4 ms·

Am I the only one who despises the gamification and absurd elitism present in this product? I've neven been fond of exclusivity, and am of the opinion that good

by ruswick 13y ago

Am I the only one who despises the gamification and absurd elitism present in this product? I've neven been fond of exclusivity, and am of the opinion that good content ecosystems are resilient and will surface superior content regardless of the number of people present. The "tragedy of the commons" argument is a total straw man, and if anything is erroneous. HN thrives because of the volume of people and diversity of content. Good content is good content, irrespective of who discovered it or how much notoriety they have. It's not the prerogative of the site to make arbitrary decisions about who ought to be able engage in the discussion or who ought to be able to submit content. Such draconian, "karma"-based restriction will likely preclude the submission of a lot of great stuff and will make it more difficult for newcomers to engage with the site. HN is pretty damn good at surfacing interesting content. Restricting submissions and users in an arbitrary manner is not the way to improve news aggregation.

mtdewcmu 13y ago
True. There's nothing to worry about. If it's a bad idea, no one will use it, and it will go away on its own.
namelesstrash02 13y ago
You are implying that there is not absurd elitism present on HN (which, in my opinion, there very much is) as well as an exclusive environment. For example, while my comment is both an opinion and said in a non-confrontational way, the fact that it's going to be unpopular among the HN elitist crowd will likely mean some sort of negative repercussions (downvote or hellban). For crying out loud, the thread about 'the evolution of HN' on the top of the front page is disallowing comments from "new" users! Holy smokes if that isn't a slap in the face of egalitarian content contribution. And let me be very frank here when I say that if your goal is to attract "hackers" -- and keep them around -- to contribute to items of interest to other "hackers" then it's in your interests to tone down any kind of totalitarian control over the conversation, or you will probably soon run out of "hackers". Your comment that HN thrives because of the volume of people and diversity of content is exactly what paul graham is arguing against in his quotes on the recent TechCrunch article. He is saying that there's a direct correlation between scale and undesirable interaction and content. If that isn't exclusive and elitist, I don't know what is. Again, I hope a fair amount of people get to read this comment before it (and this account) disappears, because it's a glaring problem with this system.
1123581321 13y ago
The major problem is the owners are making it invite only, but the owners are not interesting and accomplished enough to be the top of the pyramid of a successful site (they can't easily invite up.) They see HN's dilution as the problem; but diluting from the high water line set by PG st al leaves HN higher than TheList with no dilution.
- namelesstrash02 13y ago
  I have an honest question. Do you really feel this way about "pg et al"? I'm asking because these kinds of comments about "pg et al" is really not helping anyone at HN or elsewhere defend against accusations of elitism and exclusionary sentiment.
  - 1123581321 13y ago
    Yes, I think that he is a good programmer who thinks and writes well about both the technical and business aspects of software development. And the et al are like him to varying degrees. It is necessary for a great discussion site to be founded by an elite person or by elite people, because the core of the site needs to be made of people who both have quality thoughts and express them well. For whatever reason that isn't a commonly found trait, so those who possess it are elite. That said, it is not necessary for founders of discussion sites to pursue exclusion, and as we have seen on Hacker News, a variety of quality new members are attracted here by the 'elites' and also become good participants. Many, in my opinion, surpass some of the 'et al' in member quality. I do think some mediocre members come along with, but I see them developed into better members over time, and this gives the community practice assimilating and improving mediocrity. By contrast, TheList will have very little practice spreading its culture so it will be a brittle, barely fruitful community. So, a community with elite core members can be open and fair to new members while making them into better members and even has the possibility to improve the community over time. A community with less than elite members that practices elitism and exclusion does not do as well even relative to its initial position.
    - namelesstrash03 13y ago

by ruswick 13y ago

mtdewcmu 13y ago

True. There's nothing to worry about. If it's a bad idea, no one will use it, and it will go away on its own.

namelesstrash02 13y ago

You are implying that there is not absurd elitism present on HN (which, in my opinion, there very much is) as well as an exclusive environment. For example, while my comment is both an opinion and said in a non-confrontational way, the fact that it's going to be unpopular among the HN elitist crowd will likely mean some sort of negative repercussions (downvote or hellban). For crying out loud, the thread about 'the evolution of HN' on the top of the front page is disallowing comments from "new" users! Holy smokes if that isn't a slap in the face of egalitarian content contribution. And let me be very frank here when I say that if your goal is to attract "hackers" -- and keep them around -- to contribute to items of interest to other "hackers" then it's in your interests to tone down any kind of totalitarian control over the conversation, or you will probably soon run out of "hackers". Your comment that HN thrives because of the volume of people and diversity of content is exactly what paul graham is arguing against in his quotes on the recent TechCrunch article. He is saying that there's a direct correlation between scale and undesirable interaction and content. If that isn't exclusive and elitist, I don't know what is. Again, I hope a fair amount of people get to read this comment before it (and this account) disappears, because it's a glaring problem with this system.

1123581321 13y ago

The major problem is the owners are making it invite only, but the owners are not interesting and accomplished enough to be the top of the pyramid of a successful site (they can't easily invite up.) They see HN's dilution as the problem; but diluting from the high water line set by PG st al leaves HN higher than TheList with no dilution.

namelesstrash02 13y ago
I have an honest question. Do you really feel this way about "pg et al"? I'm asking because these kinds of comments about "pg et al" is really not helping anyone at HN or elsewhere defend against accusations of elitism and exclusionary sentiment.
- 1123581321 13y ago
  Yes, I think that he is a good programmer who thinks and writes well about both the technical and business aspects of software development. And the et al are like him to varying degrees. It is necessary for a great discussion site to be founded by an elite person or by elite people, because the core of the site needs to be made of people who both have quality thoughts and express them well. For whatever reason that isn't a commonly found trait, so those who possess it are elite. That said, it is not necessary for founders of discussion sites to pursue exclusion, and as we have seen on Hacker News, a variety of quality new members are attracted here by the 'elites' and also become good participants. Many, in my opinion, surpass some of the 'et al' in member quality. I do think some mediocre members come along with, but I see them developed into better members over time, and this gives the community practice assimilating and improving mediocrity. By contrast, TheList will have very little practice spreading its culture so it will be a brittle, barely fruitful community. So, a community with elite core members can be open and fair to new members while making them into better members and even has the possibility to improve the community over time. A community with less than elite members that practices elitism and exclusion does not do as well even relative to its initial position.
  - namelesstrash03 13y ago