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A reminder for us all: The Hacker News newcomer welcome page.

196 points by RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rokhayakebe 16y ago
Frankly I believe Hacker News should not allow new registrations any longer. Edit: Or at least make it invite-only.
- younata 16y ago
  If HN were to do that, I'd leave. Not allowing new registrations would end the "hacker" part of hacker news. Hacking is about being open, sharing information, and ALLOWING OTHERS TO SHARE BACK. To disallow new registrations would be to disallow others to share back, as well as kill the "open-ous" of this site. In short, what you suggest would kill the site, not save it.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    If it was dead, it wouldn't "be so bad" anymore... for a certain definition of 'solves the problem,' it solves the problem. Note the scare quotes around "be so bad." I still think HN is a valuable place to spend my time.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  What would you like to achieve with that ?
  - alecco 16y ago
    Confirmation bias!
    - bhousel 16y ago
      HN has plenty of that already..
jdp23 16y ago
Very useful. Wish I'd seen it when I first got here ... it'd be great to include a link to it on the main page and mention it in the FAQ.
- sizzla 16y ago
  Seconded. A great read that finally conviced me to join. Thanks.
retroafroman 16y ago
My favorite part, which clearly shows that PG understands what the dynamic of a news site and it's users, is when it states: "The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting." Frankly, I think this happens way too much. Any post about Zuckerberg, Assange, Arrington, and others probably gets way more upvotes than necessary. While they have definitely created interesting things, the product is probably more important than the person.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  You could almost make a rule that any article that had a famous person's name in (including pg) should get some kind of karma deduction. Don't get me wrong, some of these articles are very good, but way too many people vote up celebrity instead of content.
  - logicalmind 16y ago
    You could almost make a rule that any comment that had a high profile user's name in (including pg) should get some kind of karma deduction. Don't get me wrong, some of these comments are very good, but way too many people vote up celebrity instead of content.
    - j_baker 16y ago
      I agree that there's a problem, but I don't think that celebrity is it. If you took away the comments' scores and removed the names, I could probably still tell if they were made by high-karma members. I think the problem is that the way they think and post is more in line with the majority of users on here. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. I think the problem is that we (like any other group of people) tend to focus more on "I agree with that comment" and less on "That comment is insightful and brings a fresh perspective on the issue whether I agree with it or not". I wish I could say that I'm innocent of this, but I'm just as guilty of supporting my own point of view as anyone else is.
    - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
dholowiski 16y ago
That's great- I'm a relatively new user and I didn't know that page existed. I think you should have to read it (like a terms of service) and check I agree before you can create an account.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  HN probably should link to that page a little bit more prominently. Yours is one good suggestion, though I'm not sure you really need to make it clickthrough. Just call out the link fairly loudly on the signup page.
  - DupDetector 16y ago
    I have just signed up, and it is fairly prominent. It's also linked to under the comment box on every page. It says: If you haven't already, would you mind reading about HN's approach to comments? I'm guessing it will eventually go away.
    - mechanical_fish 16y ago
      Ah. Yeah, trust me, it goes away at some point.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ajaimk 16y ago
Probably the greatest reason for Hacker News' success is the fact that PG and many YC associated founders have the access to kill posts. This keeps the trash out and the content in. Also, we need to keep in mind that these people are users of hacker news and not just moderating it.
ajaimk 16y ago
Probably the greatest reason for Hacker News' success is the fact that PG and many YC associated founders have the access to kill posts. This keeps the trash out and the content in. Also, we need to keep in mind that these people are users of hacker news and not just moderating it.
bhavin 16y ago
"Does your comment teach us anything?" HN approach to comments in a nutshell!
- kgermino 16y ago
  Does your comment teach us anything?
praptak 16y ago
As I'm posting this, the top submission on the /news page is "Why Microsoft Sucks: Hotmail dev team questions need for open standards". I am guilty of upvoting it. Five seconds of thinking before upvoting would have prevented me from doing so - the linked comment just doesn't support the headline and Microsoft being hostile/oblivious to open standards isn't such big news anyway. My point is that maybe we should be able to cancel upvotes. This would give upvoters the chance to read the comments (shallow stories usually have some comments pointing out that they are not that interesting) get convinced that they made a mistake and fix it. Well, I understand that this might not be as simple as decreasing the counter. I suspect that there might be some impact on the ranking algorithm and probably a dozen things I haven't thought about. Still it might be worth it.
- PaulHoule 16y ago
  In the last six months, I've seen a lot of linkbait on the edge of webspam get voted highly on HN. Although HN's quality is better than it's competition, HN subscribers still have the psychology that makes Reddit what it is. (Now, you need a ~lack~ of psychology to explain Digg, but that's another story)
  - SkyMarshal 16y ago
    Reddit is actually pretty good for 'hacker news' if you unsubscribe from the front page and everything not related to hacking, then add all the programming-related subreddits you're interested in.
Semiapies 16y ago
People who don't like the posts showing up on the front page should flag more posts. Even if it's too highly-rated to kill a story, flaggings reduct the amount of time a story spends on the front page.
ojilles 16y ago
While it's relatively easy to comment on the stuff that gets to the homepage that shouldn't be there, the actual stories/discussion that don't make it there are a loss to our community. F.ex. I found the 7 comments and a brief appearance on a thoughtful article like the "Tracking all releases by Etsy" [1] disappointing. That would have been a great discussion, we all together didn't have. [1]: http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/12/08/track-every-release/ http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/12/08/track-every-release/ (Couldn't find the HN article anymore)
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  Search: http://searchyc.com/submissions/track+every+release?sort=by_date http://searchyc.com/submissions/track+every+release?sort=by_... Finds: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985008 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985008
T_S_ 16y ago
Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads. Where there are no bright lines, your side of the road becomes mine. Rudeness banned (mostly). Condescension, upvoted. Dumb, downvoted. Groupthink, upvoted. My favorite condescension indicator: Post that include the sentence "Sigh."
jschuur 16y ago
While the welcome page does a great job of explaining the kind of atmosphere it has created and how people should behave, it doesn't explain how it encourages it. In short, blunt words, how do we keep the jerks out? Someone who wants to be a troll isn't going to be discouraged by a few words in the welcome page. That type of user isn't likely to even read the page in the first place. On the other hand, that's not the point of a welcome page either. It's to welcome those people that do want to be a friendly new user. However, then I read HN's hypothesis about popular community sites declining in quality, the first thing that went through my mind was 'Oh no, how does HN solve that?' HN has obviously been successful at it so far. Maybe it's the utilitarian nature of the site. Perhaps HN's biggest benefit here is its name. The subject matter might not be limited to 'hacking', but the thought lingers in people's head when they hear it, and probably keeps a good number of people at bay who would otherwise post the latest Justin Bieber gossip.
jsarch 16y ago
I would find it very helpful to have a little blurb on the "Submit" page detailing how to submit to the different subpages (e.g., "ask", "jobs", "offers"). From what I can tell, submissions are automagically placed into the different subpages; one can help this sorting by adding "ASK HN" "SHOW HN" etc. to the title.
PrestoManifesto 16y ago
Thanks for this, I'm new and was brought here through a link on Reddit so this info is handy. It appears Reddit is slowly falling into the Digg world of phantom upvotes/downvotes and stolen, resubmitted content. I'm assuming this was posted because this website has gotten several refugees from those sites looking for intelligent conversation in the comments and posts.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

rokhayakebe 16y ago

Frankly I believe Hacker News should not allow new registrations any longer. Edit: Or at least make it invite-only.

younata 16y ago
If HN were to do that, I'd leave. Not allowing new registrations would end the "hacker" part of hacker news. Hacking is about being open, sharing information, and ALLOWING OTHERS TO SHARE BACK. To disallow new registrations would be to disallow others to share back, as well as kill the "open-ous" of this site. In short, what you suggest would kill the site, not save it.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  If it was dead, it wouldn't "be so bad" anymore... for a certain definition of 'solves the problem,' it solves the problem. Note the scare quotes around "be so bad." I still think HN is a valuable place to spend my time.
jacquesm 16y ago
What would you like to achieve with that ?
- alecco 16y ago
  Confirmation bias!
  - bhousel 16y ago
    HN has plenty of that already..

jdp23 16y ago

Very useful. Wish I'd seen it when I first got here ... it'd be great to include a link to it on the main page and mention it in the FAQ.

sizzla 16y ago
Seconded. A great read that finally conviced me to join. Thanks.

retroafroman 16y ago

My favorite part, which clearly shows that PG understands what the dynamic of a news site and it's users, is when it states: "The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting." Frankly, I think this happens way too much. Any post about Zuckerberg, Assange, Arrington, and others probably gets way more upvotes than necessary. While they have definitely created interesting things, the product is probably more important than the person.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
You could almost make a rule that any article that had a famous person's name in (including pg) should get some kind of karma deduction. Don't get me wrong, some of these articles are very good, but way too many people vote up celebrity instead of content.
- logicalmind 16y ago
  You could almost make a rule that any comment that had a high profile user's name in (including pg) should get some kind of karma deduction. Don't get me wrong, some of these comments are very good, but way too many people vote up celebrity instead of content.
  - j_baker 16y ago
    I agree that there's a problem, but I don't think that celebrity is it. If you took away the comments' scores and removed the names, I could probably still tell if they were made by high-karma members. I think the problem is that the way they think and post is more in line with the majority of users on here. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. I think the problem is that we (like any other group of people) tend to focus more on "I agree with that comment" and less on "That comment is insightful and brings a fresh perspective on the issue whether I agree with it or not". I wish I could say that I'm innocent of this, but I'm just as guilty of supporting my own point of view as anyone else is.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago

dholowiski 16y ago

That's great- I'm a relatively new user and I didn't know that page existed. I think you should have to read it (like a terms of service) and check I agree before you can create an account.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
HN probably should link to that page a little bit more prominently. Yours is one good suggestion, though I'm not sure you really need to make it clickthrough. Just call out the link fairly loudly on the signup page.
- DupDetector 16y ago
  I have just signed up, and it is fairly prominent. It's also linked to under the comment box on every page. It says: If you haven't already, would you mind reading about HN's approach to comments? I'm guessing it will eventually go away.
  - mechanical_fish 16y ago
    Ah. Yeah, trust me, it goes away at some point.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

ajaimk 16y ago

Probably the greatest reason for Hacker News' success is the fact that PG and many YC associated founders have the access to kill posts. This keeps the trash out and the content in. Also, we need to keep in mind that these people are users of hacker news and not just moderating it.

ajaimk 16y ago

bhavin 16y ago

"Does your comment teach us anything?" HN approach to comments in a nutshell!

kgermino 16y ago
Does your comment teach us anything?

praptak 16y ago

As I'm posting this, the top submission on the /news page is "Why Microsoft Sucks: Hotmail dev team questions need for open standards". I am guilty of upvoting it. Five seconds of thinking before upvoting would have prevented me from doing so - the linked comment just doesn't support the headline and Microsoft being hostile/oblivious to open standards isn't such big news anyway. My point is that maybe we should be able to cancel upvotes. This would give upvoters the chance to read the comments (shallow stories usually have some comments pointing out that they are not that interesting) get convinced that they made a mistake and fix it. Well, I understand that this might not be as simple as decreasing the counter. I suspect that there might be some impact on the ranking algorithm and probably a dozen things I haven't thought about. Still it might be worth it.

PaulHoule 16y ago
In the last six months, I've seen a lot of linkbait on the edge of webspam get voted highly on HN. Although HN's quality is better than it's competition, HN subscribers still have the psychology that makes Reddit what it is. (Now, you need a ~lack~ of psychology to explain Digg, but that's another story)
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  Reddit is actually pretty good for 'hacker news' if you unsubscribe from the front page and everything not related to hacking, then add all the programming-related subreddits you're interested in.

Semiapies 16y ago

People who don't like the posts showing up on the front page should flag more posts. Even if it's too highly-rated to kill a story, flaggings reduct the amount of time a story spends on the front page.

ojilles 16y ago

While it's relatively easy to comment on the stuff that gets to the homepage that shouldn't be there, the actual stories/discussion that don't make it there are a loss to our community. F.ex. I found the 7 comments and a brief appearance on a thoughtful article like the "Tracking all releases by Etsy" [1] disappointing. That would have been a great discussion, we all together didn't have. [1]: http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/12/08/track-every-release/ http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/12/08/track-every-release/ (Couldn't find the HN article anymore)

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Search: http://searchyc.com/submissions/track+every+release?sort=by_date http://searchyc.com/submissions/track+every+release?sort=by_... Finds: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985008 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985008

T_S_ 16y ago

Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads. Where there are no bright lines, your side of the road becomes mine. Rudeness banned (mostly). Condescension, upvoted. Dumb, downvoted. Groupthink, upvoted. My favorite condescension indicator: Post that include the sentence "Sigh."

jschuur 16y ago

While the welcome page does a great job of explaining the kind of atmosphere it has created and how people should behave, it doesn't explain how it encourages it. In short, blunt words, how do we keep the jerks out? Someone who wants to be a troll isn't going to be discouraged by a few words in the welcome page. That type of user isn't likely to even read the page in the first place. On the other hand, that's not the point of a welcome page either. It's to welcome those people that do want to be a friendly new user. However, then I read HN's hypothesis about popular community sites declining in quality, the first thing that went through my mind was 'Oh no, how does HN solve that?' HN has obviously been successful at it so far. Maybe it's the utilitarian nature of the site. Perhaps HN's biggest benefit here is its name. The subject matter might not be limited to 'hacking', but the thought lingers in people's head when they hear it, and probably keeps a good number of people at bay who would otherwise post the latest Justin Bieber gossip.

jsarch 16y ago

I would find it very helpful to have a little blurb on the "Submit" page detailing how to submit to the different subpages (e.g., "ask", "jobs", "offers"). From what I can tell, submissions are automagically placed into the different subpages; one can help this sorting by adding "ASK HN" "SHOW HN" etc. to the title.

PrestoManifesto 16y ago

Thanks for this, I'm new and was brought here through a link on Reddit so this info is handy. It appears Reddit is slowly falling into the Digg world of phantom upvotes/downvotes and stolen, resubmitted content. I'm assuming this was posted because this website has gotten several refugees from those sites looking for intelligent conversation in the comments and posts.