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I do not think the change in tone/civility and is due to the 'comments' only. The change is also due to the topics and topics sources constantly pushed into

I do not think the change in tone/civility and is due to the 'comments' only. The change is also due to the topics and topics sources constantly pushed into the discussion (often by very high-karma participants). HN has basically become NYT/BBC/WallStreetJournal/Vox/Slate/BuzzFeed discussion forum (for anything relating to environment/economy/politics). Seems that more reasonable technical (although, narrower in scientific scope) discussion is happening on lobste.rs In there, there is also publicly viewable moderation log, that helps to understand/evaluate how moderation decisions are made. To me the change started happening in about 2014 where public deplatforming/takedowns became normalized in Software tech sector. However, I also agree that this type of change at HN, accelerated in more recent years.

prepend 7y ago
I’ve had a hard time understanding and using lobste.rs When I visit the site it seems like I need to already know what community to join. Which sticks me with the problem of not knowing which to join. Googling was not helpful. Is this the sort of thing that I have to know someone to invite me and kick start me into use? I guess I’ll eventually get around to joining irc chat to get an invite. But I suppose this is useful for filtering out slackers like me who can’t figure out how to join :)
busterarm 7y ago
I've been flagging mainstream news topics hard all year, but I think there's just a few of us actually trying to keep the site to its stated goal. The level of discourse around those topics is abysmal.
- krapp 7y ago
  The stated goal of Hacker News is "Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." Mainstream topics allowed from any source so long as they meet that criteria or presents "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This site has never been exclusively for technical topics. Flagging stories merely because you don't find them interesting, because they're mainstream or because they come from a mainstream site is an abuse of flagging privileges. You can just ignore such stories, hide them, upvote the content you would rather see or post more of such content.
  - busterarm 7y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. _If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic._ Highlighting added for emphasis.
    - krapp 7y ago
      Probably, not definitely. Mainstream news covers plenty of stories which would be relevant here. If you don't believe me, talk to the admin and the guy who made the site[0]. The problem here is not the mainstream nature of articles being posted, but the low effort being put in by commenters. Plenty of tech-related stories have plenty of garbage comments as well. Most of the discussion around RMS has been a dumpster fire. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
      - busterarm 7y ago
        Right. I'm not saying definitely no politics, but there's a ton of political content that is not really that interesting (like the two stories that were just on the front page about the US drone strike killing pine nut farmers in Afghanistan that are sliding down the ranking fast). It has been a growing trend. Maybe I spend too much time on the site, but I usually see most of the threads that get flagged/dead. And I agree with my parent poster -- lobste.rs is a much better curated feed of interesting topics to me -- I'm not on it yet, because I sort of feel that I've made an investment here in the community.

prepend 7y ago

I’ve had a hard time understanding and using lobste.rs When I visit the site it seems like I need to already know what community to join. Which sticks me with the problem of not knowing which to join. Googling was not helpful. Is this the sort of thing that I have to know someone to invite me and kick start me into use? I guess I’ll eventually get around to joining irc chat to get an invite. But I suppose this is useful for filtering out slackers like me who can’t figure out how to join :)

busterarm 7y ago

I've been flagging mainstream news topics hard all year, but I think there's just a few of us actually trying to keep the site to its stated goal. The level of discourse around those topics is abysmal.

krapp 7y ago
The stated goal of Hacker News is "Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." Mainstream topics allowed from any source so long as they meet that criteria or presents "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This site has never been exclusively for technical topics. Flagging stories merely because you don't find them interesting, because they're mainstream or because they come from a mainstream site is an abuse of flagging privileges. You can just ignore such stories, hide them, upvote the content you would rather see or post more of such content.
- busterarm 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. _If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic._ Highlighting added for emphasis.
  - krapp 7y ago
    Probably, not definitely. Mainstream news covers plenty of stories which would be relevant here. If you don't believe me, talk to the admin and the guy who made the site[0]. The problem here is not the mainstream nature of articles being posted, but the low effort being put in by commenters. Plenty of tech-related stories have plenty of garbage comments as well. Most of the discussion around RMS has been a dumpster fire. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
    - busterarm 7y ago
      Right. I'm not saying definitely no politics, but there's a ton of political content that is not really that interesting (like the two stories that were just on the front page about the US drone strike killing pine nut farmers in Afghanistan that are sliding down the ranking fast). It has been a growing trend. Maybe I spend too much time on the site, but I usually see most of the threads that get flagged/dead. And I agree with my parent poster -- lobste.rs is a much better curated feed of interesting topics to me -- I'm not on it yet, because I sort of feel that I've made an investment here in the community.