10 ms·

Commenting on Hacker News

53 points by superb-owl 4y ago

IIAOPSW 4y ago
I suppose I'll oblige the invitation.
noobermin 4y ago
Ironically posting on new that is likely gaming karma, per the article. I think a few years ago (almost 10, sheesh) when I started out, it was similar. Basically, most of your karma comes from a few very upvoted comments, or ones that are early and garner conversation. I think something like 3 or 4 got me to 500+ (it's been so long that I forgot the threshold for downvoting). Never had luck with article submissions but getting one to front page does give you a lot of karma too, apparently. Also, while "upholding the median political viewpoint" is a surefire way to get upvoted, it is worth noting that that can be a moving target and changes from article to article. Poo-pooing crypto on any average crypto article will garner downvotes if it's in a thread likely to be read by crypto enthusiasts, while shitting on web3.0 on another article about the current collapse of everything crypto will engender karma from people who are skeptical. Anyway, the point isn't that there really isn't any median politics here on HN, just that for some topics, it does vary, while for some it doesn't.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Just post about whatever gripes have with Google in one of weekly "Google Bad" threads.
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  #upvotes !~ effort put into comment either you were one of the first to comment, said something really flame-baity, or were just lucky. most of my high-effort comments fell flat, while I get a +160 from a lucky two sentences.
  - mindcrime 4y ago
    #upvotes !~ effort put into comment Absolutely true in the strictest sense. I've posted very detailed, well researched, citation filled comments in response to questions from people, and gotten absolutely zero upvotes before. OTOH, I've posted borderline flamebait comments that consisted of something like "Fuck the NSA" or whatever, and gotten hundreds of upvotes. That said, I think that on balance higher quality / higher effort posts are more likely to garner upvotes. But it's definitely not a deterministic, linear correlation at all.
    - noobermin 4y ago
      HN has many problems and groupthink like all online communities, but one thing that sets it apart is higher quality effort posts are actually rewarded here because people still are generally curious. It's not deterministic as you said, but there is a correlation. On every other platform save some (some) subreddits, effort posts are anti-correlated with karma. So on net HN is better. Is it the Lyceum, the height of learned, reasoned debate and intellectual curiosity? No, HN is definitely not an ideal but it is certainly better, on net compared with the alternatives, not that the alternatives are harsh competition.
  - cupofpython 4y ago
    effort put into comment !~ value of comment to others
- jandrese 4y ago
  It should be noted that the author's maximially downvoted comment was one that didn't make any sense[1] so it does give another tip on what not to do. [1] Serving web sites off of a blockchain somehow.
- Tomte 4y ago
  > but getting one to front page does give you a lot of karma too, apparently. Don't overestimate that effect. I'd say a hundred or maybe two hundred is realistic, but quite often a front page submission only nets you a dozen. Of course there are outliers in the other direction, but 500 or more is a rare event. You need to keep in mind that karma is discounted, a story that displays n upvotes will add << n points to your account.
mikkergp 4y ago
I've been doing this recently, posting a lot more and looking back at my posts to see what was upvoted. This persons conclusions line up pretty well with my predictions based on analyzing my own highest upvoted comments on HN and reddit. The biggest thing I learned is don't play devil's advocate. Even if it's sincere, don't try to empathize with the other side of the argument. Try to figure out what the "average" (internet points-voter) thinks and say it loud, say it proud. One of my biggest upvotes was on r/politics post, where I posted a direct, forceful and unbeknowingesty satirical support of socialism/socialist policies. If you're on a media subreddit for a TV show. If there's an obvious character to quote or show trope that people like in response to a post, post that quote/trope. Some of my biggest downvotes were explaining to a person who asked in a neoliberal subreddit "Why do leftist politicians" say things they know aren't true or can't justify, and pointing out that they are incentivized to exaggerate, precisely because they don't have political power. I guess I figured out later it was a rhetorical question. And alot of this is in good faith. I'm honestly interested in understanding and discussing the realities of peoples political motivations over and above my own beliefs about them.
- nomel 4y ago
  > And alot of this is in good faith. I'm honestly interested in understanding and discussing the realities of peoples political motivations over and above my own beliefs about them. Related, I really liked the feature on Slashdot where "friends of friends" could be given more visibility, and a karma boost. If I friended you, I would then be exposed to your friends, which I would probably end up valuing, resulting in an amplification of a certain type of mindset across the site. It was a nice way to boost rationality. It would also be a terrible way to make an echo chamber, but to each their own I suppose.
  - sfink 4y ago
    Yeah, I've started very slowly accumulating a list of HN commenters who say nonobvious things that I find value in. Occasionally I'll browse through their comment history, and I'm trying to train myself to recognize when they show up in a comment section. It would be nice to have the site automate some of that. But I recognize that it's tough to do without reinforcing an echo chamber. I don't even wish for a site that would only show me my "blessed community". I like the general commentary to be pretty widely scattered, but I (1) don't want to miss the larger bits of signal, and (2) want to improve my overall cost::benefit ratio. I also definitely don't want the base level to be too widely scattered, or more specifically, too low of an average value.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
In my mind, while Reddit and Twitter are cesspools, I still hold the opinion looking at my upvotes/downvotes that Hacker News is irreparably broken as well, it just is taking a much longer period of time to show the cracks. Hacker News is a superior system, a longer-lasting system, but one that is still declining. Nuanced or well-intentioned but mistaken (or sometimes even accurate) comments are increasingly getting downvoted when unpopular, whether they be mine or others. Downvoting is not a sign that a comment is poor quality, but a sign of simple disagreement even if the person downvoting can't formulate (or does not bother to formulate) a response indicating why. I know that @dang always responds with that FAQ post saying that HN is slowly turning into Reddit is a meme and an illusion as old as the hills, but just saying it isn't does not mean that it isn't. That's the weakest argument from authority there could be. "It's not because I say it isn't."
- silisili 4y ago
  I guess very much YMMV. My experience here has been the opposite. I try not to be aggressive or antagonizing here, hard as it is via text, but at times have written things that came across as rude and things that were not popular opinions. Most of the time one or more people would take the time to respond explaining why they feel I'm incorrect, or telling me I'm being harsh. And my upvotes usually just sit at 1, despite perhaps having 5 or more disagreement comments. Compare that to Reddit, where even mentioning anything against the hivemind, such as disagreeing with a liberal cause, will get you downvoted to oblivion, sometimes even banned.
  - superb-owl 4y ago
    I think it'd be nice to have emoji on here, even if it'd break the aesthetic a bit. They add just enough extra nuance and color that it can diffuse matter-of-fact statements and completely change an interaction. Honestly if I didn't have emojis in Slack I'd have a much worse relationship with coworkers
    - silisili 4y ago
      I find myself using the old text emojis or whatever they are called here :). Kinda a blast from the past, since every other platform insists on inserting some object. Part of me wonders how long until kids have no idea what those ascii symbols mean.
hourago 4y ago
> almost half of the Karma (325 points) comes from only seven comments Zipf's law.
orange5 4y ago
- onion2k 4y ago
  I don't understand. Could you explain in more simple terms?
  - someweirdperson 4y ago
    I had no idea what ELI5 is either, but after asking $searchengine I have no idea why your post is at reduced saturation. It's either a) extremely funny, or b) shows that you are too lazy to search (like many are, myself included), or c) an experiment to verify the karma gain through posts asking for an explanation. The most likely explanation for the downvote I can think of is that the downvoter perceived it as c) and wants to mess the result of your experiment.
    - onion2k 4y ago
      I did mean it as a joke. Jokes on HN often get downvotes. I think it's because I'm British and my sense of humour is hard for Americans to know when I'm joking. Or I'm not very funny. Probably the first one.
- gavinray 4y ago
  ELI5 requests don't give much karma IME I don't know about a lot of things, so I do it often and I've never gotten more than a few points
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pwython 4y ago
Relative to this, I've seriously thought about whipping up a funny little website that displays a sort of meter showing positive/negative reception for every HN post based on the top comments using sentiment analysis. I was curious because it seems like whenever I check the comments on a post the top comment is like "ackchyually..."
- EddySchauHai 4y ago
  It really is! I used to get dragged in on them but made a new account with the premise of not falling for those flamewars and to try create more than I consume. I’ll still write a response to an “ackchyually…” post but catch myself and delete it before I send. Life isn’t long enough for those ‘discussions’ :)
- cupofpython 4y ago
  > whenever I check the comments on a post the top comment is like "ackchyually..." I attribute this to the quality of the source material. there's a limit to how much the linked article can reasonably convey while still being an introduction to whatever is being talked about. Very rarely, if ever, is a website article posted that requires prerequisite reading of a different article. So nuance usually gets shafted a bit, and in-depth research postponed, to keep the article easy to read. it then gets posted here and inevitably someone has something to say about the nuance
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
IMO as a long time HN reader and poster, the rise in strident un-nuanced posts affirming moral or political opinions is really bringing down the quality of the site. I still defend HN as a good site with a variety of expert technical opinions, but these affirmation posts just turns HN into the worst of Twitter.
- desindol 4y ago
  It was always in the dna of hackernews…
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Sure. I'm just saying it's getting worse. Or at least, that's my subjective observation.
    - TimTheTinker 4y ago
      I really depends. There's a long-running, recurrent myth that HN is becoming like reddit. I think the real cause of what you're observing is that users on HN go through cycles of enculturation, which can include being modded by dang (or challenged/flagged by other users) for crossing the line. I used to feel frustrated that HN is very limited in its scope of what's allowed -- "curiosity only" which often excludes issues that really matter to me. It can take a while for users to really get that here. But on the other hand, it has allowed an extremely unique anonymous online community to thrive in its own way, and keep us coming back out of curiosity and a desire to learn.
      - MegaButts 4y ago
        > There's a long-running, recurrent myth that HN is becoming like reddit. Have you considered the possibility that the reason the myth is pervasive is because it's true, and over time HN is becoming more and more like reddit? It seems to me if the users continually complain about the same problem, maybe there's something there. "No, it's the users that are wrong!" requires a lot more than handwaving if you want me to take you seriously. As someone who's been using HN for years, I absolutely believe it becomes more like reddit over time.
treis 4y ago
The bar charts would be better as scatter plots.
- superb-owl 4y ago
  Agreed! I timeboxed this, but specifically I would love to see a scatter plot showing number of descendants vs score
themodelplumber 4y ago
At 1001 karma you should get a sidevote button. It is a prompt to look beyond the typical emotional response. Sometimes up or down aren't important. But it would help things if the comment could move aside for now. (Then at 10,001 karma there's the ability to super-upvote a comment, contingent upon its removal to a different website where it would be REALLY relevant... Would be nice if the web could be this integrative)
rockbruno 4y ago
> nuanced comments, or comments that defend both sides of an argument, tend to get ignored or downvoted. Which is sad, but makes sense—the supporters of either side are the ones who care enough to interact, and they’re not going to signal-boost the opposition. I actually don't think this is entirely true. I definitely sometimes see people using downvotes as a "I don't like this, fuck you" button a-la Reddit, but most of the times I feel that HN is very civilized when it comes to using the downvote button.
- superb-owl 4y ago
  Agreed - I think they mainly get ignored. I mostly see things downvoted that are factually wrong, or just generally abrasive and tone-deaf.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    I can't know but I think I see a fair amount of downvotes arising from misunderstanding. I am excluding my own downvotes received and given and only thinking of examples where I was a bystander (except that I probably upvoted someone to counter what I thought was undeserved downvotes). I can't know that someone else misunderstood a comment, or that I understood a comment of course, so I just leave my own comment saying "I interpreted that this way...." But I have seen some truely inexplicable torpedoing of the most innocuous comments. I never get an answer to "I don't know why you're downvoted..." Please assume that I know the difference between interesting or valuable and flies my team colors, or at least gave conscious thought to it, in this talk about deserved/undeserved, understood/misunderstood.
Barrera 4y ago
> Choosing to post anonymously, rather than using my real name, made things much easier. I’ve occasionally commented under my real name, and am embarrassed looking back at my post history. There’s nothing terrible, but I’m sure some of my colleagues and friends have stumbled upon it and smirked. This might be projection or paranoia, but it causes enough anxiety to deter me from posting regularly. One thing that pseudonymity will do is allow you support positions you don't actually hold. To steel man them. To really stretch your brain to find the best way to present and argue in favor of them. Doing so pseudonymously means never having to explain yourself to friends, family, employers, or three-letter organizations later. This also works really well for positions you're leaning toward but don't know why. Or half-baked ideas you'd like someone to respond to. Or just questions that you're embarrassed to ask. This may not fit with the letter of the HN guidelines, depending on the distinctions between "throwaway," "pseudonym," and "temporary pseudonym": > Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html But I think it fits with the spirit. From "What to Post?": > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  > One thing that pseudonymity will do is allow you support positions you don't actually hold. To steel man them. To really stretch your brain to find the best way to present and argue in favor of them. Doing so pseudonymously means never having to explain yourself to friends, family, employers, or three-letter organizations later. Anonymous posts also allow honesty which might otherwise be impossible. Job safety, physical safety, and protection against embarrassment etc are potentially easier when anonymous. I have a generally pessimistic outlook but do see a positive here.
  - mercer 4y ago
    Indeed! I would never discuss my micro-penis and erectile dysfunction without using a throwaway account like this one. EDIT: oops
affgrff2 4y ago
A long time as a lurker I was actually thinking that HN would not accumulate the karma people are gaining. Maybe that was silly, but I had the idea of people are not here for fake internet points. I am wondering what would happen if karma wouldn't actually accumulate.
vannevar 4y ago
I think limiting the number of upvotes and downvotes a user has per day, with maybe a sliding scale for karma, would vastly improve HN. It would slow down the voting circles considerably and make fake accounts much less valuable to marketing types and political action groups. Making the order of posts probabilistic instead of strictly ordering by upvotes would also improve the site, making the first post less significant and avoiding some of the rich-get-richer effect noted in the article.
lapcat 4y ago
I don't think you can really compare HN to Reddit and Twitter, because HN has essentially one experience for everyone (or at most two experiences for everyone, if you count /newest as a separate experience, which the article discusses), whereas Reddit and Twitter are what you make of them, especially Twitter. You decide which subreddits to read, you decide which Twitter accounts to follow (and whether to use Latest Tweets or "Home"). The Reddit or Twitter experience for one individual can be entirely different than for another individual. It's all too easy to take the worst parts of Reddit or Twitter and claim HN is better, but Reddit and Twitter have a lot more self-curation than HN.
- ansible 4y ago
  > ... or at most two experiences for everyone ... Or three or four, if you count the people who have been shadowbanned, and the people who enable viewing from shadowbanned accounts. But those two groups seem to be in the minority. I do like the approach https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs takes, where there aren't separate subreddits, but instead just tags for various articles. You can then browse by tags, or inversely, exclude them from the home page.
jackconsidine 4y ago
TIL a 501 Karma gets you a downvote [0] [0] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvoting-comments https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvo...
jacooper 4y ago
As a relatively new commer to HN, i can say overall I agree. I signed up here because i was fedup with reddit, I am just fed up with all the politics, Thr extreme US focus and the reddit culture. It began affecting my life, and I wasn't happy about it. For example I knew more about the US than I should, and the constant negative "the world is ending" news from the US media were very negative. I still use reddit, its a very good platform if used correctly(only for niches), subreddits like r/selfhosting, r/homelab and others are a goldmine of good discussions and valuable info. But i stopped following trending or any general/humor subs, and decided to focus more on Tech, and replace US stations with world wide news , because generally all they do is doom and gloom, and us vs them. I realize the bias of US focused news is obviously coming from the English language, but it helps to diversify, and when possible use sources in another language. My experience mimcks OP, its a very rich and detailed platform about tech, and I think its like this because of the webiste design, and the things you have to care about to know HN. The moderation on HN is mostly pretty good, and I think it certainly helps that the mods are also HN users. I had my fair share of down votes, particularly about The Occupation in Palestine, but it was expected and I stand by my comments. I signed up as an anon, because its easier to post things that truthfully represent you without being worried about how it might affect your job 10 years later, and what the new trends might be that far in the future. I have a real name account, but its not as successful as this one, because I'm not really ready to comment on everything, also I really got lucky with that Proton post :). Also one note, I really wouldn't be able to use HN without the Awesome app called Glider, its an open source HN client on Android, and its really really good, especially for someone coming from infinity for reddit. Its has bugs, but in general its pretty good.
- ansible 4y ago
  In the last year, I have joined https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs which is relatively low-volume, but tends towards high quality. It is entirely tech / programming focused, and politics and such are not allowed. It is an invite-only membership, so you have to know someone who will extend to you an invite. Since their account is listed as the sponsor for your own account (forever), your reputation will affect your sponsor's. Not automatically, but if the site admins see a particular person inviting a bunch of yaboos, there will be some kind of consequences. I too mostly don't use reddit for the mainstream subs, but instead of niche stuff like /r/RISCV and /r/rust.
haskell_melody 4y ago
One thing I've noticed: US-based commenters are much more negative and cynical than anyone else. I've made posts (under a previous username) when the US folks were asleep and got great, helpful replies, only to get much more negative, less nuanced comments once the US woke up.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Didn't you read the article and guidance? This will only attract downvotes. You've stated a political opinion which on HN is any opinion contrary to HN's libertarian US techno-capitalism with bare minimum virtue signalling. I'll upvote you for limited counterbalancing.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  > when the US folks were asleep That's just the US night-owls being helpful before turning in for their daily sleep. Then the grumpy I-need-coffee crowd comes in swinging. (only partly kidding)
sytelus 4y ago
The best way to game HN is just be "nice guy", go along with everyone and only say nice things. For example, you can create a comment to this post that HN is just great, thank dang for his hard work and watch karma pouring in. If you are contrarian, you will soon be at the bottom of the page greyed out.
superb-owl 4y ago
New karma farming stratagem: post original content about HN Super happy to see all the discussion in here! Will hopefully have time to reply later
- theteapot 4y ago
  People with over 501 karma. Please down vote the shit out of this post and wreck this guy's karma (hopefully that's how it works ...). Fuck karma, and Fuck karma farmers.
- Brendinooo 4y ago
  Complaining about Electron is probably a faster approach
cosmiccatnap 4y ago
I find that there are many things controlling this not covered here. 1. Fanboys - if an article about an apple product is posted, the very idea of constructive criticism is somehow an affront to Steve's ghost. Same can be said for everyone except Google which seems to be the universal punching bag regardless. 2. Shilling - I'm glad that you are the creater of BloatJS and are willing to answer any questions that show your product in a positive light but you are also on the front page of /r/technology and 20 other blogs because you are trying to get VC funding. Maybe a few of these would be fine but it's hard not to see this suspiciously sitting in the top 5 on any given day and then see the author fumbling to answer the universal question of "what did this solve?" 3. Astroturfing - pick any major article, pick your poison, you will find the comment section littered with suites of all shapes and pay doing damage control with unsubstantiated claims that then cause argument loops that derail useful conversation. Someone will ask for a summery and a well thought out response will get a few bumps, meanwhile Tom who works in marketing has 136 replies to his "rebuttal" that things are fine at BloatSoft and word to the contrary is simply twitters fault. It's not just HN it's any site that gets sufficiently big but the saddest part for me is how transparent it is. The size causes people who don't use these technologies to lurk around all day and people who make them to defend it all day and the margin of actual people who don't have some axe to grind gets fewer and fewer until they, intelligently, realize one day it's all fluff and not worth their time. People get called out for just reading the headlines of articles but when half of them are false advertisement and a good chunk of them are just literal ads no wonder...and mercy be upon anyone coming to the comment section for clarity.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
There's probably some organized downloading going on in crypto discussions. I get Musk downvotes, he's so polarizing. Why would sociopaths making fintech fraudcoins not defend their cryptoscams in public? It would be job one for something whose value is completely fabricated and perception based.
bookofjoe 4y ago
Who invented the wonderful phrase "karma farming?"
theteapot 4y ago
My comment: What is this actually about?
- jiveturkey 4y ago
  What is any personal blogging about?
  - theteapot 4y ago
    Just seems like an aimless and unsatisfying piece of writing. I guess others must have got something from it. I felt like I was wasting my time.
    - jiveturkey 4y ago
      I was thinking more meta. It's for the writer to solidify their own thoughts, not to reveal the wisdom of the universe. I can guarantee this was satisfying to the writer.
karaterobot 4y ago
HN should make displaying your karma in the header optional. I see no benefits to it other than creating a score some people want to game. In theory this would be good, if the way to game the score was to write thoughtful and helpful comments. In practice, as noted in this post: > Affirming the political and moral opinions of the average HN reader is the easiest way to get upvotes. It's easy enough to hide this text using something like uBlock, but I'd rather it were just a thing everybody could toggle. Maybe even turn it off by default.
wrayjustin 4y ago
> Posting somehow felt both beneath and above me—there’s so much brilliance and nonsense in the comment section Relatable. I rarely post or comment, as when I have something to contribute to the conversation I usually cannot (NDA, etc.). And for the times I could post, I don't really have anything of value to say; echoing into the void and all. But then I do get value from the comment sections, oftentimes more than the original post/content. So thank you to those who do comment and contribute!
anotherevan 4y ago
I'm not sure HN has made me less ignorant, but I believe it has made me ignorant on a higher level and about more important things.

53 points by superb-owl 4y ago

I suppose I'll oblige the invitation.

Ironically posting on new that is likely gaming karma, per the article. I think a few years ago (almost 10, sheesh) when I started out, it was similar. Basically, most of your karma comes from a few very upvoted comments, or ones that are early and garner conversation. I think something like 3 or 4 got me to 500+ (it's been so long that I forgot the threshold for downvoting). Never had luck with article submissions but getting one to front page does give you a lot of karma too, apparently. Also, while "upholding the median political viewpoint" is a surefire way to get upvoted, it is worth noting that that can be a moving target and changes from article to article. Poo-pooing crypto on any average crypto article will garner downvotes if it's in a thread likely to be read by crypto enthusiasts, while shitting on web3.0 on another article about the current collapse of everything crypto will engender karma from people who are skeptical. Anyway, the point isn't that there really isn't any median politics here on HN, just that for some topics, it does vary, while for some it doesn't.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Just post about whatever gripes have with Google in one of weekly "Google Bad" threads.
jonnycomputer 4y ago
#upvotes !~ effort put into comment either you were one of the first to comment, said something really flame-baity, or were just lucky. most of my high-effort comments fell flat, while I get a +160 from a lucky two sentences.
- mindcrime 4y ago
  #upvotes !~ effort put into comment Absolutely true in the strictest sense. I've posted very detailed, well researched, citation filled comments in response to questions from people, and gotten absolutely zero upvotes before. OTOH, I've posted borderline flamebait comments that consisted of something like "Fuck the NSA" or whatever, and gotten hundreds of upvotes. That said, I think that on balance higher quality / higher effort posts are more likely to garner upvotes. But it's definitely not a deterministic, linear correlation at all.
  - noobermin 4y ago
    HN has many problems and groupthink like all online communities, but one thing that sets it apart is higher quality effort posts are actually rewarded here because people still are generally curious. It's not deterministic as you said, but there is a correlation. On every other platform save some (some) subreddits, effort posts are anti-correlated with karma. So on net HN is better. Is it the Lyceum, the height of learned, reasoned debate and intellectual curiosity? No, HN is definitely not an ideal but it is certainly better, on net compared with the alternatives, not that the alternatives are harsh competition.
- cupofpython 4y ago
  effort put into comment !~ value of comment to others
jandrese 4y ago
It should be noted that the author's maximially downvoted comment was one that didn't make any sense[1] so it does give another tip on what not to do. [1] Serving web sites off of a blockchain somehow.
Tomte 4y ago
> but getting one to front page does give you a lot of karma too, apparently. Don't overestimate that effect. I'd say a hundred or maybe two hundred is realistic, but quite often a front page submission only nets you a dozen. Of course there are outliers in the other direction, but 500 or more is a rare event. You need to keep in mind that karma is discounted, a story that displays n upvotes will add << n points to your account.

mikkergp 4y ago

I've been doing this recently, posting a lot more and looking back at my posts to see what was upvoted. This persons conclusions line up pretty well with my predictions based on analyzing my own highest upvoted comments on HN and reddit. The biggest thing I learned is don't play devil's advocate. Even if it's sincere, don't try to empathize with the other side of the argument. Try to figure out what the "average" (internet points-voter) thinks and say it loud, say it proud. One of my biggest upvotes was on r/politics post, where I posted a direct, forceful and unbeknowingesty satirical support of socialism/socialist policies. If you're on a media subreddit for a TV show. If there's an obvious character to quote or show trope that people like in response to a post, post that quote/trope. Some of my biggest downvotes were explaining to a person who asked in a neoliberal subreddit "Why do leftist politicians" say things they know aren't true or can't justify, and pointing out that they are incentivized to exaggerate, precisely because they don't have political power. I guess I figured out later it was a rhetorical question. And alot of this is in good faith. I'm honestly interested in understanding and discussing the realities of peoples political motivations over and above my own beliefs about them.

nomel 4y ago
> And alot of this is in good faith. I'm honestly interested in understanding and discussing the realities of peoples political motivations over and above my own beliefs about them. Related, I really liked the feature on Slashdot where "friends of friends" could be given more visibility, and a karma boost. If I friended you, I would then be exposed to your friends, which I would probably end up valuing, resulting in an amplification of a certain type of mindset across the site. It was a nice way to boost rationality. It would also be a terrible way to make an echo chamber, but to each their own I suppose.
- sfink 4y ago
  Yeah, I've started very slowly accumulating a list of HN commenters who say nonobvious things that I find value in. Occasionally I'll browse through their comment history, and I'm trying to train myself to recognize when they show up in a comment section. It would be nice to have the site automate some of that. But I recognize that it's tough to do without reinforcing an echo chamber. I don't even wish for a site that would only show me my "blessed community". I like the general commentary to be pretty widely scattered, but I (1) don't want to miss the larger bits of signal, and (2) want to improve my overall cost::benefit ratio. I also definitely don't want the base level to be too widely scattered, or more specifically, too low of an average value.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

In my mind, while Reddit and Twitter are cesspools, I still hold the opinion looking at my upvotes/downvotes that Hacker News is irreparably broken as well, it just is taking a much longer period of time to show the cracks. Hacker News is a superior system, a longer-lasting system, but one that is still declining. Nuanced or well-intentioned but mistaken (or sometimes even accurate) comments are increasingly getting downvoted when unpopular, whether they be mine or others. Downvoting is not a sign that a comment is poor quality, but a sign of simple disagreement even if the person downvoting can't formulate (or does not bother to formulate) a response indicating why. I know that @dang always responds with that FAQ post saying that HN is slowly turning into Reddit is a meme and an illusion as old as the hills, but just saying it isn't does not mean that it isn't. That's the weakest argument from authority there could be. "It's not because I say it isn't."

silisili 4y ago
I guess very much YMMV. My experience here has been the opposite. I try not to be aggressive or antagonizing here, hard as it is via text, but at times have written things that came across as rude and things that were not popular opinions. Most of the time one or more people would take the time to respond explaining why they feel I'm incorrect, or telling me I'm being harsh. And my upvotes usually just sit at 1, despite perhaps having 5 or more disagreement comments. Compare that to Reddit, where even mentioning anything against the hivemind, such as disagreeing with a liberal cause, will get you downvoted to oblivion, sometimes even banned.
- superb-owl 4y ago
  I think it'd be nice to have emoji on here, even if it'd break the aesthetic a bit. They add just enough extra nuance and color that it can diffuse matter-of-fact statements and completely change an interaction. Honestly if I didn't have emojis in Slack I'd have a much worse relationship with coworkers
  - silisili 4y ago
    I find myself using the old text emojis or whatever they are called here :). Kinda a blast from the past, since every other platform insists on inserting some object. Part of me wonders how long until kids have no idea what those ascii symbols mean.

hourago 4y ago

> almost half of the Karma (325 points) comes from only seven comments Zipf's law.

orange5 4y ago

onion2k 4y ago
I don't understand. Could you explain in more simple terms?
- someweirdperson 4y ago
  I had no idea what ELI5 is either, but after asking $searchengine I have no idea why your post is at reduced saturation. It's either a) extremely funny, or b) shows that you are too lazy to search (like many are, myself included), or c) an experiment to verify the karma gain through posts asking for an explanation. The most likely explanation for the downvote I can think of is that the downvoter perceived it as c) and wants to mess the result of your experiment.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    I did mean it as a joke. Jokes on HN often get downvotes. I think it's because I'm British and my sense of humour is hard for Americans to know when I'm joking. Or I'm not very funny. Probably the first one.
gavinray 4y ago
ELI5 requests don't give much karma IME I don't know about a lot of things, so I do it often and I've never gotten more than a few points

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pwython 4y ago

Relative to this, I've seriously thought about whipping up a funny little website that displays a sort of meter showing positive/negative reception for every HN post based on the top comments using sentiment analysis. I was curious because it seems like whenever I check the comments on a post the top comment is like "ackchyually..."

EddySchauHai 4y ago
It really is! I used to get dragged in on them but made a new account with the premise of not falling for those flamewars and to try create more than I consume. I’ll still write a response to an “ackchyually…” post but catch myself and delete it before I send. Life isn’t long enough for those ‘discussions’ :)
cupofpython 4y ago
> whenever I check the comments on a post the top comment is like "ackchyually..." I attribute this to the quality of the source material. there's a limit to how much the linked article can reasonably convey while still being an introduction to whatever is being talked about. Very rarely, if ever, is a website article posted that requires prerequisite reading of a different article. So nuance usually gets shafted a bit, and in-depth research postponed, to keep the article easy to read. it then gets posted here and inevitably someone has something to say about the nuance

Karrot_Kream 4y ago

IMO as a long time HN reader and poster, the rise in strident un-nuanced posts affirming moral or political opinions is really bringing down the quality of the site. I still defend HN as a good site with a variety of expert technical opinions, but these affirmation posts just turns HN into the worst of Twitter.

desindol 4y ago
It was always in the dna of hackernews…
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Sure. I'm just saying it's getting worse. Or at least, that's my subjective observation.
  - TimTheTinker 4y ago
    I really depends. There's a long-running, recurrent myth that HN is becoming like reddit. I think the real cause of what you're observing is that users on HN go through cycles of enculturation, which can include being modded by dang (or challenged/flagged by other users) for crossing the line. I used to feel frustrated that HN is very limited in its scope of what's allowed -- "curiosity only" which often excludes issues that really matter to me. It can take a while for users to really get that here. But on the other hand, it has allowed an extremely unique anonymous online community to thrive in its own way, and keep us coming back out of curiosity and a desire to learn.
    - MegaButts 4y ago
      > There's a long-running, recurrent myth that HN is becoming like reddit. Have you considered the possibility that the reason the myth is pervasive is because it's true, and over time HN is becoming more and more like reddit? It seems to me if the users continually complain about the same problem, maybe there's something there. "No, it's the users that are wrong!" requires a lot more than handwaving if you want me to take you seriously. As someone who's been using HN for years, I absolutely believe it becomes more like reddit over time.

treis 4y ago

The bar charts would be better as scatter plots.

superb-owl 4y ago
Agreed! I timeboxed this, but specifically I would love to see a scatter plot showing number of descendants vs score

themodelplumber 4y ago

At 1001 karma you should get a sidevote button. It is a prompt to look beyond the typical emotional response. Sometimes up or down aren't important. But it would help things if the comment could move aside for now. (Then at 10,001 karma there's the ability to super-upvote a comment, contingent upon its removal to a different website where it would be REALLY relevant... Would be nice if the web could be this integrative)

rockbruno 4y ago

> nuanced comments, or comments that defend both sides of an argument, tend to get ignored or downvoted. Which is sad, but makes sense—the supporters of either side are the ones who care enough to interact, and they’re not going to signal-boost the opposition. I actually don't think this is entirely true. I definitely sometimes see people using downvotes as a "I don't like this, fuck you" button a-la Reddit, but most of the times I feel that HN is very civilized when it comes to using the downvote button.

superb-owl 4y ago
Agreed - I think they mainly get ignored. I mostly see things downvoted that are factually wrong, or just generally abrasive and tone-deaf.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  I can't know but I think I see a fair amount of downvotes arising from misunderstanding. I am excluding my own downvotes received and given and only thinking of examples where I was a bystander (except that I probably upvoted someone to counter what I thought was undeserved downvotes). I can't know that someone else misunderstood a comment, or that I understood a comment of course, so I just leave my own comment saying "I interpreted that this way...." But I have seen some truely inexplicable torpedoing of the most innocuous comments. I never get an answer to "I don't know why you're downvoted..." Please assume that I know the difference between interesting or valuable and flies my team colors, or at least gave conscious thought to it, in this talk about deserved/undeserved, understood/misunderstood.

Barrera 4y ago

> Choosing to post anonymously, rather than using my real name, made things much easier. I’ve occasionally commented under my real name, and am embarrassed looking back at my post history. There’s nothing terrible, but I’m sure some of my colleagues and friends have stumbled upon it and smirked. This might be projection or paranoia, but it causes enough anxiety to deter me from posting regularly. One thing that pseudonymity will do is allow you support positions you don't actually hold. To steel man them. To really stretch your brain to find the best way to present and argue in favor of them. Doing so pseudonymously means never having to explain yourself to friends, family, employers, or three-letter organizations later. This also works really well for positions you're leaning toward but don't know why. Or half-baked ideas you'd like someone to respond to. Or just questions that you're embarrassed to ask. This may not fit with the letter of the HN guidelines, depending on the distinctions between "throwaway," "pseudonym," and "temporary pseudonym": > Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html But I think it fits with the spirit. From "What to Post?": > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

lostlogin 4y ago
> One thing that pseudonymity will do is allow you support positions you don't actually hold. To steel man them. To really stretch your brain to find the best way to present and argue in favor of them. Doing so pseudonymously means never having to explain yourself to friends, family, employers, or three-letter organizations later. Anonymous posts also allow honesty which might otherwise be impossible. Job safety, physical safety, and protection against embarrassment etc are potentially easier when anonymous. I have a generally pessimistic outlook but do see a positive here.
- mercer 4y ago
  Indeed! I would never discuss my micro-penis and erectile dysfunction without using a throwaway account like this one. EDIT: oops

affgrff2 4y ago

A long time as a lurker I was actually thinking that HN would not accumulate the karma people are gaining. Maybe that was silly, but I had the idea of people are not here for fake internet points. I am wondering what would happen if karma wouldn't actually accumulate.

vannevar 4y ago

I think limiting the number of upvotes and downvotes a user has per day, with maybe a sliding scale for karma, would vastly improve HN. It would slow down the voting circles considerably and make fake accounts much less valuable to marketing types and political action groups. Making the order of posts probabilistic instead of strictly ordering by upvotes would also improve the site, making the first post less significant and avoiding some of the rich-get-richer effect noted in the article.

lapcat 4y ago

I don't think you can really compare HN to Reddit and Twitter, because HN has essentially one experience for everyone (or at most two experiences for everyone, if you count /newest as a separate experience, which the article discusses), whereas Reddit and Twitter are what you make of them, especially Twitter. You decide which subreddits to read, you decide which Twitter accounts to follow (and whether to use Latest Tweets or "Home"). The Reddit or Twitter experience for one individual can be entirely different than for another individual. It's all too easy to take the worst parts of Reddit or Twitter and claim HN is better, but Reddit and Twitter have a lot more self-curation than HN.

ansible 4y ago
> ... or at most two experiences for everyone ... Or three or four, if you count the people who have been shadowbanned, and the people who enable viewing from shadowbanned accounts. But those two groups seem to be in the minority. I do like the approach https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs takes, where there aren't separate subreddits, but instead just tags for various articles. You can then browse by tags, or inversely, exclude them from the home page.

jackconsidine 4y ago

TIL a 501 Karma gets you a downvote [0] [0] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvoting-comments https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvo...

jacooper 4y ago

As a relatively new commer to HN, i can say overall I agree. I signed up here because i was fedup with reddit, I am just fed up with all the politics, Thr extreme US focus and the reddit culture. It began affecting my life, and I wasn't happy about it. For example I knew more about the US than I should, and the constant negative "the world is ending" news from the US media were very negative. I still use reddit, its a very good platform if used correctly(only for niches), subreddits like r/selfhosting, r/homelab and others are a goldmine of good discussions and valuable info. But i stopped following trending or any general/humor subs, and decided to focus more on Tech, and replace US stations with world wide news , because generally all they do is doom and gloom, and us vs them. I realize the bias of US focused news is obviously coming from the English language, but it helps to diversify, and when possible use sources in another language. My experience mimcks OP, its a very rich and detailed platform about tech, and I think its like this because of the webiste design, and the things you have to care about to know HN. The moderation on HN is mostly pretty good, and I think it certainly helps that the mods are also HN users. I had my fair share of down votes, particularly about The Occupation in Palestine, but it was expected and I stand by my comments. I signed up as an anon, because its easier to post things that truthfully represent you without being worried about how it might affect your job 10 years later, and what the new trends might be that far in the future. I have a real name account, but its not as successful as this one, because I'm not really ready to comment on everything, also I really got lucky with that Proton post :). Also one note, I really wouldn't be able to use HN without the Awesome app called Glider, its an open source HN client on Android, and its really really good, especially for someone coming from infinity for reddit. Its has bugs, but in general its pretty good.

ansible 4y ago
In the last year, I have joined https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs which is relatively low-volume, but tends towards high quality. It is entirely tech / programming focused, and politics and such are not allowed. It is an invite-only membership, so you have to know someone who will extend to you an invite. Since their account is listed as the sponsor for your own account (forever), your reputation will affect your sponsor's. Not automatically, but if the site admins see a particular person inviting a bunch of yaboos, there will be some kind of consequences. I too mostly don't use reddit for the mainstream subs, but instead of niche stuff like /r/RISCV and /r/rust.

haskell_melody 4y ago

One thing I've noticed: US-based commenters are much more negative and cynical than anyone else. I've made posts (under a previous username) when the US folks were asleep and got great, helpful replies, only to get much more negative, less nuanced comments once the US woke up.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Didn't you read the article and guidance? This will only attract downvotes. You've stated a political opinion which on HN is any opinion contrary to HN's libertarian US techno-capitalism with bare minimum virtue signalling. I'll upvote you for limited counterbalancing.
B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
> when the US folks were asleep That's just the US night-owls being helpful before turning in for their daily sleep. Then the grumpy I-need-coffee crowd comes in swinging. (only partly kidding)

sytelus 4y ago

The best way to game HN is just be "nice guy", go along with everyone and only say nice things. For example, you can create a comment to this post that HN is just great, thank dang for his hard work and watch karma pouring in. If you are contrarian, you will soon be at the bottom of the page greyed out.

superb-owl 4y ago

New karma farming stratagem: post original content about HN Super happy to see all the discussion in here! Will hopefully have time to reply later

theteapot 4y ago
People with over 501 karma. Please down vote the shit out of this post and wreck this guy's karma (hopefully that's how it works ...). Fuck karma, and Fuck karma farmers.
Brendinooo 4y ago
Complaining about Electron is probably a faster approach

cosmiccatnap 4y ago

I find that there are many things controlling this not covered here. 1. Fanboys - if an article about an apple product is posted, the very idea of constructive criticism is somehow an affront to Steve's ghost. Same can be said for everyone except Google which seems to be the universal punching bag regardless. 2. Shilling - I'm glad that you are the creater of BloatJS and are willing to answer any questions that show your product in a positive light but you are also on the front page of /r/technology and 20 other blogs because you are trying to get VC funding. Maybe a few of these would be fine but it's hard not to see this suspiciously sitting in the top 5 on any given day and then see the author fumbling to answer the universal question of "what did this solve?" 3. Astroturfing - pick any major article, pick your poison, you will find the comment section littered with suites of all shapes and pay doing damage control with unsubstantiated claims that then cause argument loops that derail useful conversation. Someone will ask for a summery and a well thought out response will get a few bumps, meanwhile Tom who works in marketing has 136 replies to his "rebuttal" that things are fine at BloatSoft and word to the contrary is simply twitters fault. It's not just HN it's any site that gets sufficiently big but the saddest part for me is how transparent it is. The size causes people who don't use these technologies to lurk around all day and people who make them to defend it all day and the margin of actual people who don't have some axe to grind gets fewer and fewer until they, intelligently, realize one day it's all fluff and not worth their time. People get called out for just reading the headlines of articles but when half of them are false advertisement and a good chunk of them are just literal ads no wonder...and mercy be upon anyone coming to the comment section for clarity.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

There's probably some organized downloading going on in crypto discussions. I get Musk downvotes, he's so polarizing. Why would sociopaths making fintech fraudcoins not defend their cryptoscams in public? It would be job one for something whose value is completely fabricated and perception based.

bookofjoe 4y ago

Who invented the wonderful phrase "karma farming?"

theteapot 4y ago

My comment: What is this actually about?

jiveturkey 4y ago
What is any personal blogging about?
- theteapot 4y ago
  Just seems like an aimless and unsatisfying piece of writing. I guess others must have got something from it. I felt like I was wasting my time.
  - jiveturkey 4y ago
    I was thinking more meta. It's for the writer to solidify their own thoughts, not to reveal the wisdom of the universe. I can guarantee this was satisfying to the writer.

karaterobot 4y ago

HN should make displaying your karma in the header optional. I see no benefits to it other than creating a score some people want to game. In theory this would be good, if the way to game the score was to write thoughtful and helpful comments. In practice, as noted in this post: > Affirming the political and moral opinions of the average HN reader is the easiest way to get upvotes. It's easy enough to hide this text using something like uBlock, but I'd rather it were just a thing everybody could toggle. Maybe even turn it off by default.

wrayjustin 4y ago

> Posting somehow felt both beneath and above me—there’s so much brilliance and nonsense in the comment section Relatable. I rarely post or comment, as when I have something to contribute to the conversation I usually cannot (NDA, etc.). And for the times I could post, I don't really have anything of value to say; echoing into the void and all. But then I do get value from the comment sections, oftentimes more than the original post/content. So thank you to those who do comment and contribute!

anotherevan 4y ago

I'm not sure HN has made me less ignorant, but I believe it has made me ignorant on a higher level and about more important things.