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I'm attempting to turn Indie Hackers[0] into a social network that motivates you and makes you more productive, or at least more effective. It's centered around

I'm attempting to turn Indie Hackers[0] into a social network that motivates you and makes you more productive, or at least more effective. It's centered around developers helping each other monetize their side projects and start businesses, through a combination of asking/answering questions and sharing personal stories about what's worked. It's quite interesting making tweaks to a social website, as there are usually all sorts of unpredictable second-order effects. I have a bit more respect for why websites like Twitter don't change much. On Indie Hackers in particular, one thing I've noticed is that people tend to be kind without much moderation. My leading hypothesis at this point is that almost everyone has skin in the game. You're less likely to bash someone else's project if you know you'll be posting about your project soon, so norms have developed around being constructive and encouraging. By contrast, HN has a norm around finding fault with whoever you're responding to, which is great for informative debate and conversation -- I learn a lot here from reading so many different opinions on each issue. [0] https://www.indiehackers.com https://www.indiehackers.com

macando 7y ago
LinkedIn like Indie Hackers is another example of a self-moderated social network. People on LI are not always nice to each other but they are civil most of the time. I guess that's a magical combo: a network that is business oriented and people using their real identities. You're right about skin in the game which has a second-order effect of turning a community into an echo chamber. It's what happened with Behance and Dribbble, nobody gives any meaningful feedback any more, it's just praise left and right. Being constructive and friendly in giving feedback requires a lot of effort and with a new thread/article/design popping up every few seconds nobody has the time for that. I read the other day a New Yorker's article [0] about the 2 Hacker News moderators and how lonely and emotionally draining their work is. Here rapid growth and anonymity lead to people being more ready to give fast feedback or opinion which sometimes causes bickering, misinterpretation and insults. So a thriving network has to have: - The right mix of a moderate velocity and growth - just enough new content so it doesn't turn into a ghost town or echo chamber, but not too much so the quality is not diluted. - Self-moderation or non-stop moderation if necessary. - The right incentive built around a common interest for the users to create meaningful and constructive new content - seems like the hardest part. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

macando 7y ago

LinkedIn like Indie Hackers is another example of a self-moderated social network. People on LI are not always nice to each other but they are civil most of the time. I guess that's a magical combo: a network that is business oriented and people using their real identities. You're right about skin in the game which has a second-order effect of turning a community into an echo chamber. It's what happened with Behance and Dribbble, nobody gives any meaningful feedback any more, it's just praise left and right. Being constructive and friendly in giving feedback requires a lot of effort and with a new thread/article/design popping up every few seconds nobody has the time for that. I read the other day a New Yorker's article [0] about the 2 Hacker News moderators and how lonely and emotionally draining their work is. Here rapid growth and anonymity lead to people being more ready to give fast feedback or opinion which sometimes causes bickering, misinterpretation and insults. So a thriving network has to have: - The right mix of a moderate velocity and growth - just enough new content so it doesn't turn into a ghost town or echo chamber, but not too much so the quality is not diluted. - Self-moderation or non-stop moderation if necessary. - The right incentive built around a common interest for the users to create meaningful and constructive new content - seems like the hardest part. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...