7 ms·

I've always found the 90-9-1 rule fascinating. Especially when considering anonymous or semi-anonymous forums such as Hacker News or Reddit. These sites have la

by buwka 5y ago

I've always found the 90-9-1 rule fascinating. Especially when considering anonymous or semi-anonymous forums such as Hacker News or Reddit. These sites have large audiences and don't require users to log in. Therefore, they have an incredible amount of "lurkers" who do not comment, post, or vote. I think voting is an important aspect of content curation. So if a type of individual is more likely to vote, then that type of content will be more prevalent even if it is not necessarily the content the 90% want to see. But they're not voting so they're irrelevant. In turn, the users who do actively post and comment have an amplified affect on what the 90% actually see. I find this to be particularly interesting when the culture of a userbase changes. I've been a long time user of Reddit, however rarely am I ever logged in. Overtime, I've felt that the culture of Reddit has changed to be much more liberal with posting low-effort comments. Many new users post on every post they see, while a previous generation of users may have dismissed that kind of behavior as being "Facebook-like" behavior. I think it may be another factor in the age old rule that the larger a site grows, the more the quality of discussion drops.

howenterprisey 5y ago
I wish more communities these days had "preserving the signal-to-noise ratio" as a cultural value.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I wish there were vastly more online resources and papers dedicated to this topic. Almost every community of value on the Internet degrades into a cesspool. HN is one of the lucky exceptions, although early users might not see it that way. How can an online community avoid this? What techniques can be used? What technology can be used? What skills are needed? How should communities be organized and staffed? I've run online communities with hundreds of thousands of active users. The problem as an owner was that as soon as I wasn't able to moderate it myself I had to hire volunteer moderators from within the userbase. I would slowly step back as this staff took over my workload, but as I created a hierarchy and promoted staff they would all become increasingly power-hungry and dictatorial, without exception. I would end up in a constant churn of having to ban the most senior staff (who would then turn into demons of revenge trying to burn down everything) and again promoting less staff who swore they would not become what they had despised. Surely there must be books on this shit?
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    HN is heavily moderated (unsubstantial comments are flagged or removed) and it only allows people who participate to downvote. A problem with Reddit is that everyone can downvote and it’s gamified so that you want to dogpile on certain posts (it’s easy to just downvote a heavily downvoted post without reading it.) HN on the other hand hides vote count and only starts to fade heavily downvoted posts.
    - freetinker 5y ago
      I find HN’s method pretty effective, and the fading-comment UI implementation delightfully clever.
behnamoh 5y ago
I agree, most content on the internet is either made or moderated by a very small fraction of internet users. This results in a serious selection bias and content that is mostly in line with the creatures' beliefs.
discardedrefuse 5y ago
> I've been a long time user of Reddit, however rarely am I ever logged in How? Why? This seems crazy to me. As a long time Reddit user, I've cultivated a nice list of subreddits specific to my interests; without all the noise. Reddit's default frontpage has become pretty terrible and useless.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  Coming back to Reddit after an eight year break from the Internet, I do not use the front page at all, whereas I would always browse it every morning before. BUT, there has been an explosion of subreddits, some of which are unbelievably high quality with thousands of users even in the most niche interests. This leads to large amounts of content of value being created. I'm very, very happy with where Reddit has gone. Also, porn.
  - 5co 5y ago
    “I’m very, very happy with where Reddit has gone.” Said no-one, ever.
    - discardedrefuse 5y ago
      For better or worse, Reddit has replaced forums, and in a big way. Now even the most niche topic has a subreddit jam packed with a wealth of information. Its like a wikipedia of people knowledge.
      - peakaboo 5y ago
        Lots of censorship going on however. There are sites that show the deleted comments and you can learn a lot about the agenda of reddit from those. It's interesting in its own right.
        discardedrefuse 5y ago
        On reddit, when comments say [deleted] its because the user deleted it themselves. But, yeah, there is censorship on reddit. It's almost always by subreddit mods and not reddit admins.
hanse-den0 5y ago
Of course this will be marked/flagged/censored, but I will try at least to say what I think even if this is kind of hopeless nowadays... > But they're not voting so they're irrelevant. Thank you for this patronizing attitude. TBH I don't vote (and most of the times comment) anymore because I have accepted that my opinion differs too much from most opinions out there so people who run platforms do not want to read it. Even if I do not curse or insult somebody my words will be downvoted, censored etc. so it is just no use to waste my time sharing my opinions and knowledge (yes I have that, too - not just opinions you do not like). You probably come from US or live inside the same bubble the active HN users do. Just created this account some weeks ago to be able to answer again, don't know if my comment will even show up here (I think new accounts are not allowed to post). I prefer Reddit because the users come from different places of the world and have different opinions. It's not a hive like a Borg cube or HN which will try to assimilate you and punish those who think differently. Of course there is toxic communities, too but at least you can go somewhere else and have a normal conversation or exchange knowledge. HN is a stub for the opinion of US patriots, average age 40+ with high salary and very specialized IT know how. Just look at the kind of problems people here discuss about and you see what I mean. Reddit is a public forum where different people talk about things they are interested in. Yes, Reddit is also not a mirror of society and in some cases biased but at least you can speak more freely there. Maybe this is what you expressed with "Facebook-like" behavior but I like that you can use it without needing a PhD to be accepted (so dumb people like me can have and share opinions, too).
- buwka 5y ago
  They're irrelevant because they aren't, to my knowledge, considered in the algorithm of how comments and posts are ranked on Hacker News. It's not an assessment of their value by any means. I'm hoping to emphasize the contrary, that participation is important to the site. I think politics is similar. Many people don't vote and this makes them irrelevant to politicians. They are irrelevant in terms of winning an election. In a place with low voter turnout, the interests of those who do vote is amplified. HN is CS/Tech/Entrepreneurship focused so I don't see a problem with it being a bubble of people who are skilled and participate in these activities. All people are welcome to the site which I think is fantastic but the site has a certain culture. If you don't enjoy hacker news than go to a site whose culture you enjoy more. I frequent here because I enjoy the content more than other forum sites such as poetsandquants or bogleheads or the infinite set of subreddits.

by buwka 5y ago

howenterprisey 5y ago

I wish more communities these days had "preserving the signal-to-noise ratio" as a cultural value.

kingcharles 5y ago
I wish there were vastly more online resources and papers dedicated to this topic. Almost every community of value on the Internet degrades into a cesspool. HN is one of the lucky exceptions, although early users might not see it that way. How can an online community avoid this? What techniques can be used? What technology can be used? What skills are needed? How should communities be organized and staffed? I've run online communities with hundreds of thousands of active users. The problem as an owner was that as soon as I wasn't able to moderate it myself I had to hire volunteer moderators from within the userbase. I would slowly step back as this staff took over my workload, but as I created a hierarchy and promoted staff they would all become increasingly power-hungry and dictatorial, without exception. I would end up in a constant churn of having to ban the most senior staff (who would then turn into demons of revenge trying to burn down everything) and again promoting less staff who swore they would not become what they had despised. Surely there must be books on this shit?
- edgyquant 5y ago
  HN is heavily moderated (unsubstantial comments are flagged or removed) and it only allows people who participate to downvote. A problem with Reddit is that everyone can downvote and it’s gamified so that you want to dogpile on certain posts (it’s easy to just downvote a heavily downvoted post without reading it.) HN on the other hand hides vote count and only starts to fade heavily downvoted posts.
  - freetinker 5y ago
    I find HN’s method pretty effective, and the fading-comment UI implementation delightfully clever.

behnamoh 5y ago

I agree, most content on the internet is either made or moderated by a very small fraction of internet users. This results in a serious selection bias and content that is mostly in line with the creatures' beliefs.

discardedrefuse 5y ago

> I've been a long time user of Reddit, however rarely am I ever logged in How? Why? This seems crazy to me. As a long time Reddit user, I've cultivated a nice list of subreddits specific to my interests; without all the noise. Reddit's default frontpage has become pretty terrible and useless.

kingcharles 5y ago
Coming back to Reddit after an eight year break from the Internet, I do not use the front page at all, whereas I would always browse it every morning before. BUT, there has been an explosion of subreddits, some of which are unbelievably high quality with thousands of users even in the most niche interests. This leads to large amounts of content of value being created. I'm very, very happy with where Reddit has gone. Also, porn.
- 5co 5y ago
  “I’m very, very happy with where Reddit has gone.” Said no-one, ever.
  - discardedrefuse 5y ago
    For better or worse, Reddit has replaced forums, and in a big way. Now even the most niche topic has a subreddit jam packed with a wealth of information. Its like a wikipedia of people knowledge.
    - peakaboo 5y ago
      Lots of censorship going on however. There are sites that show the deleted comments and you can learn a lot about the agenda of reddit from those. It's interesting in its own right.
      - discardedrefuse 5y ago
        On reddit, when comments say [deleted] its because the user deleted it themselves. But, yeah, there is censorship on reddit. It's almost always by subreddit mods and not reddit admins.

hanse-den0 5y ago

Of course this will be marked/flagged/censored, but I will try at least to say what I think even if this is kind of hopeless nowadays... > But they're not voting so they're irrelevant. Thank you for this patronizing attitude. TBH I don't vote (and most of the times comment) anymore because I have accepted that my opinion differs too much from most opinions out there so people who run platforms do not want to read it. Even if I do not curse or insult somebody my words will be downvoted, censored etc. so it is just no use to waste my time sharing my opinions and knowledge (yes I have that, too - not just opinions you do not like). You probably come from US or live inside the same bubble the active HN users do. Just created this account some weeks ago to be able to answer again, don't know if my comment will even show up here (I think new accounts are not allowed to post). I prefer Reddit because the users come from different places of the world and have different opinions. It's not a hive like a Borg cube or HN which will try to assimilate you and punish those who think differently. Of course there is toxic communities, too but at least you can go somewhere else and have a normal conversation or exchange knowledge. HN is a stub for the opinion of US patriots, average age 40+ with high salary and very specialized IT know how. Just look at the kind of problems people here discuss about and you see what I mean. Reddit is a public forum where different people talk about things they are interested in. Yes, Reddit is also not a mirror of society and in some cases biased but at least you can speak more freely there. Maybe this is what you expressed with "Facebook-like" behavior but I like that you can use it without needing a PhD to be accepted (so dumb people like me can have and share opinions, too).

buwka 5y ago
They're irrelevant because they aren't, to my knowledge, considered in the algorithm of how comments and posts are ranked on Hacker News. It's not an assessment of their value by any means. I'm hoping to emphasize the contrary, that participation is important to the site. I think politics is similar. Many people don't vote and this makes them irrelevant to politicians. They are irrelevant in terms of winning an election. In a place with low voter turnout, the interests of those who do vote is amplified. HN is CS/Tech/Entrepreneurship focused so I don't see a problem with it being a bubble of people who are skilled and participate in these activities. All people are welcome to the site which I think is fantastic but the site has a certain culture. If you don't enjoy hacker news than go to a site whose culture you enjoy more. I frequent here because I enjoy the content more than other forum sites such as poetsandquants or bogleheads or the infinite set of subreddits.