable in-jokes -> existing userbase ages out as they get jobs or have kids -> less interesting content, more in-jokes -> owners sell -> dry husk of a site remains.
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoMore like: 1. Group #1 joins who care about site 2. Group #1 improves site. Sense of "community" keeps things in check. 3. Site grows in popularity and group #2 joins 4. Site loses sense of community and ability to moderate itself effectively. 5. Group #1 leaves
- ktta 9y agoFor some reason I think this going to happen to HN too, and I feel it is at 3. And I'm not sure if I'm in group #1 or group #2.
- supergreg 9y agoI think there's more keeping things in check here than at ./ when group #2 joined.
- nathanm412 9y agoI think it's been at step 3 for longer than most sites have last. I know I'm part of group 2, but I've seen a somewhat consistent culture since I arrived over five years ago.
- ktta 9y agoLooks like you joined about 5 1/2 years ago. I'm surprised you think you're part of Group #2. Before what date do you think people can be group #1? Or are you ascribing the group number to contributions rather than date of joining?
- stingrae 9y agoWhen a friend first recommended hackernews to me it didn't show up in google searches. So I gave up. I think techcrunch finally led me to finding it. By the time I actually created an account(just 10 days before nathan^), people were already complaining about the deterioration of the community, so I assumed I was in group 2.
- Jaruzel 9y agoI am most definitely Group #2. I wish I was Group #1, but I was too loyal to /. (and a few other sites), and after /. got DICEd along with the 'f*ck beta' stuff I jumped ship to Soylentnews.org which had an okay community but a rather fascist set of admins (despite what their manifesto says). So after a few months of lurking, I registered here, and now it's my daily[1] go-to site. --- [1] Hourly. :)
- nathanm412 9y agoThat's exactly how I felt.
- brandnewlow 9y agoI, along with a lot of people, joined HN in 2008 after Techcrunch wrote about it. That's pretty close to "Group 2 joins" and yet 9 years later HN persists!
- Alex3917 9y agoI get the feeling a lot of group #1 left in between 2010 and 2012. There are still tons of folks here who made accounts on day one, but a lot of the more conservative or libertarian leaning folks seem to have migrated to other communities around that time.
- ktta 9y ago>other communities lobste.rs ?
- boondaburrah 9y agoI'm definitely in group 2. Possibly in group 3 if that's a thing.
- Theodores 9y agoI think I am 'Group 3'. My account is 4 1/2 years old and I was a 'read only' site visitor for a while before that. So there were the people who got here first, then the people who discovered the site in 2008, which was a long time ago, and have fair claim to being 'group 2'. So I think 'Group 3' is me. A defining characteristic of 'Group 3' is that goes back to pre-Snowden times, before the truth was known. Kids today must be 'Group 4'. This reminds me of A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man: https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/ https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/...
- crusso 9y agoThat general pattern is followed by companies, social organizations, and even countries - to an extent.
- zen35 9y agoI don't know what you guys are talking about. What happened was very clearly: 1. Group #1 joins who care about site 2. Group #1 improves site. Sense of "community" keeps things in check. 3. Site grows in popularity and group #2 joins 4. ????? 5. Profit
- jimjimjim 9y agoalso see: twitter, the internet, tech in general...
- IncRnd 9y agoWhere's the Profit ???
- sthu11182 9y agofrom stealing underpants obviously
- Yetanfou 9y agoThere is even a term for this phenomenon: eternal September [1]. It originated as Usenet slang for a period beginning in September 1993, AOL started offering Usenet access to its users which overwhelmed the existing culture for online forums. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 9y agoThere are platforms which can and do survive. HN, despite bumps, does pretty well. Metafilter is another that seems to be kicking along. Others tend to become Generation Ships of the founder culture. I'd put the Well in that category, as the userbase still seems to be strongly focused on the original cohort. Some fresh blood is necessary. Actually: the idea of a university as an intentional community that tends to survive over time has occurred to me. Not fully assured, but there are an impressive number of centuries-old instances. And, continuing that thought: YC emulates a critical element of that dynamic, in having regular incoming classes.
- AndrewStephens 9y agoThe platforms that survive tend to be either incredible focused around a certain niche (ycombinator), or heavily moderated with a strong editorial hand (metafilter). Slashdot is still limping on as a much less interesting site since it had money behind it but places like Kur05hin (however it was spelled) and its ilk quickly imploded. People like to complain about heavy-handed moderation but all the experiments to try and build self-moderating communities eventually get overrun with trolls and (worse) self-promoters. Any automated system will eventually be gamed, something that even huge sites like twitter and youtube are starting to realize now that state-level actors are using them for their own purposes.
- dredmorbius 9y agoI'm coming to agree there's no substitute for effective moderation. And despite occasional (and strong) disagreements with dang and sctb, they do a really good job on HN.
- intended 9y agoOh its worse - After you make your peace with that, theres an entire world of rules and theories on moderation, all of it useful and important to get the job done. The cheat code to cut through that mess is - "I'm coming to agree that theres no substitute for good editorial control" Trust me on this, the proof is to painful to reproduced regularly.
- digi_owl 9y ago1. Eternal September. 2. https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths
- peatmoss 9y ago> I remember the early days of slashdot fondly, although I didn't actually make an account until a few years later. I still consider my mid 4-digits slashdot id a mark of pride. It's also a great regret that I had spent a significant amount of time on the site before a friend convinced me to finally register an account. I'm pretty sure I could have been in the 3 digit club. I too remember slashdot fondly, but the webbernets are a very different place today—more fractured, self-selected into groups, more appealing to the masses, less wild west freedom.