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Ask HN: Why aren't there more big yet serious communities like Hacker News?

11 points by hidden-spyder 5y ago

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Because there needs to be an aligned sponsor that shares the general values and goals of the forum, and that's rare. HN would suck without dang in my opinion, but what dang does is funded by a very wealthy company that has the resource to spare and, importantly, the forum aligns with the company's interest. In particular, in the past 3-4 years as HN has seen a growing user base and more "general audience"-type content, dang's impact has been essential in keeping things from "running off the rails" as usually happens when platforms grow. FWIW there are a couple other forums (though more niche than HN) I frequent that I feel do similarly well from a moderation perspective, but again it's usually because 1 person can be a full-time, great moderator.
- hidden-spyder 5y ago
  I wonder why Reddit doesn't hire moderators like dang on their own for the big subreddits. Considering that's where most users go, wouldn't it be in their benefit to improve the quality there?
  - atatatat 5y ago
    How does board quality increase the value they offer to their advertisers? /s
CogitoCogito 5y ago
Why do you claim there are not? Are you asking for examples? I’m sure there are many subreddits that are similar in size to HN (probably some are larger) and many are surely “serious” as well. I would presume there are other such communities outside of HN, reddit, etc. but I don’t know for sure.
- hidden-spyder 5y ago
  I'd like to see those examples. I'm not sure how many active users and viewers HN has so scale comparison is not possible for me. HN seems big though.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    It sounds like you need to do more research. Instead of asking there aren't more big yet serious communities like Hacker News, you should try to (1) ascertain the size of the HN community, (2) look into what other "serious" (whatever that means) communities exist on the internet, and (3) compare their sizes. If after all that you find that HN actually is the only serious community of its size, then you should re-ask this question. But as it stands your question might have no basis at all.
wetpaws 5y ago
If you go to niche forums or even (god forbid) subreddits, there are quite a lot of good, serious communities.
GDC7 5y ago
It is superhard to post on HN A person can post for 6 months and still they can't be sure about speaking their mind freely , negative karma points accumulate fast and pretty soon they'll be shadowbanned. Once you are at -15 karma points your replies are not being seen by anybody. Let's say you are at +60 karma points that you have accumulated in 6 months. It seems a healthy margin, but all it takes is a couple of threads in which you have controversial back and forth with other HN users and all of a sudden you can't speak your mind freely for 6 more months. Now you have to rebuild back. Only people who post a lot and post popular content earn their right to freely speak their mind on HN. Most people aren't willing to put up with that.
- closeparen 5y ago
  HN is so valuable specifically because it’s not a free-for-all. The “speak your mind” internet is substantial, but there’s a reason I don’t spend my time there.
- illwrks 5y ago
  Isn't this feature valuable? as I see it it would allow new comers to build trust in a community first. Would you, as a new neighbour, walk into the local bar and start objecting or disagreeing with the locals?
  - illwrks 5y ago
    Although on second thought... I guess it depends on what's your commenting on and the stance of those you're interacting with. So it can be a double edged sword.
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  HN basically forces you to build a modest amount of karma capital if you typically post controversial comments (eg your comments have net 0 karma, +5, -5). My karma hasn’t budged in ages because everything I post has a bunch of people agreeing and disagreeing with it. But, I’m okay with that since I built enough capital to do this. If did this around 50 karma, one or two comments on a tough thread would have put me under.
rurban 5y ago
There's lobster, but not much else at this scale
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
runawaybottle 5y ago
Slashdot is still very good. The UI is horrendous, but I’m sure there are apps that clean it up.
- moistly 5y ago
  Maybe if you’re logged in? The past dozen times in the past dozen years I’ve peeked in at Slashdot, not logged in, it’s a pile of “frist psot!” and abuse. That is solid contrast against HN, where I prefer to be logged-out because it hides so much trash; logged-in, I see more down-moderated low-value crap. Encouraging people to be logged-out must reduce the response rate to bait, and also reduce baiting, especially if tight moderation reduces bait’s impact on sincere and productive discussion.
  - type0 5y ago
    I had showdead enabled for a while and it's surprising to me how little downvoted crap it actually is on HN. But I agree HN has some quality posts on many topics so lurking experience is great in contrast to many other sites nowadays.
f0e4c2f7 5y ago
Hacker News is actually pretty small in terms of how many people post. Other communities like it can be found in some small subreddits, discord servers, slack channels, irc, and some of the few online forums that didn't move to Reddit (like the Two Plus Two Poker forums). I think part of why HN stays good is they don't have a built in growth incentive (at least I don't think they do). You can imagine if you're running a site like Reddit you might really want to keep the site as high quality as possible, but for various real reasons you have stronger incentives to grow the user base, even at the expense of overall quality of community.
DrNuke 5y ago
Actually, the non-football sections in redcafe, which is the biggest online community of soccer club manchester united supporters (full of well behaved neutrals and oppos), are pretty good and widely opinionated… much more interesting than the main football section!
muzani 5y ago
I think most communities have a "gratuitous negativity" level. Once you cross it, the community spirals into it. Helpful people leave, negative ones become attracted to it. I think it's a primal thing. We search for the bad because it could be dangerous, but like porn, it's easy to get trapped in it. HN's defense is the brutal downvotes, even on small things like jokes and snark, as well as things like the ban on political content. Snark is often used as a form of attack or is sometimes just hostile without the offender realizing it. Somehow communities like 4chan and Something Awful parody negativity. If you're too negative, it gets flipped around as a joke instead of downvoted. An example would the "navy seal copypasta", where it also gives the benefit of the doubt that it's a joke and not simply immaturity. That's probably some other defense that keeps those communities alive.

11 points by hidden-spyder 5y ago

Because there needs to be an aligned sponsor that shares the general values and goals of the forum, and that's rare. HN would suck without dang in my opinion, but what dang does is funded by a very wealthy company that has the resource to spare and, importantly, the forum aligns with the company's interest. In particular, in the past 3-4 years as HN has seen a growing user base and more "general audience"-type content, dang's impact has been essential in keeping things from "running off the rails" as usually happens when platforms grow. FWIW there are a couple other forums (though more niche than HN) I frequent that I feel do similarly well from a moderation perspective, but again it's usually because 1 person can be a full-time, great moderator.

hidden-spyder 5y ago
I wonder why Reddit doesn't hire moderators like dang on their own for the big subreddits. Considering that's where most users go, wouldn't it be in their benefit to improve the quality there?
- atatatat 5y ago
  How does board quality increase the value they offer to their advertisers? /s

CogitoCogito 5y ago

Why do you claim there are not? Are you asking for examples? I’m sure there are many subreddits that are similar in size to HN (probably some are larger) and many are surely “serious” as well. I would presume there are other such communities outside of HN, reddit, etc. but I don’t know for sure.

hidden-spyder 5y ago
I'd like to see those examples. I'm not sure how many active users and viewers HN has so scale comparison is not possible for me. HN seems big though.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  It sounds like you need to do more research. Instead of asking there aren't more big yet serious communities like Hacker News, you should try to (1) ascertain the size of the HN community, (2) look into what other "serious" (whatever that means) communities exist on the internet, and (3) compare their sizes. If after all that you find that HN actually is the only serious community of its size, then you should re-ask this question. But as it stands your question might have no basis at all.

wetpaws 5y ago

If you go to niche forums or even (god forbid) subreddits, there are quite a lot of good, serious communities.

GDC7 5y ago

It is superhard to post on HN A person can post for 6 months and still they can't be sure about speaking their mind freely , negative karma points accumulate fast and pretty soon they'll be shadowbanned. Once you are at -15 karma points your replies are not being seen by anybody. Let's say you are at +60 karma points that you have accumulated in 6 months. It seems a healthy margin, but all it takes is a couple of threads in which you have controversial back and forth with other HN users and all of a sudden you can't speak your mind freely for 6 more months. Now you have to rebuild back. Only people who post a lot and post popular content earn their right to freely speak their mind on HN. Most people aren't willing to put up with that.

closeparen 5y ago
HN is so valuable specifically because it’s not a free-for-all. The “speak your mind” internet is substantial, but there’s a reason I don’t spend my time there.
illwrks 5y ago
Isn't this feature valuable? as I see it it would allow new comers to build trust in a community first. Would you, as a new neighbour, walk into the local bar and start objecting or disagreeing with the locals?
- illwrks 5y ago
  Although on second thought... I guess it depends on what's your commenting on and the stance of those you're interacting with. So it can be a double edged sword.
runawaybottle 5y ago
HN basically forces you to build a modest amount of karma capital if you typically post controversial comments (eg your comments have net 0 karma, +5, -5). My karma hasn’t budged in ages because everything I post has a bunch of people agreeing and disagreeing with it. But, I’m okay with that since I built enough capital to do this. If did this around 50 karma, one or two comments on a tough thread would have put me under.

rurban 5y ago

There's lobster, but not much else at this scale

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

runawaybottle 5y ago

Slashdot is still very good. The UI is horrendous, but I’m sure there are apps that clean it up.

moistly 5y ago
Maybe if you’re logged in? The past dozen times in the past dozen years I’ve peeked in at Slashdot, not logged in, it’s a pile of “frist psot!” and abuse. That is solid contrast against HN, where I prefer to be logged-out because it hides so much trash; logged-in, I see more down-moderated low-value crap. Encouraging people to be logged-out must reduce the response rate to bait, and also reduce baiting, especially if tight moderation reduces bait’s impact on sincere and productive discussion.
- type0 5y ago
  I had showdead enabled for a while and it's surprising to me how little downvoted crap it actually is on HN. But I agree HN has some quality posts on many topics so lurking experience is great in contrast to many other sites nowadays.

f0e4c2f7 5y ago

Hacker News is actually pretty small in terms of how many people post. Other communities like it can be found in some small subreddits, discord servers, slack channels, irc, and some of the few online forums that didn't move to Reddit (like the Two Plus Two Poker forums). I think part of why HN stays good is they don't have a built in growth incentive (at least I don't think they do). You can imagine if you're running a site like Reddit you might really want to keep the site as high quality as possible, but for various real reasons you have stronger incentives to grow the user base, even at the expense of overall quality of community.

DrNuke 5y ago

Actually, the non-football sections in redcafe, which is the biggest online community of soccer club manchester united supporters (full of well behaved neutrals and oppos), are pretty good and widely opinionated… much more interesting than the main football section!

muzani 5y ago

I think most communities have a "gratuitous negativity" level. Once you cross it, the community spirals into it. Helpful people leave, negative ones become attracted to it. I think it's a primal thing. We search for the bad because it could be dangerous, but like porn, it's easy to get trapped in it. HN's defense is the brutal downvotes, even on small things like jokes and snark, as well as things like the ban on political content. Snark is often used as a form of attack or is sometimes just hostile without the offender realizing it. Somehow communities like 4chan and Something Awful parody negativity. If you're too negative, it gets flipped around as a joke instead of downvoted. An example would the "navy seal copypasta", where it also gives the benefit of the doubt that it's a joke and not simply immaturity. That's probably some other defense that keeps those communities alive.