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I would absolutely agree with that assessment. One of the (potentially) negative sides of the same phenomenon is the acceptance of and tendency towards memes.

by delecti 12y ago

I would absolutely agree with that assessment. One of the (potentially) negative sides of the same phenomenon is the acceptance of and tendency towards memes. They can certainly be annoying, but a strong flow of memes is indicative of a lot of culture and ideas bashing up against each other until some of the bits stick together in a novel way. A cleverly applied meme comment on a Reddit thread can easily get hundreds or thousands of upvotes. Front page HN threads don't even get any meme comments, because people here know that their comment would be buried immediately, if not outright deleted (I admit to being much less familiar with the inner workings of HN than Reddit). Reddit threads are definitely a place of quantity over quality, but the sheer volume of creativity swirling around is bound to uncover a couple gems. All of that said, I've never viewed HN as a place for ideas to be generated. This is a fantastic whetstone with some brilliant minds, but it can also be merciless.

scrollaway 12y ago
HN is a fantastic display of creativity, but it is certainly not one where creativity happens. That's OK and I bet most of us prefer it this way. To put it in simpler terms, Reddit is more input-oriented, while HN is more output-oriented.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >but it is certainly not one where creativity happens // I disagree - I've had a few novel ideas here, they may not have been universally novel but were definitely ideas that came up from threads I read, that I'd not seen or considered previously. Sure HN isn't structured towards this sort of creativity but it still provokes it on occasions. Forums are as input or output orientated as one chooses IME. Edit: this, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8487385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8487385, might be an example - I've not seen config undo-history in browsers before?
DavidSJ 12y ago
I've always felt that a part of the problem on sites like reddit is that upvoting has essentially zero cost: just move your mouse and click the up arrow on whatever tickles you to do so. This means that a lazy comment which mildly amuses 1,000 people will get as many upvotes as an incredibly thoughtful comment which profoundly touches 1,000 people, and ten times as many upvotes as one which only 100 people appreciate, even if the appreciation runs far deeper. If each account had a limited vote rate (perhaps tied to that user's activity), I think this might help to reduce this effect somewhat. Much the same analysis probably applies to downvotes: currently users will click the down arrow on anything they disagree with, rather than only downvoting comments that severely detract from the conversation. Of course you'd have to be careful about this system being gamed, but all voting systems can be gamed and it's not obvious that this approach is any more vulnerable than usual. To some extent I think Hacker News' greater discussion quality is due to its poor user interface, as weird as that may seem. Upvoting/downvoting on a mobile device, for example, generally requires zooming in to hit a small target, whereas on reddit I don't need to do that on my iPad at all, and on my iPhone not as much. Commenting on Hacker News also requires visiting another URL, whereas on reddit it happens more effortlessly. These are small things but they can be the hurdle that causes someone not to bother to post that joke or upvote the 17th reply in a meme sequence. I know this probably sounds like a technical solution to a social problem, and I don't mean to deny the important effect that cultural norms and community policing play. After all, subreddits have widely varying qualities of discussion depending on their community standards, and there's no question Hacker News' quality survives in large part due to community vigilance. But I do think the effortlessness of voting on reddit is a factor which contributes to the prevalence of lowest common denominator comments, and I'd be very interested in seeing reddit or other social forums experiment with imposing a scarcity of voting power.
- derekp7 12y ago
  Sites like Slashdot have this kind of system, however there are still a lot of comments that get buried, which means you have to browse at -1 or 0 in order to not miss something. Kind of like reviewing your spam filter periodically. What I think could be a better system is for everyone to be able to mark what they like and don't like, then have the option of sorting by votes of other people that typically vote the same way you do. So people that like a lot of meme humor will see that more, and those that don't won't. Add in the ability to select from various "clusters", so you can also have the experience of reading comments based on alternative tastes, then I think you would have something that is immune from being gamed.
- jamesdelaneyie 12y ago
  The idea of a non-accessible user interface leading to greater quality in content posted is very interesting and something that's played on my mind for years and have noticed in some communities. Would love if there was any research on the topic.

by delecti 12y ago

scrollaway 12y ago

HN is a fantastic display of creativity, but it is certainly not one where creativity happens. That's OK and I bet most of us prefer it this way. To put it in simpler terms, Reddit is more input-oriented, while HN is more output-oriented.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>but it is certainly not one where creativity happens // I disagree - I've had a few novel ideas here, they may not have been universally novel but were definitely ideas that came up from threads I read, that I'd not seen or considered previously. Sure HN isn't structured towards this sort of creativity but it still provokes it on occasions. Forums are as input or output orientated as one chooses IME. Edit: this, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8487385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8487385, might be an example - I've not seen config undo-history in browsers before?

DavidSJ 12y ago

I've always felt that a part of the problem on sites like reddit is that upvoting has essentially zero cost: just move your mouse and click the up arrow on whatever tickles you to do so. This means that a lazy comment which mildly amuses 1,000 people will get as many upvotes as an incredibly thoughtful comment which profoundly touches 1,000 people, and ten times as many upvotes as one which only 100 people appreciate, even if the appreciation runs far deeper. If each account had a limited vote rate (perhaps tied to that user's activity), I think this might help to reduce this effect somewhat. Much the same analysis probably applies to downvotes: currently users will click the down arrow on anything they disagree with, rather than only downvoting comments that severely detract from the conversation. Of course you'd have to be careful about this system being gamed, but all voting systems can be gamed and it's not obvious that this approach is any more vulnerable than usual. To some extent I think Hacker News' greater discussion quality is due to its poor user interface, as weird as that may seem. Upvoting/downvoting on a mobile device, for example, generally requires zooming in to hit a small target, whereas on reddit I don't need to do that on my iPad at all, and on my iPhone not as much. Commenting on Hacker News also requires visiting another URL, whereas on reddit it happens more effortlessly. These are small things but they can be the hurdle that causes someone not to bother to post that joke or upvote the 17th reply in a meme sequence. I know this probably sounds like a technical solution to a social problem, and I don't mean to deny the important effect that cultural norms and community policing play. After all, subreddits have widely varying qualities of discussion depending on their community standards, and there's no question Hacker News' quality survives in large part due to community vigilance. But I do think the effortlessness of voting on reddit is a factor which contributes to the prevalence of lowest common denominator comments, and I'd be very interested in seeing reddit or other social forums experiment with imposing a scarcity of voting power.

derekp7 12y ago
Sites like Slashdot have this kind of system, however there are still a lot of comments that get buried, which means you have to browse at -1 or 0 in order to not miss something. Kind of like reviewing your spam filter periodically. What I think could be a better system is for everyone to be able to mark what they like and don't like, then have the option of sorting by votes of other people that typically vote the same way you do. So people that like a lot of meme humor will see that more, and those that don't won't. Add in the ability to select from various "clusters", so you can also have the experience of reading comments based on alternative tastes, then I think you would have something that is immune from being gamed.
jamesdelaneyie 12y ago
The idea of a non-accessible user interface leading to greater quality in content posted is very interesting and something that's played on my mind for years and have noticed in some communities. Would love if there was any research on the topic.