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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 th

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.
    - vxNsr 13y ago
      You're all missing the point, if you look a little further down I clarify what I mean by the internet in Ender's Game. But maybe we could have two levels one where all the spam and hate can happen and no one will care... and the other where only people who can show they have a track record of adding meaningfully to the discussion are allowed to post, while everyone can view. Or some other thing... but don't you guys understand that the way things are moving now is untenable? Even you guys just bashed my idea and offered nothing constructive, what's the point of that? I can completely understand that the first few ideas that we have over this aren't gonna be the best, but we have to have more and open the lines to discussion if we wanna keep the community from going to the dogs, no?
      - krapp 13y ago
        I don't believe the situation is untenable. Really, given the tenor of some of the online communities i've been involved in, what passes for unacceptable behavior here is still practically civil. I understand the desire to 'engineer' the problem away but I don't think that's really possible, apart from the community itself being more tolerant and the moderators being more strict but fair. It is a public forum, with a practically nonexistent bar for entry. And i've seen older, established posters act with vicious condescension and newer posters being polite and considerate. You have to accept a certain ground level of chaos, bigotry, backbiting, trolling and noise as part of the system.
      - brymaster 13y ago
        Just because you might think what you're adding (or anyone for that matter) is meaningful doesn't mean everyone else does. I don't know how long you've been lurking on HN before registering, but your account isn't very old and you're suggesting that everything has gone to shit, people should be hellbanned and the forum should be invite-only. To be honest it's just a matter of perspective and these meta discussions aren't very interesting.
        vxNsr 13y ago
        I've been a reader for about a year... and frankly the tone of comments has changed drastically since then. At the time I felt like I had nothing to add and thus didn't create an account, when I finally did create an account I almost immediately got into a political flame war with someone (remember the elections were coming up then) and got hellbanned, I stayed quiet for a while after that, and then created another account this time vowing to not comment unless I felt what I was saying was something other's would find useful and interesting. In addition I attempted to stay away from politics as it gets heated quickly (I kinda failed on that front when the NYT published that op-ed from the Gitmo Terrorist). All this to say that people will abuse their power more as accountability nears zero. If we can figure out a way to keep everything open and still provide a good environment I'm all for it, and some people here have provided a groundwork, and I think it's great!
- 127001brewer 13y ago
  No. Simply because you can't grow (for the better) by insulating yourself from all the "bad stuff".

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.
  - vxNsr 13y ago
    You're all missing the point, if you look a little further down I clarify what I mean by the internet in Ender's Game. But maybe we could have two levels one where all the spam and hate can happen and no one will care... and the other where only people who can show they have a track record of adding meaningfully to the discussion are allowed to post, while everyone can view. Or some other thing... but don't you guys understand that the way things are moving now is untenable? Even you guys just bashed my idea and offered nothing constructive, what's the point of that? I can completely understand that the first few ideas that we have over this aren't gonna be the best, but we have to have more and open the lines to discussion if we wanna keep the community from going to the dogs, no?
    - krapp 13y ago
      I don't believe the situation is untenable. Really, given the tenor of some of the online communities i've been involved in, what passes for unacceptable behavior here is still practically civil. I understand the desire to 'engineer' the problem away but I don't think that's really possible, apart from the community itself being more tolerant and the moderators being more strict but fair. It is a public forum, with a practically nonexistent bar for entry. And i've seen older, established posters act with vicious condescension and newer posters being polite and considerate. You have to accept a certain ground level of chaos, bigotry, backbiting, trolling and noise as part of the system.
    - brymaster 13y ago
      Just because you might think what you're adding (or anyone for that matter) is meaningful doesn't mean everyone else does. I don't know how long you've been lurking on HN before registering, but your account isn't very old and you're suggesting that everything has gone to shit, people should be hellbanned and the forum should be invite-only. To be honest it's just a matter of perspective and these meta discussions aren't very interesting.
      - vxNsr 13y ago
        I've been a reader for about a year... and frankly the tone of comments has changed drastically since then. At the time I felt like I had nothing to add and thus didn't create an account, when I finally did create an account I almost immediately got into a political flame war with someone (remember the elections were coming up then) and got hellbanned, I stayed quiet for a while after that, and then created another account this time vowing to not comment unless I felt what I was saying was something other's would find useful and interesting. In addition I attempted to stay away from politics as it gets heated quickly (I kinda failed on that front when the NYT published that op-ed from the Gitmo Terrorist). All this to say that people will abuse their power more as accountability nears zero. If we can figure out a way to keep everything open and still provide a good environment I'm all for it, and some people here have provided a groundwork, and I think it's great!
127001brewer 13y ago
No. Simply because you can't grow (for the better) by insulating yourself from all the "bad stuff".