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Maybe it's not that important.

by jdub 6y ago

aspenmayer 6y ago
If it’s not important then why karma? I couldn’t agree more, by the way. It isn’t important. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
- pvg 6y ago
  The votes help rank the submissions and the comments - finding interesting things for HN users to read and talk about is the purpose of the site. Who found a thing first (especially something that was going to end up on the front page one way or the other) is not really that interesting to most people. If anything, an FP-reaching post's contribution to a user's overall karma should probably be capped at around some small factor of a median comment.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    I guess I just see breaking news differently. I don’t think news reaching a site when it does is predictable or deterministic. It’s not a foregone conclusion. Many posts which are on-topic or timely or relevant will never make it to FP. That is by nature of the FP. It can only hold so many posts. I agree that it doesn’t matter in aggregate, but this site is niche for a reason. It’s because people care to post quality, timely, relevant content here that the FP can be something to strive to be on. It’s a worthy goal to share content that is deemed worthy to make it to FP. It had an impact. Reposts are just another way to spread the impact around so we all benefit. I hope that makes sense. I don’t disagree about karma caps. Reddit handles aspects of this karma perverse incentives problem differently for text posts earning no karma, while link posts do. If I got that right. In any case it’s a thorny problem and I think that what exists at HN now works pretty well. I’m sure it can be better, and I can’t think of a better team to think about how and why.
    - pvg 6y ago
      'breaking news' is pretty much antithetical to HN. It just happens to have 'news' in the name, sort of like the town of Newport News. For the purposes of HN, a deeper, more detailed story three days 'late' is better than a superficial 'breaking' story.
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        Some information only matters to you if you know right now. Timeliness and relevancy are important to the user. The existence of the New page on HN and users who visit it prove that the search for the right content at the right time is one worth it to those to visit New.
        pvg 6y ago
        HN is just not that kind of site, really. The existence of the new page does not 'prove' anything more than the name. Newly submitted stuff has to go somewhere, it doesn't mean it urgently needs to reach users. The FAQ, the guidelines, zillions of dang posts talk about the sort of things that make good HN posts and 'newsiness' is not high among them.
        aspenmayer 6y ago
        I’m not saying it proves anything. I’m saying HN the site is different things to different people. It’s hard to say what people intend when they upvote something, but I think they mean that it helped them and think it belongs on HN. By virtue of upvoting, they signal its relevance to them and their vote of confidence in its relevance to the wider HN community. I don’t have any burden to prove here or any angle to promote. Users vote, and HN is the result. HN wouldn’t be HN without its values (thank you) or its users (thank you all).
        pvg 6y ago
        Users vote, and HN is the result I think you're cycling through a sort of greatest hits of various common misconceptions about the way HN works and you're better off just reading dang's moderator comments for a little bit - this stuff comes up all the time and he addresses it with better detail, accuracy and nuance than I can. You'll be in a better position to then make your critique rather than debating it with less familiarity and with some internet rando who's lecturing you about how you have it all wrong.
    - tomhoward 6y ago
      It may be helpful for you to consider the highest karma-earners on the site [1], and how they got there. None of them got there by being the first to get breaking stories onto the site. They got there by regularly posting interesting comments and articles, consistently over several years. Though if you look at their submission histories, plenty of what they've posted has received few/no upvotes. Some users will even post the same article every few months for a year or more, before it ever gets voted onto the front page. Consistent contribution over the long term is what's key. There are plenty of HN contributors who aren't well known at all for posting comments, but who have huge karma counts just for consistently posting interesting articles, and much of it is years-old, or about non-current topics like history, philosophy, literature, architecture etc. Someone like that won't be bothered if other people sometimes get the karma for a story that they had submitted earlier. They will just keep posting several interesting articles every week or even every day, knowing that overall their contribution is valuable and that karma allocation will balance out fairly over the long term. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

Maybe it's not that important.

by jdub 6y ago

Maybe it's not that important.

If it’s not important then why karma? I couldn’t agree more, by the way. It isn’t important. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

pvg 6y ago
The votes help rank the submissions and the comments - finding interesting things for HN users to read and talk about is the purpose of the site. Who found a thing first (especially something that was going to end up on the front page one way or the other) is not really that interesting to most people. If anything, an FP-reaching post's contribution to a user's overall karma should probably be capped at around some small factor of a median comment.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  I guess I just see breaking news differently. I don’t think news reaching a site when it does is predictable or deterministic. It’s not a foregone conclusion. Many posts which are on-topic or timely or relevant will never make it to FP. That is by nature of the FP. It can only hold so many posts. I agree that it doesn’t matter in aggregate, but this site is niche for a reason. It’s because people care to post quality, timely, relevant content here that the FP can be something to strive to be on. It’s a worthy goal to share content that is deemed worthy to make it to FP. It had an impact. Reposts are just another way to spread the impact around so we all benefit. I hope that makes sense. I don’t disagree about karma caps. Reddit handles aspects of this karma perverse incentives problem differently for text posts earning no karma, while link posts do. If I got that right. In any case it’s a thorny problem and I think that what exists at HN now works pretty well. I’m sure it can be better, and I can’t think of a better team to think about how and why.
  - pvg 6y ago
    'breaking news' is pretty much antithetical to HN. It just happens to have 'news' in the name, sort of like the town of Newport News. For the purposes of HN, a deeper, more detailed story three days 'late' is better than a superficial 'breaking' story.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      Some information only matters to you if you know right now. Timeliness and relevancy are important to the user. The existence of the New page on HN and users who visit it prove that the search for the right content at the right time is one worth it to those to visit New.
      - pvg 6y ago
        HN is just not that kind of site, really. The existence of the new page does not 'prove' anything more than the name. Newly submitted stuff has to go somewhere, it doesn't mean it urgently needs to reach users. The FAQ, the guidelines, zillions of dang posts talk about the sort of things that make good HN posts and 'newsiness' is not high among them.
        aspenmayer 6y ago
        I’m not saying it proves anything. I’m saying HN the site is different things to different people. It’s hard to say what people intend when they upvote something, but I think they mean that it helped them and think it belongs on HN. By virtue of upvoting, they signal its relevance to them and their vote of confidence in its relevance to the wider HN community. I don’t have any burden to prove here or any angle to promote. Users vote, and HN is the result. HN wouldn’t be HN without its values (thank you) or its users (thank you all).
        pvg 6y ago
        Users vote, and HN is the result I think you're cycling through a sort of greatest hits of various common misconceptions about the way HN works and you're better off just reading dang's moderator comments for a little bit - this stuff comes up all the time and he addresses it with better detail, accuracy and nuance than I can. You'll be in a better position to then make your critique rather than debating it with less familiarity and with some internet rando who's lecturing you about how you have it all wrong.
  - tomhoward 6y ago
    It may be helpful for you to consider the highest karma-earners on the site [1], and how they got there. None of them got there by being the first to get breaking stories onto the site. They got there by regularly posting interesting comments and articles, consistently over several years. Though if you look at their submission histories, plenty of what they've posted has received few/no upvotes. Some users will even post the same article every few months for a year or more, before it ever gets voted onto the front page. Consistent contribution over the long term is what's key. There are plenty of HN contributors who aren't well known at all for posting comments, but who have huge karma counts just for consistently posting interesting articles, and much of it is years-old, or about non-current topics like history, philosophy, literature, architecture etc. Someone like that won't be bothered if other people sometimes get the karma for a story that they had submitted earlier. They will just keep posting several interesting articles every week or even every day, knowing that overall their contribution is valuable and that karma allocation will balance out fairly over the long term. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders