4 ms·

It was always in the dna of hackernews…

by desindol 4y ago

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.
    - striking 4y ago
      I've seen some pockets here or there of grating, boring "jokes" or obvious attempts at farming karma, but I don't think that really makes the site any more like Reddit. I think folks are using "becoming Reddit" as a shorthand for seeing comments they don't like or believe are low-effort, and it does everyone a disservice when things are framed that way. Let's call low-effort comments what they are and make the conversations a little simpler.
      - MegaButts 4y ago
        The increase in astroturfing is what I see as the biggest change to HN over time that makes it more like reddit. As HN becomes larger it becomes a larger target for corporate interests. You don't see too many companies successfully promoting crappy products on HN, but I notice lots of articles that are negative towards corporations get flagged and/or swarmed with positive comments. I think this is just something that happens as you grow larger. And as you grow larger you have more people with a wider spectrum of opinions, and while you'd hope the discussions would be civil the mods seem quicker to shutdown topics they believe will lead to flame wars. That said, it's easy to be critical and hard to be constructive. I still come to HN regularly so there's obviously something to it. I'm not pretending to have the magic bullet to these problems (some of which I believe are fundamental/intractable). EDIT: I find it ironic this post has fallen off the first page of HN before I finished this comment, despite having many comments and being something I find interesting.
        striking 4y ago
        If you suspect astroturfing, the best course of action is to email the mods. They're very open about this particular topic. That being said, this is a forum for VC and startup talk among other things, so it would be pretty surprising if there wasn't some astroturfing at play. Self-promotion comes with the territory. The mods are doing their best but to some extent it's in the game. Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page. When I first clicked into this thread, I was surprised it was FP still, because it had twice as many comments as votes and that usually trips the flamewar detector. I think folks are generally unaware of the systems that make HN tick, and that can make the experience pretty confusing.
        MegaButts 4y ago
        > Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page. Sure there is. It's an interesting conversation to me and it's being pushed away from the front page. I didn't say it was foul play, I said it was ironic. The algorithms are so fearful of controversy they push away interesting topics. Also, I've emailed the mods many times before. My experiences have been mixed.
    - taxyz 4y ago
      Where its most become like reddit is the concentration of the politically motivated users and how quickly they act to shut down any discourse they find unsavory. Reddit became very homogenized because of how quickly the left wing activists were to downvote, report, flag, etc. It made it impossible to have any discussion where you were right of far-left. A lot of those users have made their way over to HN, where it's even easier to have multiple accounts. Yesterday someone posted a link to CBS News article about a Chipotle being closed after the workers tried to unionize. The article was very matter of fact and sparse. No editorial, no details about what sort of negotiations might have broken down. There was little to discuss about the article and I suspect it was posted by someone naively sympathetic to any labor organization effort trying to spread fodder to label Chipotle as a union-buster. The article still only has 17 comments. I commented asking why this was posted to HN and my comment was flagged in less than 30 seconds. So I commented again, and someone replied that its pertinent to startups because of how automation will cause job losses. The news article did not mention this. My second comment was flagged shortly thereafter. HN will keep becoming like reddit because there is no recourse for the activists flagging comments or downvoting something they disagree with to hell. HN was already poorly moderated in that there is one moderator. This trend will continue and even the people who might agree with the activist will get bored and leave since there will be no intellectually stimulated conversation to have. I'm not sure where the honest people go next. Maybe I'll just go outside, its pleasant out.
    - TimTheTinker 4y ago
      From the HN guidelines: > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob[0] illusion[1], as[2] old[3] as[4] the[5] hills[6]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852
      - MegaButts 4y ago
        The entire point of this discussion is that we should be able to discuss it, and discouraging it is not a solution. You're supporting my point, not refuting it.
        TimTheTinker 4y ago
        I'm not attempting to refute you per se, just bringing relevant info into the discussion. It's instructive (at least to me) to look through those links to older comments. People as far back as 2007 were saying "HN is becoming reddit." I get that quoting a request on the site info page could come across as modding you, but that wasn't my intent.
        taxyz 4y ago
        I haven't read through all of those but did want to add that it may be warranted to have this discussion ("is HN becoming reddit?") at different points in time as both communities have changed a lot since 2007 - i.e. its possible that HN was becoming what reddit was in 2007, and again in 2012 or something, and again in 2022. It might be an interesting conversation to have: has HN trailed Reddit over time in some of its more negative aspects? The guidelines dismissing this I think is wrong.
  - winternett 4y ago
    Reddit is forcing users off the platform by a lack of innovation, promotion of inauthentic and mediocre posts, and over-moderation... and now they're gravitating towards other places online (in my opinion) after teaching them about how brigading and suggestive comment spam can generate money, but quickly kill a massive site. I think we're reaching the next phase of the Internet, where big platform influence wanes, and where hopefully small communities figure out how to better govern themselves against nefarious actors. We should lean on many of the older (proven) community standards again in online communities, and bring back displaying BOTH upvote and downvote data like we used to see... We also need to emphasize more choice and less algorithmic control over what trends on sites (from a "customer satisfaction" perspective). Letting real human readers decide what's relevant and best... The only way to effectively manage a horrible inauthentic user plague/threat is by crowd sourcing real and authentic human beings that have a solid stake in maintaining positive order. Also, avoid embedding ads in everything as well as selling promotional services... It really does morally corrupt sites and apps.

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.
  - striking 4y ago
    I've seen some pockets here or there of grating, boring "jokes" or obvious attempts at farming karma, but I don't think that really makes the site any more like Reddit. I think folks are using "becoming Reddit" as a shorthand for seeing comments they don't like or believe are low-effort, and it does everyone a disservice when things are framed that way. Let's call low-effort comments what they are and make the conversations a little simpler.
    - MegaButts 4y ago
      The increase in astroturfing is what I see as the biggest change to HN over time that makes it more like reddit. As HN becomes larger it becomes a larger target for corporate interests. You don't see too many companies successfully promoting crappy products on HN, but I notice lots of articles that are negative towards corporations get flagged and/or swarmed with positive comments. I think this is just something that happens as you grow larger. And as you grow larger you have more people with a wider spectrum of opinions, and while you'd hope the discussions would be civil the mods seem quicker to shutdown topics they believe will lead to flame wars. That said, it's easy to be critical and hard to be constructive. I still come to HN regularly so there's obviously something to it. I'm not pretending to have the magic bullet to these problems (some of which I believe are fundamental/intractable). EDIT: I find it ironic this post has fallen off the first page of HN before I finished this comment, despite having many comments and being something I find interesting.
      - striking 4y ago
        If you suspect astroturfing, the best course of action is to email the mods. They're very open about this particular topic. That being said, this is a forum for VC and startup talk among other things, so it would be pretty surprising if there wasn't some astroturfing at play. Self-promotion comes with the territory. The mods are doing their best but to some extent it's in the game. Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page. When I first clicked into this thread, I was surprised it was FP still, because it had twice as many comments as votes and that usually trips the flamewar detector. I think folks are generally unaware of the systems that make HN tick, and that can make the experience pretty confusing.
        MegaButts 4y ago
        > Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page. Sure there is. It's an interesting conversation to me and it's being pushed away from the front page. I didn't say it was foul play, I said it was ironic. The algorithms are so fearful of controversy they push away interesting topics. Also, I've emailed the mods many times before. My experiences have been mixed.
  - taxyz 4y ago
    Where its most become like reddit is the concentration of the politically motivated users and how quickly they act to shut down any discourse they find unsavory. Reddit became very homogenized because of how quickly the left wing activists were to downvote, report, flag, etc. It made it impossible to have any discussion where you were right of far-left. A lot of those users have made their way over to HN, where it's even easier to have multiple accounts. Yesterday someone posted a link to CBS News article about a Chipotle being closed after the workers tried to unionize. The article was very matter of fact and sparse. No editorial, no details about what sort of negotiations might have broken down. There was little to discuss about the article and I suspect it was posted by someone naively sympathetic to any labor organization effort trying to spread fodder to label Chipotle as a union-buster. The article still only has 17 comments. I commented asking why this was posted to HN and my comment was flagged in less than 30 seconds. So I commented again, and someone replied that its pertinent to startups because of how automation will cause job losses. The news article did not mention this. My second comment was flagged shortly thereafter. HN will keep becoming like reddit because there is no recourse for the activists flagging comments or downvoting something they disagree with to hell. HN was already poorly moderated in that there is one moderator. This trend will continue and even the people who might agree with the activist will get bored and leave since there will be no intellectually stimulated conversation to have. I'm not sure where the honest people go next. Maybe I'll just go outside, its pleasant out.
  - TimTheTinker 4y ago
    From the HN guidelines: > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob[0] illusion[1], as[2] old[3] as[4] the[5] hills[6]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852
    - MegaButts 4y ago
      The entire point of this discussion is that we should be able to discuss it, and discouraging it is not a solution. You're supporting my point, not refuting it.
      - TimTheTinker 4y ago
        I'm not attempting to refute you per se, just bringing relevant info into the discussion. It's instructive (at least to me) to look through those links to older comments. People as far back as 2007 were saying "HN is becoming reddit." I get that quoting a request on the site info page could come across as modding you, but that wasn't my intent.
        taxyz 4y ago
        I haven't read through all of those but did want to add that it may be warranted to have this discussion ("is HN becoming reddit?") at different points in time as both communities have changed a lot since 2007 - i.e. its possible that HN was becoming what reddit was in 2007, and again in 2012 or something, and again in 2022. It might be an interesting conversation to have: has HN trailed Reddit over time in some of its more negative aspects? The guidelines dismissing this I think is wrong.
- winternett 4y ago
  Reddit is forcing users off the platform by a lack of innovation, promotion of inauthentic and mediocre posts, and over-moderation... and now they're gravitating towards other places online (in my opinion) after teaching them about how brigading and suggestive comment spam can generate money, but quickly kill a massive site. I think we're reaching the next phase of the Internet, where big platform influence wanes, and where hopefully small communities figure out how to better govern themselves against nefarious actors. We should lean on many of the older (proven) community standards again in online communities, and bring back displaying BOTH upvote and downvote data like we used to see... We also need to emphasize more choice and less algorithmic control over what trends on sites (from a "customer satisfaction" perspective). Letting real human readers decide what's relevant and best... The only way to effectively manage a horrible inauthentic user plague/threat is by crowd sourcing real and authentic human beings that have a solid stake in maintaining positive order. Also, avoid embedding ads in everything as well as selling promotional services... It really does morally corrupt sites and apps.