4 ms·

I honestly don't know why this isn't already built into HN.

by porter 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
michaelochurch 12y ago
Hi.
film42 12y ago
I just wanted to let you know that your comment put a smile on my face. Thank you!
eevilspock 12y ago
Because it would undermine HN's goal that we vote for and comment on content on its own merits, not whether it was posted or commented on by someone you like. I don't think HN is doing that great a job in surfacing the best content or encouraging better discourse in comments, but making it easy to follow favorite users instead of going to the front page would make it worse, IMHO.
- fivedogit 12y ago
  As I was building my "follow" chrome extension... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpg... (shameless plug) ... I definitely wondered about this. All of a sudden, it turns HN into a popularity contest where the elite get all the attention and everyone else is completely ignored.
  - minimaxir 12y ago
    It should be noted that YC founders have a special Orange username that's visible only to other YC founders. The purpose is to prevent flame wars between founders, but I have my suspicions that such submissions receive more up votes on average. (Cannot prove statistically without the list, unfortunately.)
    - dang 12y ago
      > The purpose is to prevent flame wars between founders I've never heard that one, and it's not the purpose. PG added it years ago when the YC alumni community had gotten too big for everyone to know each other.
  - krapp 12y ago
    > All of a sudden, it turns HN into a popularity contest where the elite get all the attention and everyone else is completely ignored. While the effect isn't overwhelming, making the content of a limited pool of 'thought leaders' more prevalent is certainly the bias that a karma system is intended to create. Of course HN presupposes that high karma correlates to high quality content and a high quality user, which is probably why as I understand it, karma gets used as a weight for things like the effect of flagging or downvoting. But if they didn't want it to be a popularity contest, I would assume they wouldn't make user karma public. You don't give people a metric without expecting it to be gamed.
- cryptoz 12y ago
  > Because it would undermine HN's goal that we vote for and comment on content on its own merits, not whether it was posted or commented on by someone you like. That's hardly HN's goal, though. HN itself has code and features that encourage some users to vote for content purely based on who submitted the content or what company they work for. HN's certainly not a democratic voting society where votes are treated equally and we're all encouraged to vote purely on the merits of content. I do like HN a lot, even with that lack of fairness built in to the system. I agree that letting normal users follow each other would make the 'problem' worse (this is what brought Digg down, as a core issue), but it's not like HN sees this as a problem, exactly.
  - minimaxir 12y ago
    > That's hardly HN's goal, though. HN itself has code and features that encourage some users to vote for content purely based on who submitted the content or what company they work for? Hmm? What do you mean by this? If you're referring to the (YC) submission tags, that doesn't indicate that particular bias. Note that submissions from certain people/companies add extra relevant context
    - cryptoz 12y ago
      Well, I believe it's more than that, but I've never seen it so I'm not sure. I've heard rumours that all YC alum have separate features that encourage friendly voting between them, or something similar. > Note that submissions from certain people/companies add extra relevant context Yes, I think I agree. I'm okay with the way things are, ish. It would be better with more transparency, though, but HN's "goal" seems to be quality, and they certainly think that quality is increased with increased visibility to YC-related submissions. My only problem would be HN posing as "fair", which I don't think they do.
      - minimaxir 12y ago
        As mentioned below, YC founders have orange usernames. But that doesn't give them immunity from flagging when they submit bad articles. :)

I honestly don't know why this isn't already built into HN.

by porter 12y ago

I honestly don't know why this isn't already built into HN.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

michaelochurch 12y ago

Hi.

film42 12y ago

I just wanted to let you know that your comment put a smile on my face. Thank you!

eevilspock 12y ago

Because it would undermine HN's goal that we vote for and comment on content on its own merits, not whether it was posted or commented on by someone you like. I don't think HN is doing that great a job in surfacing the best content or encouraging better discourse in comments, but making it easy to follow favorite users instead of going to the front page would make it worse, IMHO.

fivedogit 12y ago
As I was building my "follow" chrome extension... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpg... (shameless plug) ... I definitely wondered about this. All of a sudden, it turns HN into a popularity contest where the elite get all the attention and everyone else is completely ignored.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  It should be noted that YC founders have a special Orange username that's visible only to other YC founders. The purpose is to prevent flame wars between founders, but I have my suspicions that such submissions receive more up votes on average. (Cannot prove statistically without the list, unfortunately.)
  - dang 12y ago
    > The purpose is to prevent flame wars between founders I've never heard that one, and it's not the purpose. PG added it years ago when the YC alumni community had gotten too big for everyone to know each other.
- krapp 12y ago
  > All of a sudden, it turns HN into a popularity contest where the elite get all the attention and everyone else is completely ignored. While the effect isn't overwhelming, making the content of a limited pool of 'thought leaders' more prevalent is certainly the bias that a karma system is intended to create. Of course HN presupposes that high karma correlates to high quality content and a high quality user, which is probably why as I understand it, karma gets used as a weight for things like the effect of flagging or downvoting. But if they didn't want it to be a popularity contest, I would assume they wouldn't make user karma public. You don't give people a metric without expecting it to be gamed.
cryptoz 12y ago
> Because it would undermine HN's goal that we vote for and comment on content on its own merits, not whether it was posted or commented on by someone you like. That's hardly HN's goal, though. HN itself has code and features that encourage some users to vote for content purely based on who submitted the content or what company they work for. HN's certainly not a democratic voting society where votes are treated equally and we're all encouraged to vote purely on the merits of content. I do like HN a lot, even with that lack of fairness built in to the system. I agree that letting normal users follow each other would make the 'problem' worse (this is what brought Digg down, as a core issue), but it's not like HN sees this as a problem, exactly.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  > That's hardly HN's goal, though. HN itself has code and features that encourage some users to vote for content purely based on who submitted the content or what company they work for? Hmm? What do you mean by this? If you're referring to the (YC) submission tags, that doesn't indicate that particular bias. Note that submissions from certain people/companies add extra relevant context
  - cryptoz 12y ago
    Well, I believe it's more than that, but I've never seen it so I'm not sure. I've heard rumours that all YC alum have separate features that encourage friendly voting between them, or something similar. > Note that submissions from certain people/companies add extra relevant context Yes, I think I agree. I'm okay with the way things are, ish. It would be better with more transparency, though, but HN's "goal" seems to be quality, and they certainly think that quality is increased with increased visibility to YC-related submissions. My only problem would be HN posing as "fair", which I don't think they do.
    - minimaxir 12y ago
      As mentioned below, YC founders have orange usernames. But that doesn't give them immunity from flagging when they submit bad articles. :)