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There is no next step. HN occassionally has some good commentary but ultimately it's hampered by the fundamental design of the place. It's not a place where ext

There is no next step. HN occassionally has some good commentary but ultimately it's hampered by the fundamental design of the place. It's not a place where extended, drawn out conversation can occur over a long period of time. A popular conversation topic results in unwieldy threads that hamper continuation of topics. And because of the way topics decay it's rare for a subject to be discussed outside of a 24hr or 48hr window, give or take. HN compares unfavorably to an older medium: usenet, where read messages wouldn't clutter up threads and where it was easy to continue discussions for indefinite periods (even months) and to return to previous topics or split off side discussions. As long as HN stays the way it is it'll always be hampered by limitations which ultimately cap the quality of discussion.

rando289 12y ago
So much agree. Another big design flaw hampering good conversation: I'd like to read replies to your comment, but HN funnels me to reading only 1 reply, and then onto 1 reply for that comment, each one hijacking the conversation. And we can't collapse threads which makes it even worse.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues
- jonahx 12y ago
  This doesn't address the larger community issue, but if you use chrome check out: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/Hacker%20News%20Collapse https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/Hacker%20News%20Co... I use the first one and it makes HN much more readable.
- asgard1024 12y ago
  The karma system (and the ratio) also discourages conversation. You cannot expect too many upvotes in a subthread.
rdl 12y ago
It's kind of amazing that no forum or other communications system developed in the past 20 years has been as good as USENET (either in the late 1980s, or with a good client with killfiles, global cancels, etc.).
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Well, that just concentrates on the good parts of USENET. The spammers had a field day with it and pretty much destroyed it. Maybe there is an opportunity here in the form of something halfway between a moderated forum and USENET. You could piggyback this onto bitcoin, make a client that listens to specific messages to identify channels embedded in the blockchain? Every message would have to be a payment to a specific address to get a message onto the channel, the moderator(s) of the channel would be the recipient(s) of the bitcoins in reward for moderating the channel. If a moderator decided to 'kill' a post they'd have to make another message to the same channel so for them (minus transaction costs) it would be a '0' affair.
  - rdl 12y ago
    Before the green card lottery , I don't remember any commercial spam; the worst thing was stupid cross posts (easy to kill) and specific moron posters (kill files). The biggest problem I had was a lot of content which didn't make sense to me (cfps and such) since I wasn't even a teenager, but which came from good posters.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      But the green card lottery was shortly after commercial speech was allowed on the Internet, and everything went downhill after that. Even the WWW feels sub-optimal if you want to find information.

rando289 12y ago

So much agree. Another big design flaw hampering good conversation: I'd like to read replies to your comment, but HN funnels me to reading only 1 reply, and then onto 1 reply for that comment, each one hijacking the conversation. And we can't collapse threads which makes it even worse.

jacquesm 12y ago
https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues
jonahx 12y ago
This doesn't address the larger community issue, but if you use chrome check out: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/Hacker%20News%20Collapse https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/Hacker%20News%20Co... I use the first one and it makes HN much more readable.
asgard1024 12y ago
The karma system (and the ratio) also discourages conversation. You cannot expect too many upvotes in a subthread.

rdl 12y ago

It's kind of amazing that no forum or other communications system developed in the past 20 years has been as good as USENET (either in the late 1980s, or with a good client with killfiles, global cancels, etc.).

jacquesm 12y ago
Well, that just concentrates on the good parts of USENET. The spammers had a field day with it and pretty much destroyed it. Maybe there is an opportunity here in the form of something halfway between a moderated forum and USENET. You could piggyback this onto bitcoin, make a client that listens to specific messages to identify channels embedded in the blockchain? Every message would have to be a payment to a specific address to get a message onto the channel, the moderator(s) of the channel would be the recipient(s) of the bitcoins in reward for moderating the channel. If a moderator decided to 'kill' a post they'd have to make another message to the same channel so for them (minus transaction costs) it would be a '0' affair.
- rdl 12y ago
  Before the green card lottery , I don't remember any commercial spam; the worst thing was stupid cross posts (easy to kill) and specific moron posters (kill files). The biggest problem I had was a lot of content which didn't make sense to me (cfps and such) since I wasn't even a teenager, but which came from good posters.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    But the green card lottery was shortly after commercial speech was allowed on the Internet, and everything went downhill after that. Even the WWW feels sub-optimal if you want to find information.