4 ms·

Why does the quality of a news site like slashdot, digg, reddit, or Hacker News deteriorate until it reaches annoying levels? Because if it didn't, then more an

by mcherm 14y ago

Why does the quality of a news site like slashdot, digg, reddit, or Hacker News deteriorate until it reaches annoying levels? Because if it didn't, then more and more people would join, reducing the average quality of the participant pool.

tokenizer 14y ago
which is a good thing considering by the time that happens to reddit, kn0thing will have made his impact, and will be able to do whatever else he wants, and somebody else's site will be the new and popular one (until it is).
- astrodust 14y ago
  Reddit crossed that event horizon a year ago. People inside just haven't realized yet.
  - bgilroy26 14y ago
    That's true. The only thing that Reddit has going for it is that has a way to build new communities built in. /r/DepthHub, /r/math, and /r/askscience are doing just fine.
    - guth 14y ago
      The "only" think Reddit has is an engine to sustainably produce new communities as good as the original Reddit, at the cost of providing a pile of chaff I dislike that thousands of people enjoy? I would love to have "only" what Reddit has.
    - baq 14y ago
      /r/askscience is nearly 600 thousand subscribers, that's hardly 'only'. subreddits are as good as their moderators and that's also true of HN.
      - astrodust 14y ago
        Perhaps an astrophysicist will one day explain why communities like Reddit tend to implode. Once the "pressure" of those in the core, which are the ones doing most of the work to keep people in line and promote healthy community behavior, start to fizzle out and aren't replaced, the core will implode and the whole thing will go supernova. Smaller communities, like smaller stars, seem to have much longer lifespans. The good news is when a site like Digg or Reddit goes supernova it spreads a lot of well-intentioned people around the greater internet to create their own new communities and start the process all over again.
- pwmanagerdied 14y ago
  If you don't realize that Reddit crossed that line years ago, you're part of the problem.
Estragon 14y ago
Found a replacement for HN yet? I promise not to degrade its discourse with stupid stuff. :-)
Rhino55 14y ago
Counterexample: 4chan. If you can ignore the porn, 4chan, and in particular /b/, is a fantastic resource. There is a lot of noise. A LOT of noise. But it is still the only place where I can get that heady mix of curiosity, intellectual stimulation, and all-around weirdness. The captcha system appears to have reduced the noise levels considerably from their height. The problem with the sites you mention is a design flaw - the mediocre, boring content drives out the interesting, highly-varying-in-quality content. 4chan has no "upvote" system, it's just raw posts with bumping, so you get a lot more transitory, niche-oriented discussions. The upvote/downvote system is really primitive...to make a ridiculous analogy, it is to user content as filtration is to wine - the end product is alcoholic, but all of the interesting characteristics have been filtered out leaving you with something cheap, boring, and tasteless.

by mcherm 14y ago

tokenizer 14y ago

which is a good thing considering by the time that happens to reddit, kn0thing will have made his impact, and will be able to do whatever else he wants, and somebody else's site will be the new and popular one (until it is).

astrodust 14y ago
Reddit crossed that event horizon a year ago. People inside just haven't realized yet.
- bgilroy26 14y ago
  That's true. The only thing that Reddit has going for it is that has a way to build new communities built in. /r/DepthHub, /r/math, and /r/askscience are doing just fine.
  - guth 14y ago
    The "only" think Reddit has is an engine to sustainably produce new communities as good as the original Reddit, at the cost of providing a pile of chaff I dislike that thousands of people enjoy? I would love to have "only" what Reddit has.
  - baq 14y ago
    /r/askscience is nearly 600 thousand subscribers, that's hardly 'only'. subreddits are as good as their moderators and that's also true of HN.
    - astrodust 14y ago
      Perhaps an astrophysicist will one day explain why communities like Reddit tend to implode. Once the "pressure" of those in the core, which are the ones doing most of the work to keep people in line and promote healthy community behavior, start to fizzle out and aren't replaced, the core will implode and the whole thing will go supernova. Smaller communities, like smaller stars, seem to have much longer lifespans. The good news is when a site like Digg or Reddit goes supernova it spreads a lot of well-intentioned people around the greater internet to create their own new communities and start the process all over again.
pwmanagerdied 14y ago
If you don't realize that Reddit crossed that line years ago, you're part of the problem.

Estragon 14y ago

Found a replacement for HN yet? I promise not to degrade its discourse with stupid stuff. :-)

Rhino55 14y ago

Counterexample: 4chan. If you can ignore the porn, 4chan, and in particular /b/, is a fantastic resource. There is a lot of noise. A LOT of noise. But it is still the only place where I can get that heady mix of curiosity, intellectual stimulation, and all-around weirdness. The captcha system appears to have reduced the noise levels considerably from their height. The problem with the sites you mention is a design flaw - the mediocre, boring content drives out the interesting, highly-varying-in-quality content. 4chan has no "upvote" system, it's just raw posts with bumping, so you get a lot more transitory, niche-oriented discussions. The upvote/downvote system is really primitive...to make a ridiculous analogy, it is to user content as filtration is to wine - the end product is alcoholic, but all of the interesting characteristics have been filtered out leaving you with something cheap, boring, and tasteless.