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The only way for you to get the "real" HN back is by submitting and upvoting content you deem appropriate. You've done that well previously. Visiting less often
by robg 18y ago
The only way for you to get the "real" HN back is by submitting and upvoting content you deem appropriate. You've done that well previously. Visiting less often is certainly not going to help.
- swombat 18y agoYou're failing to see the positive feedback cycle at work here. 1) Political articles creep in 2) Political articles draw more of the politics crowd 3) Voting power of hacker crowd decreases as a percentage of total votes 4) Submit power of hacker crowd decreases as a percentage of total submits 5) This leads to a slow but steady increase in political articles 6) Go back to 1) This is not a self-correcting system. It can and will happily veer into irrelevance because there are far more politics/reddit type users out there on the internet than there are hackers on HackerNews. Hence why we need to apply conscious control to it, not just "submit and vote more". It is madness to expect the same action in the same circumstances to bring anything other than the same result.
- jon_dahl 18y agoAgreed. As it stands, all it takes for Hacker News to become Reddit is for the hackers to be outvoted by the Reddit crowd. The wildcard factor is PG, who will probably step in more aggressively if and when he thinks quality has slipped too far. Remember that "hacker" can mean a variety of things. For YCombinator, a "hacker" is a smart person who likes to build great things, usually using the medium of software. For other communities, "hacker" might mean script kiddie, or World of Warcraft gamer, or tech fanboy. So even the current standard - on-topic = interesting to hackers - won't necessarily protect HN.
- robg 18y agoHe has said he monitors for drift. That he hasn't "stepped in", speaks volumes to me that it isn't necessary - yet.
- robg 18y agoWhat evidence is there for this feedback loop? The one in a hundred political articles? To me, their relative lack, in the current climate, is proof of the opposite conclusion: The strength of this community. Your loop falls apart at #2 because the posts at #1 seldom make it to the front page. Still, the point remains, the solution isn't fleeing to somewhere else (where the problem will likely repeat). It's sticking around and submitting posts to make the community stronger (by your standards). Technologically, I think the solution is weighting votes by karma. That would give the initial users more say AND make it harder for new users to push the community around. But that's not our decision here.
- biohacker42 18y agoWhat evidence is there for this feedback loop? It is self evident.
- robg 18y agoReally? If it were, I'd think you could point to some actual evidence instead of relying on self-evidence.
- biohacker42 18y agoReddit, Digg, every other community site which started out with a narrowly focused group and then slowly become popular. Is that enough actual real world evidence? I can keep listing social sites, that this has happened to, all day long.
- robg 18y agoYou haven't pointed to evidence of it happening here. One political post every hundred or so (if that - I doubt it) doesn't tell me the sky is falling. Testing the predicted feedback loop, especially for #1 and #2, would seem to required actual evidence of #1 and #2 happening here.
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- edw519 18y agoVisiting less often is certainly not going to help. You're right. I'll try to contribute more. (After a few hundred more LOC.) Feels good just talking about it.