2 ms·

If frisco is correct, that sites degrade because of a too high rate of growth, this presents an extremely simple way to prevent that: rate limit new account cre

If frisco is correct, that sites degrade because of a too high rate of growth, this presents an extremely simple way to prevent that: rate limit new account creation. You could cap it right now, and see what happens to the quality of the site.

jurjenh 18y ago
This seems like a very good idea in terms of controlling spikes in comments - but you have to question whether this is the (main) cause of the degradation. If limiting new accounts seems like the best solution, it should be done clearly and transparently - as the users you are trying to weed out are generally fickle and will not stay, so won't bother to check / sign up later. Let users know the reason why they can't sign up now, and when they should be able to. However, users that have a legitimate need to comment (eg site / app owners) need to be allowed access - solving this could be trickier.
- ivankirigin 18y ago
  Let people input an email to be pinged when a spot in the queue opens up. Most people won't.
frisco 18y ago
Or have glass walls. Facebook's growth rate is enormous, but it still retains its character because your personal Facebook's growth rate is actually rather small. Not that this has any obvious parallels to HN.
- ivankirigin 18y ago
  Making it easy to track users I know would make me read and upvote their comments more. Letting me ignore someone (and making them invisible to the public if enough people ignore them) is another wall.
  - frisco 18y ago
    I think that this would just skew the leaderboard. Everyone would be following the famous members of HN (pg, bucheit, etc), and locally popular users would be distant seconds, while the normal user would make up a long tail of comparatively low karma.
    - ivankirigin 18y ago
      I'm pretty high on the leaderboard (~30) and don't think the order of the top 100 matter. I wouldn't mind being removed from the list. Submissions matter more than comments. Also, the age of your account will matter more as the site grows.

jurjenh 18y ago

This seems like a very good idea in terms of controlling spikes in comments - but you have to question whether this is the (main) cause of the degradation. If limiting new accounts seems like the best solution, it should be done clearly and transparently - as the users you are trying to weed out are generally fickle and will not stay, so won't bother to check / sign up later. Let users know the reason why they can't sign up now, and when they should be able to. However, users that have a legitimate need to comment (eg site / app owners) need to be allowed access - solving this could be trickier.

ivankirigin 18y ago
Let people input an email to be pinged when a spot in the queue opens up. Most people won't.

frisco 18y ago

Or have glass walls. Facebook's growth rate is enormous, but it still retains its character because your personal Facebook's growth rate is actually rather small. Not that this has any obvious parallels to HN.

ivankirigin 18y ago
Making it easy to track users I know would make me read and upvote their comments more. Letting me ignore someone (and making them invisible to the public if enough people ignore them) is another wall.
- frisco 18y ago
  I think that this would just skew the leaderboard. Everyone would be following the famous members of HN (pg, bucheit, etc), and locally popular users would be distant seconds, while the normal user would make up a long tail of comparatively low karma.
  - ivankirigin 18y ago
    I'm pretty high on the leaderboard (~30) and don't think the order of the top 100 matter. I wouldn't mind being removed from the list. Submissions matter more than comments. Also, the age of your account will matter more as the site grows.