6 ms·

The cycle- >New users, new ideas. > Mods ban these new ideas because they don't comply with existing culture > Mods get heavy with their justice >Core users

The cycle- >New users, new ideas. > Mods ban these new ideas because they don't comply with existing culture > Mods get heavy with their justice >Core users are mistaken for newbies, and face mod wrath > Core users migrate to new websites Guess where HN is on this timeline

microcolonel 7y ago
HN is kinda dying as a community, though moderation isn't the whole story. There are also some long-standing bugs, and misbehaviours of the voting system. Being able to downvote replies without any refutation, to me, seems like a massive mistake; it just teaches people not to say anything interesting, because they won't get a response anyway, even when they're wrong in a subtle or interesting way. The formatting available to users is maybe close to the right amount, but the implementation is broken (for example, it doesn't end URLs when it sees >, so you end up with broken URLs when you go out of your way to protect them). It could probably also do with proper first-class block quotations, people end up putting them in <pre> blocks or italics, and it's not always clear.
- 300bps 7y ago
  HN is kinda dying as a community As someone who’s been on HN for about 9 years, it’s funny to read this. I don’t see how it’s gotten any worse during my time here. I think HN’s community is fantastic but you either get it or you don’t. I really enjoy the signal to noise ratio and I’m happy that silly comments and jokes are downvoted or moderated. I read HN with showdead on and personally I think the moderation is spot-on.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    I get HN's community, and I enjoy it. That said, I often think twice about posting anything meaningful; I know I'll get a bit frustrated when I put myself out there in good faith, and people have nothing to say, but downvote anyway. I know that some very bright and lovely people have been totally turned off of the place by this, and this behaviour of the system doesn't really help anything. > I read HN with showdead on and personally I think the moderation is spot-on. I too use showdead, I think the moderation is generally good (though I think at times I've been handled somewhat unfairly). The times when there's a dead post that I don't think should be dead, it's usually from a person who has worn out his welcome with other comments. This is why I say moderation isn't the main problem, contrary to the parent reply.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >The times when there's a dead post that I don't think should be dead, it's usually from a person who has worn out his welcome with other comments. This is why I say moderation isn't the main problem, contrary to the parent reply It really annoys me when I see this happen cross subject/thread. Someone's opinion about zoning has no impact on the correctness of their opinion about low level disk IO.
      - 300bps 7y ago
        With a minimum level of karma, you can vouch for a dead comment which will resurrect it. You click on the time the comment was posted and then click vouch.
    - laumars 7y ago
      > That said, I often think twice about posting anything meaningful; I know I'll get a bit frustrated when I put myself out there in good faith, and people have nothing to say, but downvote anyway. I've notice more and more people say this and it's a sentiment I feel myself too. Personally I don't come on HN half as much as I used to because I just don't fancy putting myself out there when, at times, it can be a flip of the coin whether your gain or lose "points" over it. I know it's just numbers and it shouldn't bother me; but it does. Judging by the comments others have posted, I'm not unique in that regard either. In any case, HN will keep rolling on albeit the signal to noise ratio will gradually worsen over time as people get more apathetic about spending their time writing a high value post.
      - geggam 7y ago
        Ditto
      - krapp 7y ago
        >Personally I don't come on HN half as much as I used to because I just don't fancy putting myself out there when, at times, it can be a flip of the coin whether your gain or lose "points" over it. I just accept that Hacker News culture can be vitriolic and petty and that anything I say that's even mildly controversial to someone might be downvoted, and I'll probably never know why, beyond the obvious fact that at least one person disagreed for some reason. It's much easier to participate here once you stop caring about it, though. My account's even been rate-limited now, and rather than letting that serve its intended purpose of driving me away from the site altogether, it just helps me focus on writing better comments which sometimes get downvoted even more than they otherwise might. Like the movie says, it's Chinatown. This aspect of Hacker News culture is never going to change.
  - geggam 7y ago
    Quite a bit of group think on HN with controversial concepts and ideas squashed.
  - hliyan 7y ago
    Almost 7 years here. If anything, I feel like the discourse has improved.
- leonroy 7y ago
  I wouldn’t say HN is going down hill but one thing that I’ve noticed more of is downvoting because people disagree with the comment. That was never the intention behind downvoting privileges if I remember right. Down voting exists to bury flippant, inappropriate or insulting comments. We really cramp quality discourse when we automatically hit down just because we disagree.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    I think it's natural that downvoting is used for disagreement, but the barrier to entry should be higher. The system I've proposed is: you can downvote a post if you've upvoted a reply to it, or if you have replied. If somebody is breaking the rules in clear bad faith, that's what flagging is for.
    - baud147258 7y ago
      There seems to be something like this in play, there are discussions where I can't downvote, but I've never dig up to check why
      - microcolonel 7y ago
        You can't downvote replies to your own replies, that's the one I'm aware of. Maybe there's another level based on karma that was introduced since I got where I am.
        detaro 7y ago
        Can't downvote comments older than >24 hours is another thing.
        baud147258 7y ago
        Ah, I didn't know that, but it checks out. Thank you.
  - krapp 7y ago
- pdonis 7y ago
  > HN is kinda dying as a community I've been here almost 10 years now, and I don't think so. I think the overall quality has remained about the same. > Being able to downvote replies without any refutation, to me, seems like a massive mistake If downvoting is going to be used just to express disagreement, I agree it's too easy to do. (A number of commenters have posted links to comments by pg where he has said that's what downvoting is for, but I still think it's too broad.) If downvoting is going to be used only for posts that are seen as adding no value to the discussion or the site, that's a much narrower category, and it doesn't really lend itself to "refutation". > it just teaches people not to say anything interesting The way around that is to build up enough karma that you don't care if you get downvoted. Of course, then you have to police yourself by not saying unpopular things just to be difficult, but only if you genuinely think they need to be said and are adding something to the discussion and the site. But people who have built up enough karma are going to have learned to do that anyway.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > Of course, then you have to police yourself by not saying unpopular things just to be difficult, but only if you genuinely think they need to be said and are adding something to the discussion and the site. It seems like you're impugning their motives here. Do you honestly think that most people whose thoughtful comments are downvoted are engaging in bad faith, “saying unpopular things just to be difficult”?
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > Do you honestly think that most people whose thoughtful comments are downvoted are engaging in bad faith, “saying unpopular things just to be difficult”? No. Remember that I was talking about a particular subset of users: the ones who have enough karma that they don't care if they get downvoted. In order to get that much karma, such a user will have already made a lot of thoughtful comments that were made in good faith. I was just observing that, once a user has enough karma not to care if they get downvoted, the feedback mechanism that regulated their behavior up to that point--karma--no longer has much impact. When put in that kind of position, it has been known to happen that a person might change their behavior. But I would hope and expect that a change for the worse under those circumstances would be rare.
Steltek 7y ago
I feel like this is a broadly applicable human phenomenon akin to Isaac Aasimov's "Psychohistory" in the Foundation series. It also feels easy enough to capture that someone's already done the research on it.

microcolonel 7y ago

HN is kinda dying as a community, though moderation isn't the whole story. There are also some long-standing bugs, and misbehaviours of the voting system. Being able to downvote replies without any refutation, to me, seems like a massive mistake; it just teaches people not to say anything interesting, because they won't get a response anyway, even when they're wrong in a subtle or interesting way. The formatting available to users is maybe close to the right amount, but the implementation is broken (for example, it doesn't end URLs when it sees >, so you end up with broken URLs when you go out of your way to protect them). It could probably also do with proper first-class block quotations, people end up putting them in <pre> blocks or italics, and it's not always clear.

300bps 7y ago
HN is kinda dying as a community As someone who’s been on HN for about 9 years, it’s funny to read this. I don’t see how it’s gotten any worse during my time here. I think HN’s community is fantastic but you either get it or you don’t. I really enjoy the signal to noise ratio and I’m happy that silly comments and jokes are downvoted or moderated. I read HN with showdead on and personally I think the moderation is spot-on.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  I get HN's community, and I enjoy it. That said, I often think twice about posting anything meaningful; I know I'll get a bit frustrated when I put myself out there in good faith, and people have nothing to say, but downvote anyway. I know that some very bright and lovely people have been totally turned off of the place by this, and this behaviour of the system doesn't really help anything. > I read HN with showdead on and personally I think the moderation is spot-on. I too use showdead, I think the moderation is generally good (though I think at times I've been handled somewhat unfairly). The times when there's a dead post that I don't think should be dead, it's usually from a person who has worn out his welcome with other comments. This is why I say moderation isn't the main problem, contrary to the parent reply.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >The times when there's a dead post that I don't think should be dead, it's usually from a person who has worn out his welcome with other comments. This is why I say moderation isn't the main problem, contrary to the parent reply It really annoys me when I see this happen cross subject/thread. Someone's opinion about zoning has no impact on the correctness of their opinion about low level disk IO.
    - 300bps 7y ago
      With a minimum level of karma, you can vouch for a dead comment which will resurrect it. You click on the time the comment was posted and then click vouch.
  - laumars 7y ago
    > That said, I often think twice about posting anything meaningful; I know I'll get a bit frustrated when I put myself out there in good faith, and people have nothing to say, but downvote anyway. I've notice more and more people say this and it's a sentiment I feel myself too. Personally I don't come on HN half as much as I used to because I just don't fancy putting myself out there when, at times, it can be a flip of the coin whether your gain or lose "points" over it. I know it's just numbers and it shouldn't bother me; but it does. Judging by the comments others have posted, I'm not unique in that regard either. In any case, HN will keep rolling on albeit the signal to noise ratio will gradually worsen over time as people get more apathetic about spending their time writing a high value post.
    - geggam 7y ago
      Ditto
    - krapp 7y ago
      >Personally I don't come on HN half as much as I used to because I just don't fancy putting myself out there when, at times, it can be a flip of the coin whether your gain or lose "points" over it. I just accept that Hacker News culture can be vitriolic and petty and that anything I say that's even mildly controversial to someone might be downvoted, and I'll probably never know why, beyond the obvious fact that at least one person disagreed for some reason. It's much easier to participate here once you stop caring about it, though. My account's even been rate-limited now, and rather than letting that serve its intended purpose of driving me away from the site altogether, it just helps me focus on writing better comments which sometimes get downvoted even more than they otherwise might. Like the movie says, it's Chinatown. This aspect of Hacker News culture is never going to change.
- geggam 7y ago
  Quite a bit of group think on HN with controversial concepts and ideas squashed.
- hliyan 7y ago
  Almost 7 years here. If anything, I feel like the discourse has improved.
leonroy 7y ago
I wouldn’t say HN is going down hill but one thing that I’ve noticed more of is downvoting because people disagree with the comment. That was never the intention behind downvoting privileges if I remember right. Down voting exists to bury flippant, inappropriate or insulting comments. We really cramp quality discourse when we automatically hit down just because we disagree.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  I think it's natural that downvoting is used for disagreement, but the barrier to entry should be higher. The system I've proposed is: you can downvote a post if you've upvoted a reply to it, or if you have replied. If somebody is breaking the rules in clear bad faith, that's what flagging is for.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    There seems to be something like this in play, there are discussions where I can't downvote, but I've never dig up to check why
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      You can't downvote replies to your own replies, that's the one I'm aware of. Maybe there's another level based on karma that was introduced since I got where I am.
      - detaro 7y ago
        Can't downvote comments older than >24 hours is another thing.
        baud147258 7y ago
        Ah, I didn't know that, but it checks out. Thank you.
- krapp 7y ago
pdonis 7y ago
> HN is kinda dying as a community I've been here almost 10 years now, and I don't think so. I think the overall quality has remained about the same. > Being able to downvote replies without any refutation, to me, seems like a massive mistake If downvoting is going to be used just to express disagreement, I agree it's too easy to do. (A number of commenters have posted links to comments by pg where he has said that's what downvoting is for, but I still think it's too broad.) If downvoting is going to be used only for posts that are seen as adding no value to the discussion or the site, that's a much narrower category, and it doesn't really lend itself to "refutation". > it just teaches people not to say anything interesting The way around that is to build up enough karma that you don't care if you get downvoted. Of course, then you have to police yourself by not saying unpopular things just to be difficult, but only if you genuinely think they need to be said and are adding something to the discussion and the site. But people who have built up enough karma are going to have learned to do that anyway.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Of course, then you have to police yourself by not saying unpopular things just to be difficult, but only if you genuinely think they need to be said and are adding something to the discussion and the site. It seems like you're impugning their motives here. Do you honestly think that most people whose thoughtful comments are downvoted are engaging in bad faith, “saying unpopular things just to be difficult”?
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > Do you honestly think that most people whose thoughtful comments are downvoted are engaging in bad faith, “saying unpopular things just to be difficult”? No. Remember that I was talking about a particular subset of users: the ones who have enough karma that they don't care if they get downvoted. In order to get that much karma, such a user will have already made a lot of thoughtful comments that were made in good faith. I was just observing that, once a user has enough karma not to care if they get downvoted, the feedback mechanism that regulated their behavior up to that point--karma--no longer has much impact. When put in that kind of position, it has been known to happen that a person might change their behavior. But I would hope and expect that a change for the worse under those circumstances would be rare.

Steltek 7y ago

I feel like this is a broadly applicable human phenomenon akin to Isaac Aasimov's "Psychohistory" in the Foundation series. It also feels easy enough to capture that someone's already done the research on it.