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Hello Sankalp, good questions, here's my responses: What criteria do you use to determine 'health' in online communities? Depends on the context, for example,

Hello Sankalp, good questions, here's my responses: What criteria do you use to determine 'health' in online communities? Depends on the context, for example, commercial/business health may vary from the actual health of the members interactions that make up a given community. Personally, I would assess the health of HN community based on raw engagement numbers as well as a qualitative assessment of the interaction value, like: Are the topics relevant to human growth & evolution of the mind? Diverse? Intelligent? Controversial at times? Is the content I am exposed to and consuming making me a better _________ ? Do community participants interact in a way that fosters understanding and knowledge transfer/gain? Are members willing to admit what they don't know, when they are wrong, and respectfully disagree in the mean time? Are there a lot of blatant trolls/negative or useless quips/spam? What is your working definition of "success" and "health" is what I would wonder given that you and your institution are apparently investing resources here? How do these differ from those criteria you use to determine ‘health’ in offline communities you are in? For me, they don't differ much - same criteria, expectations and standards sought elsewhere online. How does HN exemplify or not exemplify 'healthy' behaviors? Not sure how moderated the forum behind the scenes, but I rarely am subjected to irrelevant, toxic, rude commentary, so props to whomever/however they pull that off because it keeps many people actively returning and engaging in best practices aka healthy behavior. Also, love how dead simple and basic the interface is, don't ever change HN! One thing I do wish would be clearer communicated / understood is how the algorithm works as in 'why am I seeing what i am seeing?' I might be missing this already shared, but it would make for a healthier community by being as transparent as possible about this because it builds trust in the platform. What behaviors of your own would you acknowledge may or may not contribute to the overall ‘health’ of HN? I'm just here to listen learn from smart people, (in fact I was a lurker for almost 10 years before more recently creating an account to facilitate my goal of writing more). My hope would be that individually my impact or value this community is a net positive :) How did you get into HN? Who introduced you? What makes you stay? I don't remember, I think everyone in the entrepreneur/hacker community just knows about it. I will conclude by saying one aspect of this community that is unique and you may want to look into as you conduct your "health" and "success" research is: the role 'identity politics' has on the quality of conversations among members in a given community. I am unaware of another robust online community that places such a high emphasis on the caliber of content/conversations and low emphasis of who it's coming from as far as I can tell?

sankalpb 7y ago
thanks so much for being so thorough, I'll offer my own impressions of 'success' and 'health' below the following questions to your response: can you tell me more about whether, when you say 'it would make for a healthier community by being as transparent as possible' - you're referring to transparency of the platform, transparency of the culture, transparency of the membership? when you describe yourself as 'just here to listen learn from smart people' and go on to say that you were 'a lurker' for a relatively long period of time, would you say that there's a connection between two? As in, members who feel certain role relations (i.e. just here to learn) to the HN community end up sustaining certain behaviors (i.e. lurking). I'm not sure I know enough about 'identity politics' as you're using it here, but fascinated by this distinction between 'caliber of content' and 'who it's coming from' - what do you think or see as sustaining this 'high/low' emphasis the most? Personally, and provisionally, I consider 'success' and 'health' to be as much about the ability of a community to sustain itself through a transition - shift in purpose, direction of vision, change in norms, etc - as much as the capabilities of its members to bring about these types of transitions.
- _curious_ 7y ago
  Hello again, "can you tell me more about whether, when you say 'it would make for a healthier community by being as transparent as possible' - you're referring to transparency of the platform, transparency of the culture, transparency of the membership?" -Transparency around the manual methods & algorithms used on HN as a platform specifically when determining submission/content rankings. Is it 100% social voting? when you describe yourself as 'just here to listen learn from smart people' and go on to say that you were 'a lurker' for a relatively long period of time, would you say that there's a connection between two? As in, members who feel certain role relations (i.e. just here to learn) to the HN community end up sustaining certain behaviors (i.e. lurking). -I don't understand this question, but I think it's just more my nature to be a fly on the wall by default. I'm not sure I know enough about 'identity politics' as you're using it here, but fascinated by this distinction between 'caliber of content' and 'who it's coming from' - what do you think or see as sustaining this 'high/low' emphasis the most? -Again, I don't really understand this question the way its worded? But first and foremost it starts with the way the platform is designed. Think about how little personally identifiable information is required to join and participate this community. All you get is a random handle (which I'd wager most people don't even look at anyways) and nothing else asked, needed, or wanted. It's actually great equalizer on many levels. ...and because of this design approach, how little emphasis is found around here on who we physically are in terms of age, race, ethnicity, gender, location, orientation, disability, etc. These components of our 'identity' are largely if not completely irrelevant in this community. Effectively, what this does is it creates and keeps more space for the intellect to speak freely and for itself without distractions, subconscious biases, etc. stemming from the "who" we are outside - rather it's much more about what's going inside! I don't know what to call this hypothetical relationship whereas less identity politics = better content, conversational qualities, and learning opportunities...(read: health) but there's something bigger at play here on HN vs any other scaled social community/forum I am aware of - save for some niche subreddits. (And Twitter would be just about the exact opposite, which maybe healthy as a business operation, but not nearly as healthy in the community sense for me at least). Maybe because the nature of the topics and shared interests on HN is grounded much more in the rational, logical, mathematical, scientific realm? Does this place and emphasis the pursuit of truth and reason above all else? Does HN intentionally lack the emotional side of humanity, and therefore is deemed "healthier" among certain types of people? Personally, and provisionally, I consider 'success' and 'health' to be as much about the ability of a community to sustain itself through a transition - shift in purpose, direction of vision, change in norms, etc - as much as the capabilities of its members to bring about these types of transitions. -Thanks for answering that and reading mine.

sankalpb 7y ago

thanks so much for being so thorough, I'll offer my own impressions of 'success' and 'health' below the following questions to your response: can you tell me more about whether, when you say 'it would make for a healthier community by being as transparent as possible' - you're referring to transparency of the platform, transparency of the culture, transparency of the membership? when you describe yourself as 'just here to listen learn from smart people' and go on to say that you were 'a lurker' for a relatively long period of time, would you say that there's a connection between two? As in, members who feel certain role relations (i.e. just here to learn) to the HN community end up sustaining certain behaviors (i.e. lurking). I'm not sure I know enough about 'identity politics' as you're using it here, but fascinated by this distinction between 'caliber of content' and 'who it's coming from' - what do you think or see as sustaining this 'high/low' emphasis the most? Personally, and provisionally, I consider 'success' and 'health' to be as much about the ability of a community to sustain itself through a transition - shift in purpose, direction of vision, change in norms, etc - as much as the capabilities of its members to bring about these types of transitions.

_curious_ 7y ago
Hello again, "can you tell me more about whether, when you say 'it would make for a healthier community by being as transparent as possible' - you're referring to transparency of the platform, transparency of the culture, transparency of the membership?" -Transparency around the manual methods & algorithms used on HN as a platform specifically when determining submission/content rankings. Is it 100% social voting? when you describe yourself as 'just here to listen learn from smart people' and go on to say that you were 'a lurker' for a relatively long period of time, would you say that there's a connection between two? As in, members who feel certain role relations (i.e. just here to learn) to the HN community end up sustaining certain behaviors (i.e. lurking). -I don't understand this question, but I think it's just more my nature to be a fly on the wall by default. I'm not sure I know enough about 'identity politics' as you're using it here, but fascinated by this distinction between 'caliber of content' and 'who it's coming from' - what do you think or see as sustaining this 'high/low' emphasis the most? -Again, I don't really understand this question the way its worded? But first and foremost it starts with the way the platform is designed. Think about how little personally identifiable information is required to join and participate this community. All you get is a random handle (which I'd wager most people don't even look at anyways) and nothing else asked, needed, or wanted. It's actually great equalizer on many levels. ...and because of this design approach, how little emphasis is found around here on who we physically are in terms of age, race, ethnicity, gender, location, orientation, disability, etc. These components of our 'identity' are largely if not completely irrelevant in this community. Effectively, what this does is it creates and keeps more space for the intellect to speak freely and for itself without distractions, subconscious biases, etc. stemming from the "who" we are outside - rather it's much more about what's going inside! I don't know what to call this hypothetical relationship whereas less identity politics = better content, conversational qualities, and learning opportunities...(read: health) but there's something bigger at play here on HN vs any other scaled social community/forum I am aware of - save for some niche subreddits. (And Twitter would be just about the exact opposite, which maybe healthy as a business operation, but not nearly as healthy in the community sense for me at least). Maybe because the nature of the topics and shared interests on HN is grounded much more in the rational, logical, mathematical, scientific realm? Does this place and emphasis the pursuit of truth and reason above all else? Does HN intentionally lack the emotional side of humanity, and therefore is deemed "healthier" among certain types of people? Personally, and provisionally, I consider 'success' and 'health' to be as much about the ability of a community to sustain itself through a transition - shift in purpose, direction of vision, change in norms, etc - as much as the capabilities of its members to bring about these types of transitions. -Thanks for answering that and reading mine.