6 ms·

Also the lack of needing to make money helps a lot.

mike_hearn 1y ago
I'd say that's the main thing. People hate ads, HN uses unobtrusive text ads. The moderation isn't that a competitive advantage, IMO. Slashdot's was better, mostly because it had measures to stop moderation abuse whereas HN seemingly doesn't. It's just a plain old up/down system with the added filip of a "super down" button, for those who are really committed to banning their opponents. I read with showdead turned on because perfectly reasonable comments are so often greyed out or dead. That used to happen much less on Slashdot because there were far fewer people with moderation rights and the bad ones got filtered out via metamod. Maybe now it's been ported to Common Lisp it'll be easier to add features.
- oblio 1y ago
  > "super down" button The flag button?
- palmotea 1y ago
  > IMO. Slashdot's was better, mostly because it had measures to stop moderation abuse whereas HN seemingly doesn't. Really? IIRC, Slashdot's moderation was garbage, remember penis-bird, GNAA, goatse?
  - philwelch 1y ago
    Most of that was downmodded and hidden by default though.
  - pram 1y ago
    You just reminded me of the beautifully rendered, colored penisbird ascii art dipshits would spam on IRC lol
  - zoklet-enjoyer 1y ago
    Turns out those GNAA guys are actually white supremacists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev
  - mike_hearn 1y ago
    You're talking about false negatives, not false positives. People have different tolerances for these kinds of errors. But yes, I remember that to see that stuff you had to expand the down-modded comments. That stuff was also a product of its time. Slashdot had the strong free speech ethos of the early internet, so CmdrTaco had a policy of never deleting comments unless they broke the site somehow or there was a legal process requiring it. Sometimes that meant very new stories would get these comments and they'd be visible before they got modded, but if you browsed stories that had been active for a little while you wouldn't see them. One downside of a sophisticated moderation system on a site designed for programmers is that some people take it as a challenge. The reason Slashdot trolling was a bunch of dumb memes rather than e.g. commercial ads is because a lot of bored teenagers found spamming it a good way to learn web programming. The systematic nature of the moderation meant that it was a system to beat, a game to conquer. Hence the brief influx of "page widening posts" and other technical hacks. But I don't know if you'd see the same stuff today. The culture has changed, there are much better ways to learn programming and way more opportunities now. And you don't have to be fully automated. CmdrTaco had a strongly systems-oriented streak, but the problem on HN is hardly ever the actions of dang and the other paid moderators, it's really abuse of the overly simple system by other users that's a problem. You could have both good paid moderators and stricter controls on user moderation.
- mousethatroared 1y ago
  "HN uses unobtrusive text ads" HN has ads? I've been on some 2011 and I have never seen them...
  - tedunangst 1y ago
    You didn't notice they were ads.
    - mousethatroared 1y ago
      Never realized there were stories i couldn't comment. Then again, Im not in CS so the job by boards posts are never interesting to me
  - dang 1y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#jobads https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#jobads https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc
    - aziaziazi 1y ago
      Also, self promotion in comments - often as "shameless plug" - like in any other platform that let you write public text: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=shameless%20plug&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
      - crystal_revenge 1y ago
        It's almost irrelevant now since Reddit is basically just a gigantic bot farm, but I was always annoyed that Reddit would aggressively remove self promotion in most subs while clearly running major PR campaigns under the guise of organic content. Hacker News is the opposite and the better for it. If you're openly promoting your work, awesome! If you're doing anything to attempt to manipulate the platform for PR reasons, you can bet you will be punished for it. I never understood why Reddit, which always tried to give off the "for the little guy" vibes was so rabidly against anyone promoting their own work.

I'd say that's the main thing. People hate ads, HN uses unobtrusive text ads. The moderation isn't that a competitive advantage, IMO. Slashdot's was better, mostly because it had measures to stop moderation abuse whereas HN seemingly doesn't. It's just a plain old up/down system with the added filip of a "super down" button, for those who are really committed to banning their opponents. I read with showdead turned on because perfectly reasonable comments are so often greyed out or dead. That used to happen much less on Slashdot because there were far fewer people with moderation rights and the bad ones got filtered out via metamod. Maybe now it's been ported to Common Lisp it'll be easier to add features.

oblio 1y ago
> "super down" button The flag button?
palmotea 1y ago
> IMO. Slashdot's was better, mostly because it had measures to stop moderation abuse whereas HN seemingly doesn't. Really? IIRC, Slashdot's moderation was garbage, remember penis-bird, GNAA, goatse?
- philwelch 1y ago
  Most of that was downmodded and hidden by default though.
- pram 1y ago
  You just reminded me of the beautifully rendered, colored penisbird ascii art dipshits would spam on IRC lol
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y ago
  Turns out those GNAA guys are actually white supremacists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev
- mike_hearn 1y ago
  You're talking about false negatives, not false positives. People have different tolerances for these kinds of errors. But yes, I remember that to see that stuff you had to expand the down-modded comments. That stuff was also a product of its time. Slashdot had the strong free speech ethos of the early internet, so CmdrTaco had a policy of never deleting comments unless they broke the site somehow or there was a legal process requiring it. Sometimes that meant very new stories would get these comments and they'd be visible before they got modded, but if you browsed stories that had been active for a little while you wouldn't see them. One downside of a sophisticated moderation system on a site designed for programmers is that some people take it as a challenge. The reason Slashdot trolling was a bunch of dumb memes rather than e.g. commercial ads is because a lot of bored teenagers found spamming it a good way to learn web programming. The systematic nature of the moderation meant that it was a system to beat, a game to conquer. Hence the brief influx of "page widening posts" and other technical hacks. But I don't know if you'd see the same stuff today. The culture has changed, there are much better ways to learn programming and way more opportunities now. And you don't have to be fully automated. CmdrTaco had a strongly systems-oriented streak, but the problem on HN is hardly ever the actions of dang and the other paid moderators, it's really abuse of the overly simple system by other users that's a problem. You could have both good paid moderators and stricter controls on user moderation.
mousethatroared 1y ago
"HN uses unobtrusive text ads" HN has ads? I've been on some 2011 and I have never seen them...
- tedunangst 1y ago
  You didn't notice they were ads.
  - mousethatroared 1y ago
    Never realized there were stories i couldn't comment. Then again, Im not in CS so the job by boards posts are never interesting to me
- dang 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#jobads https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#jobads https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc
  - aziaziazi 1y ago
    Also, self promotion in comments - often as "shameless plug" - like in any other platform that let you write public text: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=shameless%20plug&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - crystal_revenge 1y ago
      It's almost irrelevant now since Reddit is basically just a gigantic bot farm, but I was always annoyed that Reddit would aggressively remove self promotion in most subs while clearly running major PR campaigns under the guise of organic content. Hacker News is the opposite and the better for it. If you're openly promoting your work, awesome! If you're doing anything to attempt to manipulate the platform for PR reasons, you can bet you will be punished for it. I never understood why Reddit, which always tried to give off the "for the little guy" vibes was so rabidly against anyone promoting their own work.