The problem with digg and reddit is they allow anyone to join. In almost all UGC sites the users define the site. However if you define your users you define your site.
However, to me and to many others I know, "Hacker" is an ideal that we strive towards... an asymptote... (Stallman is there...Linus is there...I am not going to be there at least for quite some time. But I am trying hard.)
I disagree with that. There can't be an asymptote because there's no upper bound. You strive toward infinity and "hacker" is just a mile marker along the way.
The more I learn, the more questions I am coming up with - which seem to increase my mass as I accelerate. May be one day I might have a weird look on my face and be enlightened. ( Airport lady voice gently says "You have arrived" :-p )
I suspect you've already passed the "hacker" milestone without realizing it. The metaphors you're using are a good sign. How do you rate on this rubric?
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#hacker_alrea...
I am not sure of the answer for: "Has a well-established member of the hacker community ever called you a hacker?". But working on cool stuff will earn this soon or later I guess. So, thanks a lot for the encouragement.
It's not like (3) is some sort of formal induction ceremony. It'll just be an offhand comment that the speaker probably won't remember making a week later. Most often it'll take the form of "you should talk to Fred; he's an XYZ hacker too" during a technical discussion about XYZ. It also tends to occur more often in person than over the internet. If you're worried because it hasn't happened yet, but most of your socialization is on the internet rather than meatspace, then don't sweat it.
It all relies on perceptions -- our own (those who participate in this community), as our perceptions create the atmosphere of this site, and those of the outsiders (both the outsiders we'd like to join, and those we'd like to keep out), as their perceptions determine whether they decide to join and participate here or not.
As has been stated more simply by PG, we want to maintain the perception to unwelcome outsiders that this site will be a waste of their time, and one very good way to do that is for our active participants to keep the front page on-message and full of considered, reasonable words, which most 14-year-olds avoid like leprosy.
One thing I really like about this site is its lack of flashy headlines. As soon as people start screwing with post titles to make them juicy and full of the "10 secrets to X, Y, and Z", then we'll get trouble, because the 14-year-old minds won't even realize that they have no interest in what we think and write about. They'll just jump in and turn this calm abode of thoughtfulness into a garbage pail of dandruff.
I think (MHO of course) that by "hackers" you should include what I would call the "startup hackers", ie: people that also know how to "hack" business and not just PHP/ROR/etc.
This is how Livejournal used to work, and it resulted in everyone knowing at least one other person, which was important for a community site.
And this didn't cripple the growth of Livejournal at all. You only get one invite a year, but you get it immediately on joining. I invite you, you turn around immediately and invite someone else, who invites someone else, etc. The 1/year rule is meant to make me careful about who I spend my one invite on.
most of the annoying 14-year-olds wouldn't be our friends
That's definitely the case here. :)