5 ms·

Quality of HN Comments Over Time | . . | . . q| . . . . u| . . .

by edw519 16y ago

Quality of HN Comments Over Time | . . | . . q| . . . . u| . . . . . . a| . . . . . l| . . . . . i| . . . . . t| . . . you are here -->. . y| (that's all) |________________________________________________________ N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F '09 '10 '11 (It must be that time of year again...) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1646871 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1646871

oconnor0 16y ago
The question is, of course, are we entering the Eternal February?
- buro9 16y ago
  As of now (9:10GMT) I've read every post on this page, and I think as short as it is, the parent (Eternal February) perhaps is the one that is closest to what I think has happened. I think this is a people problem, not a technology one. For those who haven't heard this phrase before, the "Eternal February" apes the "Eternal September". Pre-1993, each September would herald the start of a new university year and an influx of new students who would suddenly gain access to the internet. Whilst their presence was being integrated by existing on-line communities, the standard and quality of debate in Usenet was perceived to decline as the same questions got asked again and the conversation standard was forced again. The same problems came forth until such a point that the existing communities had assimilated the newbies and by October or November things had returned to where they were, just a bit bigger. Then along came AOL, giving out free/cheap internet access to all and lowering the technical barrier to getting on-line. A good thing for the world, but a bad thing for those Usenet communities who suddenly had to assimilate an influx greater than a normal September, and also an influx that didn't subside. At some point the ability of those in Usenet to assimilate was surpassed by the people getting on-line and finding Usenet. The term "Eternal September" was coined to describe this problem and the general failure of Usenet to keep up with the flow and the lowering standards that are the result of this. I think HackerNews has no technical problem. The discussion around karma and mod points is a distraction, the same goes for invite only systems and "classic" view. I'm going to speculate that the problem is purely the size of the population and the growth rate, and that the community gravity is now such that this is not going to stop. Anyone who has been here for years, and anyone who has a shed load of karma points... those who give in time, effort... there's no questioning that we/they all want to have a place such as this, and few really want to leave it. But it's hard to see how staying is going to help, and here's why: Time is valuable to us, and our expectations have risen as our experience and knowledge increased, and we feel defeated by that influx and we sense the gravity (that if anything increases the rate of influx). Due to the growth, the noise level is so much higher (even if only 0.1% of the population post new things or respond, 0.1% of hundreds of thousands rather than thousands is still a far higher noise level). How can we cut through the noise to find the good stuff (subjective to the individual) given this noise? I read the firehose (/new) in an attempt to not miss the good, but realise that I've amplified the volume of everything to try and not miss the gems. The influx is such that it feels non-correctable to some degree. We can look back at the side-splitting Erlang day as a humorous attempt at a correction (which it was, but we probably didn't perceive the bigger picture then... the "Eternal February"). The thing is, most old-timers are aware there is still a lot of value in learning from new people, of passing on knowledge to new people... it's a two-way street and some good comes from growth and closing the gate isn't the desired thing. As the noise levels get higher closing the gate seems tempting, but it's silly. Shutting the gate is not going to help. There is a natural contribution rate at which the noise levels are manageable, and there's a natural growth rate at which people can be assimilated such that the noise doesn't go above manageable levels. When either rate is crossed it can be difficult, when both are crossed we end up here. My suggestion would be along Alex's lines... to not divide by date registered (just those with early registration dates), to not exclude by network (an invite only boys club), nor to kill HN (which still serves as a really important hub by bringing us all together, and I'm sure some would feel that anything new is a conscious threat to the old). Instead we should create some thing (or multiple things) that is so much more narrowly focused that it doesn't have much appeal beyond a smallish number. That focus needs to be narrow enough that growth is naturally limited too. I think that defining that 'thing' is where it gets interesting. What that narrowly focused topic is, well that is going to be different from person to person. It's likely that many small communities would spring up; maybe one focused on devops + computer science (a bit like the ACM SIGACTS-SIGOPS), maybe one focused on purely the business side of startups, etc. HN is rare because it encompasses all of these, but I'd suggest it may be better to not be so far encompassing and instead to have a set of communities (subreddits vs stack overflows vs unconnected sites) more narrowly focused and people would join subsets that interested them rather than have them all exist in a global scope (where the noise level is that of the whole set). The hardest part of doing anything comes down to the people. Ultimately it's the mix of people here that is so awesome, it's what acts most as gravity to those outside of the community. Having this calibre of people choose to invest in smaller communities is going to be the hardest thing when staying on just HN, or just opting out altogether, is so easy to do. I too think it's time for something more focused and smaller to emerge to tackle the noise level. That this is likely to be many smaller things and that I'd miss part of the debate is kinda fine, I'm fine with missing some stuff if the standard on the bits I'm more strongly interested in can be raised and I don't miss that stuff.
  - pault 16y ago
    No snark intended, but I feel like you are basically describing reddit, with its subreddits and customizable front page. If you unsubscribe from main, funny, pics, politics, askreddit, and add programming, computer science, mathematics, etc to your front page, you will get a pretty high quality experience, IMO (at least no 4chan garbage). The main difference that I perceive between the two sites is that reddit seems to have a slightly younger demographic, skewing towards college students, while HN seems to be mostly older, working professionals, and silicon valley heavy-hitters. Remember when reddit was the upstream digg? Now digg is dead and HN is the upstream reddit. If there's an upstream HN, by the time I find out about it, people will be complaining about how badly the community has declined lately. :) EDIT: Never mind, I just unsubscribed from all the default reddits and it's still mostly crap. Carry on...
    - ilovecomputers 16y ago
      What does it matter? These complaints of decline in community quality is all superficial. In the end, all that matters is how you use a site. What is it that you want out of these sites? Expert Opinion? Helpful articles? The Zeitgeist among your peers? The analysis of the community might help you decide how to use a site to your liking, but because it is superficial, it will be of little help. Seek out the experts yourself or trim through the article listings yourself instead of basing it completely on a democratic vote system. The quality of the community will only make this process more convenient, but it is the quality of individual posters that define what is most helpful to you. Now, I would like to compile a list of posters whom I can trust for insightful comments on a particular matter instead of posting assumptions. So far, I know of pg, joshu...crap, I wish there were avatars here. Why was I stuck with just visual memory like a common human? Unicode avatars would have been helpful: ❤
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      In simplest terms the HN community & culture fosters open minded discussion while reddit fosters group think. Even if HN has lost its edge over time that fundamental difference is worth fighting for and worth coming back to HN.
  - deleted 16y ago
Alex3917 16y ago
When HN first started it was kind of like r/truereddit but with an emphasis on startups. HN today has almost nothing in common with this. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think it's correct to say that the quality level is just an oscillation.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- _delirium 16y ago
  I guess I don't really agree; HN of several years ago typically had much briefer and less "weighty" articles and discussion than r/truereddit, and a lot more offhand stuff, like the typical techcrunch stories, and "here's how you do a thing in vim" type quick-tip articles. Certainly some good, in-depth technical articles and discussions, but that's the case now too. I've been digging through archives to try to remind myself of whether I had missed some sort of golden age (I was a lurker then, and considered it an interesting but not amazing site), and I still don't really see the golden-ageness, even in retrospect. Nothing like the Kuro5hin golden age, anyway. ;-)
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    "Nothing like the Kuro5hin golden age, anyway." Well I think we can all agree on that. It seems like the entire web really peaked in 2005-2006, and it's been all downhill since there.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I sort of agree, but I meant it a bit tongue-in-cheek (hence the smiley). I'm sure plenty of people would argue that the Kuro5hin golden age was nothing like the WELL golden age, or the Usenet golden age, or various other possibilities. One thing I did like about the Kuro5hin model was discussion organized around original, substantive stories, written by the same userbase who were the commenters. That, and stories posted at a rate of one or two a day. Sites like Slashdot/HN/reddit are instead mainly based around discussing offsite links, which K5 allowed but sort of discouraged as "mindless link propagation" (there was a section for it, but people didn't want too many submissions to it, and you typically had to add some substantive commentary to the link to get the submission accepted). The articles were also directly written for / targeted to the K5 community. People do sometimes write blog posts specifically to target HN, but they're often more multitargeted--- stuff submitted here might not be written with an HN audience in mind at all, or HN might only be one of several intended audiences. Some classic Usenet groups were sort-of in that style as well. You could start a new thread with a one-line post or "what do you think of this?" query, but some groups had a culture of starting new threads only when you had a significant, well-thought out post to make; otherwise you were supposed to stick to existing threads. I'm afraid it's harder to attract good content to a community these days, though. The people who used to consistently write good stuff for Kuro5hin now have their own blogs, and post their content there instead. In the early 2000s, it was a win-win situation: Kuro5hin provided an outlet for people who had things to say, and people who had things to say provided interesting content to read and discuss. These days if you have something compelling to say, you can just start a blog, and then try to get readers by submitting links across the web.
Aegean 16y ago
I don't think this answer holds true anymore, i.e. the newbies who are a year old would claim comment quality is going low. I think it now has become the norm. Why not just aim for a standard near the top quality submissions?
cmars232 16y ago
Nice chart. How did you make it?
jdap 16y ago
It'd be nice to put in another curve for 'value of HN comments in shaping startups.' Do those peaks feed periods of frenzied success (inspiring people to do better stuff faster)? Or do they lag periods of success (pearls of wisdom come out when people are past the sweat-soaked white knuckle phase)? Or is there some other correlation?

by edw519 16y ago

oconnor0 16y ago

The question is, of course, are we entering the Eternal February?

buro9 16y ago
As of now (9:10GMT) I've read every post on this page, and I think as short as it is, the parent (Eternal February) perhaps is the one that is closest to what I think has happened. I think this is a people problem, not a technology one. For those who haven't heard this phrase before, the "Eternal February" apes the "Eternal September". Pre-1993, each September would herald the start of a new university year and an influx of new students who would suddenly gain access to the internet. Whilst their presence was being integrated by existing on-line communities, the standard and quality of debate in Usenet was perceived to decline as the same questions got asked again and the conversation standard was forced again. The same problems came forth until such a point that the existing communities had assimilated the newbies and by October or November things had returned to where they were, just a bit bigger. Then along came AOL, giving out free/cheap internet access to all and lowering the technical barrier to getting on-line. A good thing for the world, but a bad thing for those Usenet communities who suddenly had to assimilate an influx greater than a normal September, and also an influx that didn't subside. At some point the ability of those in Usenet to assimilate was surpassed by the people getting on-line and finding Usenet. The term "Eternal September" was coined to describe this problem and the general failure of Usenet to keep up with the flow and the lowering standards that are the result of this. I think HackerNews has no technical problem. The discussion around karma and mod points is a distraction, the same goes for invite only systems and "classic" view. I'm going to speculate that the problem is purely the size of the population and the growth rate, and that the community gravity is now such that this is not going to stop. Anyone who has been here for years, and anyone who has a shed load of karma points... those who give in time, effort... there's no questioning that we/they all want to have a place such as this, and few really want to leave it. But it's hard to see how staying is going to help, and here's why: Time is valuable to us, and our expectations have risen as our experience and knowledge increased, and we feel defeated by that influx and we sense the gravity (that if anything increases the rate of influx). Due to the growth, the noise level is so much higher (even if only 0.1% of the population post new things or respond, 0.1% of hundreds of thousands rather than thousands is still a far higher noise level). How can we cut through the noise to find the good stuff (subjective to the individual) given this noise? I read the firehose (/new) in an attempt to not miss the good, but realise that I've amplified the volume of everything to try and not miss the gems. The influx is such that it feels non-correctable to some degree. We can look back at the side-splitting Erlang day as a humorous attempt at a correction (which it was, but we probably didn't perceive the bigger picture then... the "Eternal February"). The thing is, most old-timers are aware there is still a lot of value in learning from new people, of passing on knowledge to new people... it's a two-way street and some good comes from growth and closing the gate isn't the desired thing. As the noise levels get higher closing the gate seems tempting, but it's silly. Shutting the gate is not going to help. There is a natural contribution rate at which the noise levels are manageable, and there's a natural growth rate at which people can be assimilated such that the noise doesn't go above manageable levels. When either rate is crossed it can be difficult, when both are crossed we end up here. My suggestion would be along Alex's lines... to not divide by date registered (just those with early registration dates), to not exclude by network (an invite only boys club), nor to kill HN (which still serves as a really important hub by bringing us all together, and I'm sure some would feel that anything new is a conscious threat to the old). Instead we should create some thing (or multiple things) that is so much more narrowly focused that it doesn't have much appeal beyond a smallish number. That focus needs to be narrow enough that growth is naturally limited too. I think that defining that 'thing' is where it gets interesting. What that narrowly focused topic is, well that is going to be different from person to person. It's likely that many small communities would spring up; maybe one focused on devops + computer science (a bit like the ACM SIGACTS-SIGOPS), maybe one focused on purely the business side of startups, etc. HN is rare because it encompasses all of these, but I'd suggest it may be better to not be so far encompassing and instead to have a set of communities (subreddits vs stack overflows vs unconnected sites) more narrowly focused and people would join subsets that interested them rather than have them all exist in a global scope (where the noise level is that of the whole set). The hardest part of doing anything comes down to the people. Ultimately it's the mix of people here that is so awesome, it's what acts most as gravity to those outside of the community. Having this calibre of people choose to invest in smaller communities is going to be the hardest thing when staying on just HN, or just opting out altogether, is so easy to do. I too think it's time for something more focused and smaller to emerge to tackle the noise level. That this is likely to be many smaller things and that I'd miss part of the debate is kinda fine, I'm fine with missing some stuff if the standard on the bits I'm more strongly interested in can be raised and I don't miss that stuff.
- pault 16y ago
  No snark intended, but I feel like you are basically describing reddit, with its subreddits and customizable front page. If you unsubscribe from main, funny, pics, politics, askreddit, and add programming, computer science, mathematics, etc to your front page, you will get a pretty high quality experience, IMO (at least no 4chan garbage). The main difference that I perceive between the two sites is that reddit seems to have a slightly younger demographic, skewing towards college students, while HN seems to be mostly older, working professionals, and silicon valley heavy-hitters. Remember when reddit was the upstream digg? Now digg is dead and HN is the upstream reddit. If there's an upstream HN, by the time I find out about it, people will be complaining about how badly the community has declined lately. :) EDIT: Never mind, I just unsubscribed from all the default reddits and it's still mostly crap. Carry on...
  - ilovecomputers 16y ago
    What does it matter? These complaints of decline in community quality is all superficial. In the end, all that matters is how you use a site. What is it that you want out of these sites? Expert Opinion? Helpful articles? The Zeitgeist among your peers? The analysis of the community might help you decide how to use a site to your liking, but because it is superficial, it will be of little help. Seek out the experts yourself or trim through the article listings yourself instead of basing it completely on a democratic vote system. The quality of the community will only make this process more convenient, but it is the quality of individual posters that define what is most helpful to you. Now, I would like to compile a list of posters whom I can trust for insightful comments on a particular matter instead of posting assumptions. So far, I know of pg, joshu...crap, I wish there were avatars here. Why was I stuck with just visual memory like a common human? Unicode avatars would have been helpful: ❤
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    In simplest terms the HN community & culture fosters open minded discussion while reddit fosters group think. Even if HN has lost its edge over time that fundamental difference is worth fighting for and worth coming back to HN.
- deleted 16y ago

Alex3917 16y ago

When HN first started it was kind of like r/truereddit but with an emphasis on startups. HN today has almost nothing in common with this. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think it's correct to say that the quality level is just an oscillation.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 16y ago
I guess I don't really agree; HN of several years ago typically had much briefer and less "weighty" articles and discussion than r/truereddit, and a lot more offhand stuff, like the typical techcrunch stories, and "here's how you do a thing in vim" type quick-tip articles. Certainly some good, in-depth technical articles and discussions, but that's the case now too. I've been digging through archives to try to remind myself of whether I had missed some sort of golden age (I was a lurker then, and considered it an interesting but not amazing site), and I still don't really see the golden-ageness, even in retrospect. Nothing like the Kuro5hin golden age, anyway. ;-)
- Alex3917 16y ago
  "Nothing like the Kuro5hin golden age, anyway." Well I think we can all agree on that. It seems like the entire web really peaked in 2005-2006, and it's been all downhill since there.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I sort of agree, but I meant it a bit tongue-in-cheek (hence the smiley). I'm sure plenty of people would argue that the Kuro5hin golden age was nothing like the WELL golden age, or the Usenet golden age, or various other possibilities. One thing I did like about the Kuro5hin model was discussion organized around original, substantive stories, written by the same userbase who were the commenters. That, and stories posted at a rate of one or two a day. Sites like Slashdot/HN/reddit are instead mainly based around discussing offsite links, which K5 allowed but sort of discouraged as "mindless link propagation" (there was a section for it, but people didn't want too many submissions to it, and you typically had to add some substantive commentary to the link to get the submission accepted). The articles were also directly written for / targeted to the K5 community. People do sometimes write blog posts specifically to target HN, but they're often more multitargeted--- stuff submitted here might not be written with an HN audience in mind at all, or HN might only be one of several intended audiences. Some classic Usenet groups were sort-of in that style as well. You could start a new thread with a one-line post or "what do you think of this?" query, but some groups had a culture of starting new threads only when you had a significant, well-thought out post to make; otherwise you were supposed to stick to existing threads. I'm afraid it's harder to attract good content to a community these days, though. The people who used to consistently write good stuff for Kuro5hin now have their own blogs, and post their content there instead. In the early 2000s, it was a win-win situation: Kuro5hin provided an outlet for people who had things to say, and people who had things to say provided interesting content to read and discuss. These days if you have something compelling to say, you can just start a blog, and then try to get readers by submitting links across the web.

Aegean 16y ago

I don't think this answer holds true anymore, i.e. the newbies who are a year old would claim comment quality is going low. I think it now has become the norm. Why not just aim for a standard near the top quality submissions?

cmars232 16y ago

Nice chart. How did you make it?

jdap 16y ago

It'd be nice to put in another curve for 'value of HN comments in shaping startups.' Do those peaks feed periods of frenzied success (inspiring people to do better stuff faster)? Or do they lag periods of success (pearls of wisdom come out when people are past the sweat-soaked white knuckle phase)? Or is there some other correlation?