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Well, observing the decrease in quality and increase in frustration on HN over the years, I'd double down on my opinion any day. The more junk on HN that has n

Well, observing the decrease in quality and increase in frustration on HN over the years, I'd double down on my opinion any day. The more junk on HN that has nothing to do with code, the more people complain, the worse the quality is, etc. Year after year, it's held true. I don't hesitate to posit either that moderation decisions have severely decreased the quality of the HN experience. A a cyber-hammer as the arbiter of discussions which they possess nothing worth contributing to, saying "these loosely worded guidelines are what is right" despite dozens, probably hundreds of conversations that moderation members have had with contributing individuals about what kind of posts belong on the front page. Anyhow thanks for the links, they were "enlightening"

dang 6y ago
Sorry, I don't think I'm parsing this completely, but if you fish around in the archives using HN Search it's not hard to see that complaints like this go back to the beginning of the site. Actually it's kind of fun: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hacker%20news%22&dateRange=all&page=6&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hac... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hacker%20news%22&dateRange=all&page=5&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hac... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hacker%20news%22&dateRange=all&page=4&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hac... As the saying goes, things have always been getting worse. HN has been "turning into Reddit" since before it was HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721), getting "taken over by politics" for almost that long (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869), and so on.
- adenozine 6y ago
  If you don't mind me asking dang, what sort of technical work do you do? If you'd prefer a private conversation, I'd be open to that; I'm curious to know if you write code on any kind of regular basis professionally. As I see it, your response further cements my point, that there's a huge chunk of people unhappy with content here, and a moderation instrument that is acutely aware of it and firmly poised to change it, and yet refuses to. You might say something about diversity of content, I just don't think that's what HN is best to pursue. I'm here to read news that appeals to me. I write code, I read code, I want to read news about that. Enlightenment is not it. Thanks for the response.
  - dang 6y ago
    The flaw in your argument is that you assume that it would be possible to make everybody happy. That's extremely not possible, and often trying to appease one subset ends up pissing off a much larger subset. These complaints are not coming from a "huge chunk of people", and the fact that they've been more or less stable since the community started is at least evidence that there isn't a massive decline, which is what the complaints always posit. I'm happy to answer your question about technical work but why does that matter in this context? (I'll tell you why I ask: you've already made more than one comment about the moderators here which express that you've got a problem with us for some reason, so this feels like a gotcha question, and it feels lousy to be cross-examined.)
    - adenozine 6y ago
      Well, you didn't answer it. Curiosity, more than anything. You're an enigmatic figure. Little is known about you, though you act as gatekeeper over a large number of conversations, I'm curious what makes your opinion worth anything in this context. I could gather thousands of voices that want to read news leaning to the hacker side of the content spectrum. All these voices with commits and code reviews to show for themselves, and then there's you. There's almost nothing about you on Google, and there are MANY examples of your supposed entitlement to act as executor over conversations here. I'm not meaning to accuse. I know what it costs and what it demands from a person to even attempt to moderate a community of this size and as diverse as this one. I do appreciate the role you possess, I just can't really appreciate your opinion, given so much evidence that the quality has decreased. You probably used reddit early on, surely you wouldn't say the quality has skyrocketed since then? It's terrible. That's really all I'm saying. HN totally IS getting worse, and posts like these are directly attributable, given a long enough time frame.
      - dang 6y ago
        Statements like "I'm curious what makes your opinion worth anything" come across as more aggressive than curious. FWIW I've been a professional programmer for many years and write code every day, though not as much as I'd like to.

dang 6y ago

Sorry, I don't think I'm parsing this completely, but if you fish around in the archives using HN Search it's not hard to see that complaints like this go back to the beginning of the site. Actually it's kind of fun: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hacker%20news%22&dateRange=all&page=6&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hac... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hacker%20news%22&dateRange=all&page=5&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hac... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hacker%20news%22&dateRange=all&page=4&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22how%20is%20this%22%20%22hac... As the saying goes, things have always been getting worse. HN has been "turning into Reddit" since before it was HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721), getting "taken over by politics" for almost that long (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869), and so on.

adenozine 6y ago
If you don't mind me asking dang, what sort of technical work do you do? If you'd prefer a private conversation, I'd be open to that; I'm curious to know if you write code on any kind of regular basis professionally. As I see it, your response further cements my point, that there's a huge chunk of people unhappy with content here, and a moderation instrument that is acutely aware of it and firmly poised to change it, and yet refuses to. You might say something about diversity of content, I just don't think that's what HN is best to pursue. I'm here to read news that appeals to me. I write code, I read code, I want to read news about that. Enlightenment is not it. Thanks for the response.
- dang 6y ago
  The flaw in your argument is that you assume that it would be possible to make everybody happy. That's extremely not possible, and often trying to appease one subset ends up pissing off a much larger subset. These complaints are not coming from a "huge chunk of people", and the fact that they've been more or less stable since the community started is at least evidence that there isn't a massive decline, which is what the complaints always posit. I'm happy to answer your question about technical work but why does that matter in this context? (I'll tell you why I ask: you've already made more than one comment about the moderators here which express that you've got a problem with us for some reason, so this feels like a gotcha question, and it feels lousy to be cross-examined.)
  - adenozine 6y ago
    Well, you didn't answer it. Curiosity, more than anything. You're an enigmatic figure. Little is known about you, though you act as gatekeeper over a large number of conversations, I'm curious what makes your opinion worth anything in this context. I could gather thousands of voices that want to read news leaning to the hacker side of the content spectrum. All these voices with commits and code reviews to show for themselves, and then there's you. There's almost nothing about you on Google, and there are MANY examples of your supposed entitlement to act as executor over conversations here. I'm not meaning to accuse. I know what it costs and what it demands from a person to even attempt to moderate a community of this size and as diverse as this one. I do appreciate the role you possess, I just can't really appreciate your opinion, given so much evidence that the quality has decreased. You probably used reddit early on, surely you wouldn't say the quality has skyrocketed since then? It's terrible. That's really all I'm saying. HN totally IS getting worse, and posts like these are directly attributable, given a long enough time frame.
    - dang 6y ago
      Statements like "I'm curious what makes your opinion worth anything" come across as more aggressive than curious. FWIW I've been a professional programmer for many years and write code every day, though not as much as I'd like to.