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> Hacker News has so many people on it everyday, which makes me wonder why Slashdot fails in comparison. I also hear that the community at Slashdot is less than

by screye 5y ago

> Hacker News has so many people on it everyday, which makes me wonder why Slashdot fails in comparison. I also hear that the community at Slashdot is less than pleasant, but I'm not sure as to the validity of those claims. > Why is Hacker News so successful while Slashdot has become a relic of internet history? Dang, ruthless moderation and community effects. People underestimate the degree to which peer comments encourage and discourage behaviors in the rest of the participating population. Civility and on-topic-ness are central values of hacker news. The top 5% most active users religiously follow this, and this establishes a clear personality for the platform. This implicitly discourages new users from contributing in a way that strays from those values. There are 2 possible events where this system goes haywire. Slow takeover and viral events. Slow deterioration happens through complacency. Viral events are when there is an overnight migration of new users to your platform, replacing your culture wholesale. Dang's remarkably consistent culture reminders curb the slow deterioration. For the 2nd point, HN has likely never had a major viral event, but culture war threads are often locked quickly and deprioritized. HN is the way it is cause of painstaking effort to keep it the way it is. Don't take it for granted. I try my best to be an honest participant. It is one of the few places that still remind of the old internet. I'm willing to be a obedient child if that means it can stay that way.

dorianmariefr 5y ago
At least a few years ago (maybe 5 or 6 at least) there was a limit on the number of new users per day/hour. I remember coming sometimes from Reddit to Hacker News and not being able to sign up
chefandy 5y ago
I figured I'd check out Slashdot after a decade-plus long hiatus... clicked on a comment section to be greeted by a pages-long scrolling message with some QAnon drivel and dozens of huge ascii swastikas. Flagged it. Never got taken down. Same message in damn near every other story on there. Ok... bye. It's not like they're just being inundated and not able to respond— that site is so low-volume they could hire a task rabbit for $5 every day to go through and delete all of the swastikas and it would drastically less off-putting. Or maybe just require logins? No allow monospaced text in posts? Not sure what signals you'd need to realize your formerly excellent site is a giant moldering dumpster and you should just throw archives from the first 15 years somewhere and call it a day— but I'm pretty confident they were just ignoring those signals like 10 years ago.
- seattle_spring 5y ago
LoveMortuus 5y ago
Also, a thing to note is that HN has user hierarchy, meaning certain users have more power than others, more or less based on karma. Which does mean that if you're thinking an easy of expressing your thought doesn't align well enough with those above you, your experience of HN will be crippled. Like with all things in life, HN could be better, more accepting to different thinking people. There have been times when seeing what gets up voted and what gets down voted really made me think twice about what people that are running this website are actually thinking. Also also, not sure if this is specific only to me or if it happens to others who's first language isn't English but quite often when I ask a question users assume the worst and think that in just trolling and down vote, making the website less useful... But! Compared to pretty much any other content aggregator, HN is, content wise much better, even if the comments experience can get worse then Reddit.
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- yesenadam 5y ago
  > Also, a thing to note is that HN has user hierarchy, meaning certain users have more power than others, more or less based on karma. Which does mean that if you're thinking an easy of expressing your thought doesn't align well enough with those above you, your experience of HN will be crippled. I have no idea what you're talking about here, apparently more than just newbies not being able to downvote - could you give an example or two? Maybe it's just a sinister way of describing being downvoted but not being able to downvote others. > There have been times when seeing what gets up voted and what gets down voted really made me think twice about what people that are running this website are actually thinking. Uh, it's not the "people running the website" who do the voting, not sure what you mean. If you really are curious about what the people running HN are thinking, email dang at hn@ycombinator.com and just ask. It's not a hidden, mysterious, shadowy entity. Or, reading his comments on here for an hour or two should answer most questions. p.s. It seems likely you meant way but typed eay or esy and it was auto-corrected to easy?

by screye 5y ago

dorianmariefr 5y ago

At least a few years ago (maybe 5 or 6 at least) there was a limit on the number of new users per day/hour. I remember coming sometimes from Reddit to Hacker News and not being able to sign up

chefandy 5y ago

I figured I'd check out Slashdot after a decade-plus long hiatus... clicked on a comment section to be greeted by a pages-long scrolling message with some QAnon drivel and dozens of huge ascii swastikas. Flagged it. Never got taken down. Same message in damn near every other story on there. Ok... bye. It's not like they're just being inundated and not able to respond— that site is so low-volume they could hire a task rabbit for $5 every day to go through and delete all of the swastikas and it would drastically less off-putting. Or maybe just require logins? No allow monospaced text in posts? Not sure what signals you'd need to realize your formerly excellent site is a giant moldering dumpster and you should just throw archives from the first 15 years somewhere and call it a day— but I'm pretty confident they were just ignoring those signals like 10 years ago.

seattle_spring 5y ago

LoveMortuus 5y ago

Also, a thing to note is that HN has user hierarchy, meaning certain users have more power than others, more or less based on karma. Which does mean that if you're thinking an easy of expressing your thought doesn't align well enough with those above you, your experience of HN will be crippled. Like with all things in life, HN could be better, more accepting to different thinking people. There have been times when seeing what gets up voted and what gets down voted really made me think twice about what people that are running this website are actually thinking. Also also, not sure if this is specific only to me or if it happens to others who's first language isn't English but quite often when I ask a question users assume the worst and think that in just trolling and down vote, making the website less useful... But! Compared to pretty much any other content aggregator, HN is, content wise much better, even if the comments experience can get worse then Reddit.

deleted 5y ago
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yesenadam 5y ago
> Also, a thing to note is that HN has user hierarchy, meaning certain users have more power than others, more or less based on karma. Which does mean that if you're thinking an easy of expressing your thought doesn't align well enough with those above you, your experience of HN will be crippled. I have no idea what you're talking about here, apparently more than just newbies not being able to downvote - could you give an example or two? Maybe it's just a sinister way of describing being downvoted but not being able to downvote others. > There have been times when seeing what gets up voted and what gets down voted really made me think twice about what people that are running this website are actually thinking. Uh, it's not the "people running the website" who do the voting, not sure what you mean. If you really are curious about what the people running HN are thinking, email dang at hn@ycombinator.com and just ask. It's not a hidden, mysterious, shadowy entity. Or, reading his comments on here for an hour or two should answer most questions. p.s. It seems likely you meant way but typed eay or esy and it was auto-corrected to easy?