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In my official capacity as commenting wind-bag, I'll second that. HN started as a way for YC guys to communicate. It was about startups, the tips and technique

In my official capacity as commenting wind-bag, I'll second that. HN started as a way for YC guys to communicate. It was about startups, the tips and techniques to make one, to grow one. Once PG opened it up, it became "stuff hackers like", which meant cool deep tech stuff. But the tech stuff was there because after a while, all the startup stuff just ran together. Then "stuff hackers like" kept drifting wider and wider. I was happy with that, but now that the traffic numbers are through the roof, what I'm seeing is the 1% snark factor is out of control. If each member of HN said something truly snarky only once a month, there would still be thousands of snarky comments a day on here. It's just too much noise. HN has always been driven by emotion: the only reason to click that button is to express your emotional response, good or bad. Sure you can rationalize that in various ways, but in principle it's about how the thing makes you feel. Now we have the love-fest stories, the hate-fest stories, the snide jokes that get upvoted, the trashing of "rate my startup" posts (I still can't believe how some of the startups are treated). It's becoming less of a community and more of a mob. I think maybe the story titles might look mostly the same, perhaps, but the quality of the stories and the quality of the conversations have changed quite a bit.

mattjaynes 16y ago
Excellent point and thanks for all your thoughtful comments. I use to comment regularly on HN (member since Apr 2007 and former #1 on leaderboard in the ancient days, haha), but have found that I very rarely do any more. When I look at my thought process now when thinking about posting something that may be of value, I find myself very reluctant. This is due to the snarkiness and hot-headed emotion that often disregards logical arguments as worthless and instead values breathy spittled anger. Cowards become brave behind anonymity. Who enjoys "lawyering" their comments? Basically trying to anticipate and address all the possible concerns hot-head users will bring up. Yet, I feel like I've had to do that more and more. In the end it seems an exercise in futility - particularly when I can just move on to interacting directly with the thoughtful hackers I care about and avoid those that spit when they talk. I can understand the lament of the OP since I've really enjoyed the community and associating with the gentleman-hackers I've met here. Thanks especially to those who have added true value here - I've learned a lot from the thoughtful ones who share and help.
NickPollard 16y ago
Maybe upvotes/downvotes could be weighted by the karma of the person giving them, thus putting more emphasis on those with high karma (which might sound elitist, but the only reason those people have high karma is because people think they talk sense). This would concentrate power slightly in the hands of those long time dedicated commentators ('the community'), and slightly lower the strength of newcomers who are still getting used to the ettiquette ('the mob'). Hopefully this would go someway to lowering the effect of newcomers, until they rack up enough karma themselves to 'graduate' into the higher karma ratings.
- gbrindisi 16y ago
  Wasn't this the same mechanic behind Digg?

mattjaynes 16y ago

Excellent point and thanks for all your thoughtful comments. I use to comment regularly on HN (member since Apr 2007 and former #1 on leaderboard in the ancient days, haha), but have found that I very rarely do any more. When I look at my thought process now when thinking about posting something that may be of value, I find myself very reluctant. This is due to the snarkiness and hot-headed emotion that often disregards logical arguments as worthless and instead values breathy spittled anger. Cowards become brave behind anonymity. Who enjoys "lawyering" their comments? Basically trying to anticipate and address all the possible concerns hot-head users will bring up. Yet, I feel like I've had to do that more and more. In the end it seems an exercise in futility - particularly when I can just move on to interacting directly with the thoughtful hackers I care about and avoid those that spit when they talk. I can understand the lament of the OP since I've really enjoyed the community and associating with the gentleman-hackers I've met here. Thanks especially to those who have added true value here - I've learned a lot from the thoughtful ones who share and help.

NickPollard 16y ago

Maybe upvotes/downvotes could be weighted by the karma of the person giving them, thus putting more emphasis on those with high karma (which might sound elitist, but the only reason those people have high karma is because people think they talk sense). This would concentrate power slightly in the hands of those long time dedicated commentators ('the community'), and slightly lower the strength of newcomers who are still getting used to the ettiquette ('the mob'). Hopefully this would go someway to lowering the effect of newcomers, until they rack up enough karma themselves to 'graduate' into the higher karma ratings.

gbrindisi 16y ago
Wasn't this the same mechanic behind Digg?