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> Reddit solved this problem, kind-of-sort-of, with subreddits. If all you care about is programming, visit the programming subreddit. Unfortunately, the commen

> Reddit solved this problem, kind-of-sort-of, with subreddits. If all you care about is programming, visit the programming subreddit. Unfortunately, the comments on Reddit are extremely low-quality (even on /r/programming), so it's not actually worth visiting. But maybe this could save HN for a few more months. I think there's a very simple solution to this problem. First of all, I feel that Reddit has an excellent codebase - for example, it is much more feature-rich than Arc (HN's codebase). So I'd recommend using the Reddit codebase for a site that fixes these issues, but that's a minor concern and can always be changed later. Now Quora has taken the approach of removing anonymity, which I feel isn't correct because it can stifle discussion. A better approach would be to simply charge a nominal fee (a few dollars per month) to enable posting, which would make it much easier to keep track of and ban trolls. Moreover, if the community were to grow large enough, this money might actually be useful in terms of maintenance costs, etc. Of course, just like Quora, viewing the site should be possible for anyone. The aim should be to set a high enough standard for discourse that people are willing to pay requisite few dollars per month to access the site. Edit: I don't know if this would be a good idea (haven't really thought about the repercussions), but perhaps adding a "penalty fee" to the next month's monthly fee if one accumulates a large number of downvotes would be another way of stopping trollish comments. And perhaps doing the opposite as well - reducing the monthly fee for users who generate a large amount of insightful discussion.

jrockway 15y ago
Metafilter charges you $5 to gain the ability to post. It's a little better than Reddit, but ultimately the discussion software is so bad it's hard to tell if this works or not. Threaded comments encourage back-and-forth and nitpicking over details. Sometimes these become flamewars when people start calling other people names. On the other side of the coin, there is flat commenting. That tends to become one-liners and "like!" instead of anything valuable. The problem with community sites is that communities are not good at enforcing what they want. Stack Overflow is a good example of this: ask a question like "What's your favorite food to eat while programming", and you get a million karma points. Solve someone's super-obscure bug and provide a detailed answer, you get one or two points. I think my ultimate solution will be to return to blogging, and when I read an interesting article, write a detailed response. Then I will ignore the rest of the discussion.
- w1ntermute 15y ago
  > Metafilter charges you $5 to gain the ability to post. It's a little better than Reddit, but ultimately the discussion software is so bad it's hard to tell if this works or not. I had forgotten about Metafilter. It's been around since 1999, which is probably the reason for the poor site design. But that also shows that it's possible to create a social news website that doesn't turn to trash within 5 years. I'd say that it's worth giving a Reddit clone with a Metafilter-style pay-to-post system a shot. I'd do it myself, but I don't possess the requisite time or non-technical knowledge. Hopefully someone does, because I could see myself paying $5/month for a social news site that can indefinitely restrict itself to intelligent and on-topic commentary. > I think my ultimate solution will be to return to blogging, and when I read an interesting article, write a detailed response. Then I will ignore the rest of the discussion. I like this option as well, but primarily for a different reason. It's a well-known fact that our brains are plastic, and I've noticed that my shift from reading and writing long-form, thorougly reviewed pieces to short-form comments (like the one I'm writing right now) has severely affected my ability to hunker down and concentrate on detailed work. Perhaps it's just that my expectations aren't that high, but I don't particularly share the OP's commiserations regarding HN. I still think it's a nice site that provides me with news and corresponding insightful commentary on the latest in the startup/tech scene. However, for the sake of my intellect, I probably need to start cutting back on the internet in general and return to reading more books. Unfortunately, the internet is quite the addiction, so it's a bit of a struggle to take the first step ;/

jrockway 15y ago

Metafilter charges you $5 to gain the ability to post. It's a little better than Reddit, but ultimately the discussion software is so bad it's hard to tell if this works or not. Threaded comments encourage back-and-forth and nitpicking over details. Sometimes these become flamewars when people start calling other people names. On the other side of the coin, there is flat commenting. That tends to become one-liners and "like!" instead of anything valuable. The problem with community sites is that communities are not good at enforcing what they want. Stack Overflow is a good example of this: ask a question like "What's your favorite food to eat while programming", and you get a million karma points. Solve someone's super-obscure bug and provide a detailed answer, you get one or two points. I think my ultimate solution will be to return to blogging, and when I read an interesting article, write a detailed response. Then I will ignore the rest of the discussion.

w1ntermute 15y ago
> Metafilter charges you $5 to gain the ability to post. It's a little better than Reddit, but ultimately the discussion software is so bad it's hard to tell if this works or not. I had forgotten about Metafilter. It's been around since 1999, which is probably the reason for the poor site design. But that also shows that it's possible to create a social news website that doesn't turn to trash within 5 years. I'd say that it's worth giving a Reddit clone with a Metafilter-style pay-to-post system a shot. I'd do it myself, but I don't possess the requisite time or non-technical knowledge. Hopefully someone does, because I could see myself paying $5/month for a social news site that can indefinitely restrict itself to intelligent and on-topic commentary. > I think my ultimate solution will be to return to blogging, and when I read an interesting article, write a detailed response. Then I will ignore the rest of the discussion. I like this option as well, but primarily for a different reason. It's a well-known fact that our brains are plastic, and I've noticed that my shift from reading and writing long-form, thorougly reviewed pieces to short-form comments (like the one I'm writing right now) has severely affected my ability to hunker down and concentrate on detailed work. Perhaps it's just that my expectations aren't that high, but I don't particularly share the OP's commiserations regarding HN. I still think it's a nice site that provides me with news and corresponding insightful commentary on the latest in the startup/tech scene. However, for the sake of my intellect, I probably need to start cutting back on the internet in general and return to reading more books. Unfortunately, the internet is quite the addiction, so it's a bit of a struggle to take the first step ;/