I get the feeling that at the very top of every Hacker News comment thread, there's someone who claims that the author of the article is an incompetent idiot because they found a factual error somewhere in the article. Often this leads to a pedantic discussion of some insignificant details.<p>With all these extremely knowledgeable people from different fields, I wish I found more big picture insights in the comments here.
I'm curious about the degree to which decreasing quality is a consequence of dilution in which "less desirable" individuals lower the mean quality (or some other holistic measure), versus the social effects due purely to size.<p>I'm curious because a large community will probably change the behavior of all individuals, regardless of quality. One such effect is they way discussions happen. In a village, town halls can have discussions with every member. An idea is brought forth, multiple people make changes, it gets amended, reworked, changed. In short, topics have some amount of "persistence", and opinions have more dynamism.<p>In a city, discussions are more like a broadcast: any member might be able to speak, but they're not sparking discussion, they're broadcasting a point of view, and with so many points of view broadcast at any given moment, it's hard to have a discussion that lasts more than a few hours before the next topic of interest is brought forth. In short, topics seem to have little persistence, and opinions have far less dynamism.<p>It seems much more rewarding in a city to make comments designed to convince the audience of how intelligent I am, because I only have the city's attention for a moment. Perhaps this leads to the preponderance of middlebrow dismissals or other "how can I look smart here?" comments. In a village, by contrast, these comments are much less lucrative. If I walk around and the only comment I can give to others is that their new crop idea might not work, I'm probably not going to be very valued, because people will notice over time that those are the only comments I give.<p>It's difficult for me to articulate quite what I mean, perhaps someone could help.
<i>Another subtle feature addition: a flame-war detector. Graham has been consistently deploying and updating proprietary software that determines whether there is a flame war, where people argue heatedly. When these flame wars take place (which Graham says can often get ugly and personal), the story in which the commenting is taking place is moved further down the page.</i><p>Remember the above the next time someone claims that a rogue contingent <i>must</i> be flagging stories on a particular topic because it is further down the page than other stories submitted at a similar time and with a similar number of points.
I too have noticed pg's growing frustration with HN a little bit. I joined HN almost 6 years ago -- then I was a naive teenager with a scattered view of the world, though with a ferocious appetite for intelligent debate. I used to do light design work then and usually shied away from hardcore backend programming. I have HN to thank for getting me to take the jump. I also have HN to thank for keeping me informed on various fronts so I could make right decisions that were key in seeing my first 'startup' project surviving (thanks patio11 for your instructive thoughts on a/b testing; grellas for legal stuff; potatolicious for thoughts on design, etc. etc. :)).<p>One thing I want to say is: I think it's okay to be ... well, a little bit mean sometimes. My favorite commenter on this site is rayiner -- one of the reasons I like him is he's never afraid to say what he really believes (sometimes in a slightly mean diction), even if it's going against HN userbase consensus. He's not out to get karma (as some other opportunist high-karma users here are sometimes... complete with amazon affiliate links in their comments, indeed, that is singularly the only thing that annoys me about HN). There's inevitably going to be disagreement when we're discussing important things we have strong feelings on. As long as the discussion doesn't devolve into corrosive name-calling and ad hominems it's fine, and I don't think we go that low very much. I think HN will be fine going forward -- there's a strong identity that is enforced by all users. Thanks pg et al. for keeping this hangout alive and rocking.
> <i>If you are a YC founder, your username will show up in orange to other YC founders to enable these entrepreneurs to recognize and meet each other.</i><p>Silicon Valley is supposed to be this great meritocracy where it doesn't matter where you went to school or who you know, all that matters is how well you can build and "make something people want."<p>However, it always amazes me how much cronyism (for lack of a better word) there still is in Silicon Valley. Even Y Combinator is not immune to it. To their credit, PG et al are great at pattern recognition and identifying what separates good/great teams from the bad, but I feel like there is still too much cronyism, personal bias, and subjective judgment in their model that excludes a lot of entrepreneurs who don't fit their "type".<p>Given how influential PG's essays and YC's model have been on other VCs and angel investors, I wonder if it's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy and/or vicious cycle in the industry where because YC prefers a certain subset of successful founder, it causes many/most investors to also prefer that subset, which makes it easier and easier for this subset of founders to quickly get funding and access to critical resources and networks, while it becomes harder and harder for new subsets of entrepreneurs to break through this walled garden.<p>DISCLAIMER: I really like YC and I read HN every day. I just think that if e.g. Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins were VC 1.0 and YC was VC 2.0, a new VC 3.0 that addresses the shortcomings of the current model is way overdue.
I am happy HN is here, even if the small village has become a big city. On a given day, there is a decent percentage of the front page that I don't understand at all, and I enjoy reading the articles and comments. I find it an interesting way to learn new things.<p>Thank you PG for creating Hacker News. I read it daily.
It's sad and indicative of the quality of tech journalism when this line gets written by thenextweb and then quoted by techcrunch without being questioned:<p>> Having a big audience isn’t really the goal. In comparison, Hacker News’ inspiration and the first big YC exit, Reddit has seen as much as 4.4 million page views in a given day.<p>If 4.4 million page views in a given day were special for Reddit, it would not be the hugely successful page it is and tech journalists should have a rough idea of traffic figures like these. The same thenextweb post claims further down that Reddit averaged 3 billion page views a month in 2012.<p>(it was the Obama AMA subreddit that hit 4.4 million page views in a single day)
What bothers me personally the most is the way in which downvotes seem to happen. Don't get me wrong, a lot of users downvote in a good way, so it's not all bad.<p>Still, I often find grey comments that are brought in a completely respectable way. I feel like these comments are getting downvoted because someone disagrees with them, rather than because they are bad or toxic comments.<p>The opposite is also true, I often find comments with a positive amount of votes that are in the "internet jokester" style and don't really contribute anything meaningful to the topic at hand.
The article (perhaps ironically) neglected to mention an enormous volume of submissions exist just to harvest pageviews from this community.<p>There is a constant flow advertisements posing as articles where startups write random fluff to get their otherwise unrelated and uninteresting startups on the front page.<p>There is a constant flow of mainstream blogs and people meticulously tailoring content for this site.<p>There have been numerous large companies that have blatantly spammed the site for years undetected, and probably plenty more that still haven't been detected judging by all the 'submissions-only' accounts churning out generic links to mainstream sites.<p>I don't think routine exploitation fosters a healthy, happy community.
HN is a testament to what happens when you make a thing for a very specific group of people and only them.<p>It sort of reminds me those companies you hear about every once in a while that say "No" to being sold in Wal-Mart. It seems crazy but there is value in passing on certain kinds of growth.<p>The only hiccup to this plan in HN's case is that the very specific community it is targeted to is itself growing and growing. So staying "small" might be impossible.
"Around six months ago, Graham brought on someone else, who he chose not to name, to moderate the site. He says the individual is affiliated with Y Combinator and is a 'prudent and thoughtful guy,' and has been doing a great job ever since."<p>I didn't know this. I think the prudent and thoughtful guy is doing a generally good job. I don't think anyone can read every thread here exhaustively, but there is some good signal:noise ratio here even after all the years of growth.<p>"I wish I could get people to stop posting comments that are stupid or mean" is pg's summary of what still needs to be fixed. I'm on board with that too.
I think what I love most about HN is that PG (and others?) take an active role in trying to steer the tone of the comments in specific directions, and don't try to make it a super democratic site like Reddit where everything about the community is allowed to just grow organically in a hands-off manner.<p>I see lots of complaints about supposed censorship or excessive moderation or hellbans, and I understand why those things might frustrate people. Really, I do. But it's not like this is the only place on the Internet where people can go to post comments about tech news. The fact that HN isn't trying to be all things to all people, and isn't trying to be as fair as possible to everyone at all times, is actually what I love about it.<p>I'm glad that there's places like Reddit where everything is community-driven and the maintainers are totally hands-off as to the content of the site, and I frequently enjoy Reddit as well. But I'm also glad that there are places like HN which are actively molded into being a specific kind of site with specific standards of discourse, even if I don't always agree with it. I wish more news sites had such specific visions for content and comments. Not necessarily the same vision, just <i>some</i> vision other than avoiding even the perception of censorship at all costs.
<i>He worries that Hacker News will become what he calls “an old crumbling building.”</i><p>I hope not. This is one of the best & brightest online communities I've ever seen.<p>I learn so much every single day from the content & insights posted on this site, I'm not sure where I'd be without it :)
> With 1.6 million page views a day (...) Hacker News<p>> Reddit has seen as much as 4.4 million page views in a given day<p>These numbers didn't seem right to me; reddit gets way more than 3 times hn's traffic.<p>Last December, reddit had 2 billion page views [<a href="http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/2-billion-beyond.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/2-billion-beyond.html</a>] which works out to over 60 million a page views a day and over 30 times hn's count.
I genuinely appreciate HN. I'm a convicted hacker and am nowhere as bright as some of you guys on here (I have my moments).<p>Being accepted by you guys really does help me get back into tech and do what I know best. THANK YOU!
HN is becoming my main tech related hub recently. Almost any article worth reading from the big tech sites will find its place here and comments are noting short of amazing sometimes. The depth on some technical topics surpasses even stackexchange.<p>Also if there is downwards slope in the quality it is very mild - for the two years I have been here it is quite consistent.
<p><pre><code> On the backend, Hacker News runs on one core, and Graham calls this a “remarkable feat of scaling.”
</code></pre>
Wow, Really? I'd say that is pretty remarkable, yes. Is there anywhere that goes into more detail about this?
<i>If you are a YC founder, your username will show up in orange to other YC founders to enable these entrepreneurs to recognize and meet each other.</i><p>I've been aware of this for a while (a few YC founders I got to meet confided this to me), but it is the first time I've seen it being publicly admitted.<p>Along with the DMCA[1] link below, I'm happy to see this ever increasing level of transparency on Hacker News. I believe it is a great way to foster trust among the community.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/dmca.html" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/dmca.html</a>
To those who have been here from the early days, thanks for letting us newer folks crash the party.<p>I don't have a lot of +50 comments, but I try to self-censor if I'm not getting more +2s than not.<p>No idea if or when eternal September kicks in here, but... I guess the upside is what pg has proved: anyone dissatisfied with online communities can just build a new one, use a singular purpose and a stripped-down ad-free interface, and people will come (for better or worse).
It's interesting to hear that all moderation is done by just a few people. It's easy to knock mods, but I think the moderation is pretty good here.<p>I like the choice that people make here. People decide to be constructive and useful. It'd be interesting to see how that can be replicated in other places. Reddit has some good subs. Ask science and ask history are great. They have big moderation teams who frequently delete comments. (That's a good thing!). SE is good for their very narrow tasks - they really need to open an ad-supported open discussion version of the sites. At the moment there is a site, its meta site, and its chat site. Having a noodling discussion site would allow people to have that interesting chat stuff.<p>It's interesting that wikipedia, while being brilliant, is also really toxic and unpleasant for some people.
I might be mistaken but I get the sense that, especially to older members, it's not just "declining quality of discussion" (uninformed/irrelevant, discompassionate, outright rude, inflammatory comments) that is threatening the value of the site. There may actually be a less tangible/measurable quality, that of the early "feel" of the community, that was of great value to those members. It might have come from the particular set of voices that made up the bulk of comments in the early days, or the relative obscurity of the site. While discussion quality can be improved, I doubt some members can ever feel fully satisfied, without the old feel.<p>Also, there are many innovations in comment systems. Gawker's Kinja system is quite good at surfacing or organizing interesting comments, among other things. Post segmentation and comment filtering are techniques used by Slashdot and Reddit, which dampen the impact of growth on community "feel". But, despite the massive growth, there is strong aversion to incorporating any deep changes here.<p>I perceive two specific challenges: prominent voices might actually want a feeling that is (or appears to be) impossible to restore, and there's general apprehension about messing too much with the magic formula that brought HN to the point it's at today. With the influx of users, this appears to create an identity crisis for the site.<p>I wish I could suggest solutions along with these observations.<p>Edit: I do think it would be useful to understand what members of varying karma levels subjectively/qualitatively perceive to be the values and valuable traits of the site.
It's not a decline in overall quality, just a decrease in signal to noise ratio. Which is a consequence not of user growth but of the startup culture becoming more mainstream and less nerdy.<p>Still my favorite site and primary source (directly or indirectly) of new knowledge.
I am brand new to HN (and reddit (I'm a noob)). I am a hacker though, I think, and love reading the articles that I would have no other way to read. I am trying to be a more involved member to the hacker/developer community. I think that more people is a good thing overall, it brings more view points and opinion to the site. I do see the downsides to the growth too, though I think that the good far outweighs the bad. I ma not a new member that is a troll or a bad commenter and I think most new users to HN are the same way. Just my $0.02.
If you want to see on which date you joined Hacker News, click your login name in the right top of the page (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Username" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Username</a>) and note the 'created: 1397 days ago'. Then plug in this number into a date calculation:<p><pre><code> $ python
>>> import datetime
>>> print datetime.date.today() - datetime.timedelta(1397)
2009-07-22
</code></pre>
Interesting. I joined in the summer of 2009 ;-)
If memory serves me right, there was a lot of discussion in the early days of HN about <i>not</i> being Reddit (when Reddit was much more low quality and getting beaten by Digg).
<i>>Could This Be A Business?</i><p>Without a doubt. In fact, if a prominent hacker in a non-english speaking country set up something similar, it will definitely become influential.<p>Hatena Bookmark of Japan used to be like the old reddit with predominantly hacker subject articles, but it grew and became mainstream, kind of like new reddit. Now the hacker community there is yearning for something like hacker news; something that is <i>for them</i>.
You can tell that the quality of the comments (and hence of the community) is going down when you can just by looking at the title of a post, predict the type of negative comments that you will see inside.<p>However the question (which might not have a satisfactory answer) is whether you can keep the same quality standards <i>while</i> still growing. I think that forcibly keeping the community small can be worse than dilution itself.
Maybe a de-amalgamation is in order. I'm thinking a sort of inner ring system, where higher karma users contribute but lower karma have read-only. I'm sure this has big issues, just throwing it out there