4 ms·

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point, because above a certain toleran

by vxNsr 13y ago

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point, because above a certain tolerance it stops being a community and becomes a city. CIP: I'm in a rural town for a couple days and everytime I walk outside everyone I pass says "Hi" or "Good Afternoon," the first time that happened I was kinda surprised I tried to figure out if I knew that person from somewhere, because where I come from (Chicago) strangers on the street ignore you, they don't wish you a good day and smile... There's the whole "you can't know more than 150 people" study [1]. Which I think is very apt here, obviously we have to scale that idea (as anything less than like 5000 people means it doesn't exist when it comes to the web) but it might be a good idea to stop accepting new members or cut the community into chunks, if you wanna keep things from getting worse... Finally, I've begun to really like OSC's version of the internet as presented in Ender's Game, at least when it comes to having real discussions. [1]http://bit.ly/10iAy6P http://bit.ly/10iAy6P

pavel_lishin 13y ago
> Finally, I've begun to really like OSC's version of the internet as presented in Ender's Game, at least when it comes to having real discussions. The only things I remember about it is that a) there were effectively several 'internets', and you had to pay to access each one, and b) the Wiggin kids had to have accounts created for them by their parents, who could presumably vouch for them, and would be tied to a real identity. But later on, (spoiler alert for a 30 year old book folks, Jesus dies at the end) they have totally self-funded anonymous accounts, which doesn't make sense in light of point b.
- vxNsr 13y ago
  Yeah I was trying to decide if I should post a link explaining what it was, but I couldn't find one so I left it... Here's the basic idea: Everyone has access to view basically everything, but for the right to discuss or post things you needed to be invited to that forum/group, so you start out kinda small in the general, "everyone can post here" community and then you were slowly invited in (or kicked out) depending on how much you contributed (and it's quality).
- gwern 13y ago
  > and b) the Wiggin kids had to have accounts created for them by their parents, who could presumably vouch for them, and would be tied to a real identity. But later..they have totally self-funded anonymous accounts, which doesn't make sense in light of point b. Blinded commitments. Could require verifiable yet anonymous endorsements from X existing users to 'level up' to an anonymous account; only the endorsers know who the account is for, yet all can verify that X users in good standing vouched for the anonymous account.
neogodless 13y ago
Theoretically, the size of the community is not exactly the issue. Certainly, as it grows, so do the challenges. But ultimately it's the core culture and the self-governance within. The tools and structure of the site help to build the culture, as do early members, but as the population grows, the culture can shift. Sometimes tools can be updated to better handle this. Perhaps users who have more flags than karma/upvotes actually disappear (along with their comments) for a time period and/or lose their ability to post for a while?
drivebyacct2 13y ago
At the very least, there needs to be a rudimentary troll block. I so tire of HN comment threads littered with discarded opinions from one-off accounts. Make accounts read-only for the first two-weeks and make sure they're actually being logged into and aren't being harvested.
- krapp 13y ago
  That wouldn't necessarily work ... it wouldn't be difficult (at least for a hn user) to script account creation, and maybe even 'browsing around' by accessing random links. It would be even less difficult to farm it out to something like a captcha farm. Really, one-off accounts seem to be the HN version of anonymous posting. Which suggests to me that it may be more beneficial, perhaps, to simply allow anonymous posting with some caveats (any user can choose to block all anonymous posts, anonymous posters couldn't be upvoted or downvoted, it automatically triggers some kind of alert to the mods to watch the post, and maybe it even costs you karma to use the feature.) I also keep considering that some kind of API which allows users to choose to block other users might be an effective form of self-policing, but that would also kind of by definition stifle and fragment conversation.
- smacktoward 13y ago
  There is a rudimentary troll block at HN. It just doesn't work very well. The troll block here is "hellbanning." http://toway1234.tumblr.com/post/16021243707/hacker-news-hellbanning-is-unacceptable http://toway1234.tumblr.com/post/16021243707/hacker-news-hel... The problem is that since hellbanning is inherently passive-aggressive -- nobody in the community knows it's been applied, not even the person who's been banned -- it doesn't teach the community lessons on what behavior is beyond the pale. The banned person simply disappears. This makes life easier for the admins (since it lets them avoid both having to confront the person being banned and a time-consuming discussion of why that person was banned), but at the cost of not putting forward an example of How Not To Be for others to learn from and follow. So people make the same mistakes over and over again. If people really do need to be thrown out of the community, it'd be healthier to have at least some of that happen via public executions rather than silent disappearances. At least when you see someone up on a gibbet, you get the message not to be like that person if you don't want to end up there yourself. Full disclosure: I was partially hellbanned myself (submissions only, not comments) for a period, despite having 4,000+ karma at the time. I still don't understand what I did wrong, really. The experience knocked my opinion of HN down a few notches.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
127001brewer 13y ago
Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Communities like this are like water: it changes constantly sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. The only thing to be happy about is whether or not it's thriving. And, in my opinion, limiting the number of participants in this community would be a terrible mistake. Perhaps there's other ways to limit trolling, such as limiting the number of comments you can submit per day based on your karma, but it would unfair to exclude people to the great content here.
- vxNsr 13y ago
  >Communities like this are like water: it changes constantly sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. The only thing to be happy about is whether or not it's thriving. I agree but wouldn't it be nice if we could keep it changing for the better? EDIT: Sorry if I wasn't clear, some really good ideas have been presented here, I only posted the first couple ideas that came to mind, expecting all the other really smart people here to come up with better ideas once I got the ball rolling - and they have!
  - brymaster 13y ago
    > I agree but wouldn't it be nice if we could keep it changing for the better? Locking a forum down doesn't change anything. It seems like you're just wanting to censor dissent.
    - krapp 13y ago
      And of course, it wouldn't censor dissent, it would just prevent new people from dissenting. Unless you follow it up with a constant shifting of the line in the sand between the "acceptable community" and "unacceptable community", perhaps by deleting the accounts of anyone as old as, or newer than, anyone within the circle who voices an unpopular enough opinion. Or have every thread be invite only, or set to only allow posts within a karmic threshold of the op's or higher. Or just pre-emptively hellban all new accounts, and retroactively hellban accounts made after whatever the arbitrary "True Hacker News User" line is, just to be on the safe side.
brymaster 13y ago
> Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point Huh? So what's the cut off date then? I noticed your account was only created 86 days ago. Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion.
- MartinCron 13y ago
  Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion It might, but at what cost?
  - brymaster 13y ago
    You'd get no users, content or discussion. Just look at lobste.rs
- vxNsr 13y ago
  I recognise that I might be cut, that's a risk I'm willing to take if it means a more informed and positive environment. I actually only started commenting then, I'd been a lurker for awhile longer, but that's not the point... I don't have much to add so maybe I should be removed from discussions until I can add more, I've only posted like 5 stories none of which I had anything to do with - I'd just found them.

by vxNsr 13y ago

pavel_lishin 13y ago

> Finally, I've begun to really like OSC's version of the internet as presented in Ender's Game, at least when it comes to having real discussions. The only things I remember about it is that a) there were effectively several 'internets', and you had to pay to access each one, and b) the Wiggin kids had to have accounts created for them by their parents, who could presumably vouch for them, and would be tied to a real identity. But later on, (spoiler alert for a 30 year old book folks, Jesus dies at the end) they have totally self-funded anonymous accounts, which doesn't make sense in light of point b.

vxNsr 13y ago
Yeah I was trying to decide if I should post a link explaining what it was, but I couldn't find one so I left it... Here's the basic idea: Everyone has access to view basically everything, but for the right to discuss or post things you needed to be invited to that forum/group, so you start out kinda small in the general, "everyone can post here" community and then you were slowly invited in (or kicked out) depending on how much you contributed (and it's quality).
gwern 13y ago
> and b) the Wiggin kids had to have accounts created for them by their parents, who could presumably vouch for them, and would be tied to a real identity. But later..they have totally self-funded anonymous accounts, which doesn't make sense in light of point b. Blinded commitments. Could require verifiable yet anonymous endorsements from X existing users to 'level up' to an anonymous account; only the endorsers know who the account is for, yet all can verify that X users in good standing vouched for the anonymous account.

neogodless 13y ago

Theoretically, the size of the community is not exactly the issue. Certainly, as it grows, so do the challenges. But ultimately it's the core culture and the self-governance within. The tools and structure of the site help to build the culture, as do early members, but as the population grows, the culture can shift. Sometimes tools can be updated to better handle this. Perhaps users who have more flags than karma/upvotes actually disappear (along with their comments) for a time period and/or lose their ability to post for a while?

drivebyacct2 13y ago

At the very least, there needs to be a rudimentary troll block. I so tire of HN comment threads littered with discarded opinions from one-off accounts. Make accounts read-only for the first two-weeks and make sure they're actually being logged into and aren't being harvested.

krapp 13y ago
That wouldn't necessarily work ... it wouldn't be difficult (at least for a hn user) to script account creation, and maybe even 'browsing around' by accessing random links. It would be even less difficult to farm it out to something like a captcha farm. Really, one-off accounts seem to be the HN version of anonymous posting. Which suggests to me that it may be more beneficial, perhaps, to simply allow anonymous posting with some caveats (any user can choose to block all anonymous posts, anonymous posters couldn't be upvoted or downvoted, it automatically triggers some kind of alert to the mods to watch the post, and maybe it even costs you karma to use the feature.) I also keep considering that some kind of API which allows users to choose to block other users might be an effective form of self-policing, but that would also kind of by definition stifle and fragment conversation.
smacktoward 13y ago
There is a rudimentary troll block at HN. It just doesn't work very well. The troll block here is "hellbanning." http://toway1234.tumblr.com/post/16021243707/hacker-news-hellbanning-is-unacceptable http://toway1234.tumblr.com/post/16021243707/hacker-news-hel... The problem is that since hellbanning is inherently passive-aggressive -- nobody in the community knows it's been applied, not even the person who's been banned -- it doesn't teach the community lessons on what behavior is beyond the pale. The banned person simply disappears. This makes life easier for the admins (since it lets them avoid both having to confront the person being banned and a time-consuming discussion of why that person was banned), but at the cost of not putting forward an example of How Not To Be for others to learn from and follow. So people make the same mistakes over and over again. If people really do need to be thrown out of the community, it'd be healthier to have at least some of that happen via public executions rather than silent disappearances. At least when you see someone up on a gibbet, you get the message not to be like that person if you don't want to end up there yourself. Full disclosure: I was partially hellbanned myself (submissions only, not comments) for a period, despite having 4,000+ karma at the time. I still don't understand what I did wrong, really. The experience knocked my opinion of HN down a few notches.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

127001brewer 13y ago

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Communities like this are like water: it changes constantly sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. The only thing to be happy about is whether or not it's thriving. And, in my opinion, limiting the number of participants in this community would be a terrible mistake. Perhaps there's other ways to limit trolling, such as limiting the number of comments you can submit per day based on your karma, but it would unfair to exclude people to the great content here.

vxNsr 13y ago
>Communities like this are like water: it changes constantly sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. The only thing to be happy about is whether or not it's thriving. I agree but wouldn't it be nice if we could keep it changing for the better? EDIT: Sorry if I wasn't clear, some really good ideas have been presented here, I only posted the first couple ideas that came to mind, expecting all the other really smart people here to come up with better ideas once I got the ball rolling - and they have!
- brymaster 13y ago
  > I agree but wouldn't it be nice if we could keep it changing for the better? Locking a forum down doesn't change anything. It seems like you're just wanting to censor dissent.
  - krapp 13y ago
    And of course, it wouldn't censor dissent, it would just prevent new people from dissenting. Unless you follow it up with a constant shifting of the line in the sand between the "acceptable community" and "unacceptable community", perhaps by deleting the accounts of anyone as old as, or newer than, anyone within the circle who voices an unpopular enough opinion. Or have every thread be invite only, or set to only allow posts within a karmic threshold of the op's or higher. Or just pre-emptively hellban all new accounts, and retroactively hellban accounts made after whatever the arbitrary "True Hacker News User" line is, just to be on the safe side.

brymaster 13y ago

> Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point Huh? So what's the cut off date then? I noticed your account was only created 86 days ago. Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion.

MartinCron 13y ago
Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion It might, but at what cost?
- brymaster 13y ago
  You'd get no users, content or discussion. Just look at lobste.rs
vxNsr 13y ago
I recognise that I might be cut, that's a risk I'm willing to take if it means a more informed and positive environment. I actually only started commenting then, I'd been a lurker for awhile longer, but that's not the point... I don't have much to add so maybe I should be removed from discussions until I can add more, I've only posted like 5 stories none of which I had anything to do with - I'd just found them.