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Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

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Right on, swombat.

Last year, upon Iteration 27 of this same subject, I threw something like this together in jest:

                 Quality of HN Comments Over Time
   |                   . .
   |                  .   . 
  q| . .             .     .
  u|    .           .       .               . . .
  a|     .         .          .           .       .
  l|      .       .              .      .           .
  i|       .     .                  . .               .    
  t|        . . .                       you are here -->. .
  y|                                      (that's all)
   |________________________________________________________
    M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A
                    '09                     '10

I must have been on to something because so many didn't realize it was a joke. What fun that was. All I have to do is shift the x axis every n months: some things never change.

Original thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604

Sadly this is exactly what the CEO of a company (maybe all companies?) I worked for would do with his projected sales chart...and he still has his job. Now THAT's funny.

Good work :)

Holy crap I remember that plot. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926806

Damn, we're always in the same spot, the years just keep flowing underneath us.

This is the best way to measure change on HN I think:

http://news.ycombinator.com/best

The ratio of HN vs non-HN items as observed by any individual is of course different.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could actually keep track of the quality by some measure and thus validate your model? Things said in jest are often true, and I think you actually have a valid model.

It would be interesting to have some live feedback on the current quality level, and see if that affects the response of the community, but this would require some sort of metrics on quality, which is quite a subjective field.

I believe a while ago there was a submission about parsing text to see whether the author was male or female, and wonder if there is a similar algorithm to check whether a comment is positive or negative, technical or shallow and thus create some objective measure of quality.

This is completely off-topic, but how do you format your comment to force mono-spaced font?

I haven't been able to find an instructions on what formatting can be used in comments, like to quote a previous post, for example.

http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

I think that reminding people to read the guidelines does not necessarily mean that HN is becoming bad.

I incur sometimes in posts that do not follow the guidelines and get a lot of downvotes. Half the time they are from new users that maybe do not even know about those guidelines, so maybe they do not even understand why they are getting downvoted. Of course they can learn it the hard way, but reading the guidelines is a lot faster and wastes less of everybody's time.

In the same way there are some posts that are not appropriate to this community. In the last days I did not find many interesting posts in the first page, but that's just my opinion and the community as a whole decides what goes up or not. Nonetheless some days ago I even found a link to thisisphotobomb.com (a websites of the cheesburger network, like the lolcats) and this is clearly against the guidelines. Again, there are the voting system and the flagging system, but it wastes less of everybody's time just to know the guidelines and it's better not to pollute the new posts section.

In each of these cases I think "you should read the guidelines", but don't write it because it's against them. But the fact that lately I've been thinking it more often, means that a kind reminder is not totally out of place.

Does this all mean that HN is becoming bad? I don't think so. It just means that we have guidelines we care about because they made HN a place we all like.

Does this all mean that HN is becoming bad? I don't think so. It just means that we have guidelines we care about because they made HN a place we all like.

Exactly. I actually haven't noticed any egregious infractions in the comments or stories, just thought it might be a good idea to point them out for those who might not be aware the guidelines even exist.

It would be nice if a brief summary of the guidelines appeared on the "submit" page if your karma is below say 20 just so you have a more constant reminder.

Indeed, though the worst trend I see is emotional comments getting voted up more. Maybe I'm seeing the past more warmly than it was, but it seems like clear, logical, consistent, coherent comments got voted up and emotional based comments stayed around 1 or got voted down. It seems like a lot of emotional reactions are getting voted up even when they're not coherent, consistent, and logical - which seems a bad trend.

The worst trend I see is comments getting downvoted based on opinions expressed within, not on how poorly they are expressed. No matter how thoughtful a comment, if it goes against the groupthink, you can expect it to hurt your karma.

I like /.'s tagging of comments. It's good feedback on why something was up or down modded.

It also forces a downvoter to justify why something is getting downvoted.

Yes. I think a simple tweak of having two ways to vote could be an interesting new dynamic: agree/disagree and valuable/not valuable. That way you can express that you disagree with a comment but still upvote them for furthering the discussion. And you can hit the "not valuable" button for insults, trolls, fluff comments, etc.

Now if they only allowed us to downvote stories, instead of relying upon tags such as "slashvertisement", "dupe", and whatever we tag those ridiculously-overhyped headlines...

Here is an example from 925 days ago of pg saying it is okay to downvote for disagreement.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

He is still thinking about tweaking the forum settings here to ensure good discussion. On my part, I'm a good bit more disappointed when a user asks a polite follow-up question (for example, "What would be a source I could check to confirm that fact?") and that kind of comment gets downvoted. Why do people disagree with trying to find out more information to enlighten the discussion?

Because interested parties can google it and in the reasonably likely case that the question goes unanswered, it's just noise.

Google is not always going to turn up the reference a parent post refers to though.

The 'citation needed' ones are another matter.

Far too often comments asking for a cite are voted up and comments that don't provide cites are voted down, even when the cite is trivially findable via Google. Take this thread for instance:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1552233

Regardless of whether I deserved to be downvoted, there is zero reason for the person asking for a cite to get upvoted considering the the relevant article is literally the first Google result for "old spice" "hormone disruptor".

I think it's bullshit that people regularly get downmodded for posting comments quoting basic facts that everyone should know, or at least know how to verify, without citing a source. If you don't know how to, say, look up the GDP of a foreign country yourself then you really have no business being on this site to begin with.

I can't speak for other readers of HN, but I often ask those questions after seeing that Google points to unreliable sources without scientific editing. I'd expect someone who RELIES on a fact being true knowing how to check that fact with more than just Google.

As a rule, when I see you do that though you qualify your request to that extent.

Most of the 'citation needed' comments say just that and no more.

In the end though, the example linked is a pretty good one in that the base claim ('old spice causes infertility') is indeed somewhat supported but not to the extent that you're in acute danger: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/browse.php?brand_id=705

I couldn't care less because I can't use aftershave anyway but I can see how that might be a problem if you used it every day (or even twice a day for the 5 O'clock shadow).

I think down voting comment for opinion is great once the comment reaches a few points. That's a discussion.

Down voting a comment to zero or negative based only disagreement feels the enforcement of opinion.

And I've noticed that a more often lately...

> No matter how thoughtful a comment, if it goes against the groupthink, you can expect it to hurt your karma.

So what? If you think that karma means something significant, you're doing it wrong.

As to whether "thoughful" comments get significant downvotes, I don't see it. Instead, I see a bunch of earnest twaddle.

Symptomatic of that is the belief that "thoughtful" is a worthwhile characteristic. It isn't.

> The worst trend I see is comments getting downvoted based on opinions expressed within, not on how poorly they are expressed.

Artfully expressed nonsense is still nonsense.

In other news, HN isn't intended to make you feel good about yourself, no matter how special your mother says you are.

>So what? If you think that karma means something significant, you're doing it wrong.

I find it interesting that expressing this opinion is one of the surest ways I know to gain a negative score for your comment.

I try to upvote/downvote based on how well a comment adds to the discussion, rather than whether or not I agree with it. Comments I am the most likely to downvote: jokes (they'd have to be really good for me to upvote); emotional responses without a shred of factual support; insults; and comments that are overwhelmingly demonstrably false and/or contain provably bad advice.

I agree, it's a fairly constant theme. But...

1) It's been a while, so worth the reminder; and 2) It's actually a submission from someone whose been here a while. The last several were from people with < 200 day memberships.

So: worth a little bit of +1 action, but I certainly hope it doesn't 'stay at the top for a while' as someone else said. Hoarding one of the 'above the fold' slots would be a bummer.

We're supposed to ignore the fold now aren't we? :)

Yes, but I don't see this as being helpful. Be honest. Did you reread the guidelines? And more importantly, do you think the people that didn't read the guidelines the first time around will reread it because of a thread like this?

All in all, I think this is less about helping newbies integrate into the site and more about giving "old-timers" a chance to vent.

I think the reality is more that it goes in cycles, and it does seem to be at one of its low points currently. A reminder of the guidelines seems in order.

What I find is that randomness produces the appearance of cycles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

The last couple days were particularly bad, with lots of articles about controversial but fundamentally boring topics. But I think it was a coincidence, as usual.

Do you collect any metrics on user behavior?

For example, it seem to me like downvoting (and particularly the abuse of downvoting) is on the rise. But this is just a gut feeling based on my particular comment history.

I don't think people are more apt to downvote than in the past. But there are a lot more voters. Plus I recently removed the -4 threshold on comment scores and instead merely never display a number lower than -4. So downvoted comments now cost more karma. (This was in response to people who would say asshole things, knowing they couldn't cost them more than 4 points.)

I don't know, I definitely think people a people a much more inclined to downvote for the wrong reasons. I've made a lot of posts in the last day, one of which was by far the longest post in a 200+ comment thread, none of which I think were in any way rude or anything like that, and despite that it's cost me around -10 karma overall (mostly because of one post in particular, which I don't think was that bad. A strong opinion, but no personal attacks or anything).

I've also observed a lot of posts being modded into oblivion for saying things like "thanks" and stuff like that. People generally seem to downvote posts which they disagree with, regardless of how polite or well-reasoned they are.

While I (obviously) don't think you deserved it, it was a very short, controversial post, with nothing backing it up. [1]

And the "thanks" posts don't get downvoted because of a personal disagreement, it's that a comment that just says "awesome, thanks!" doesn't add any value to the discussion. An upvote would suffice.

1: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1643726

Up votes instead of 'thanks' would seem to me to remove any kind of interaction that helps foster a community. If people knew who up voted their post then that would not be a problem.

Saying thanks in and of itself isn't bad, but some additional substance would be nice. Compare these two comments:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1644924

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1644906

Which would you rather see more of? One highlights something specific, says 'this is really important to me,' and gives thanks... and the other says nothing, really.

I understand what you are saying and I see the merit of having more content to a thank you post, but if it is not there is that in and of itself a warrant for a down vote? Sure you want more and more is sometimes great, but there is still a lot of substance in a simply 'Thank you' to be had. While the comment definitely does not merit an up vote, neither does it warrant a down vote. I would almost hazard to say that you no longer appreciate the value of the thanks itself and simply see it as a customary response that after being used so many times, no longer has any meaning. I see that you want "Thanks, (and here's why)" but what exactly are you worried about with having a few thank you posts?

> there is still a lot of substance in a simply 'Thank you' to be had.

I think this is where we fundamentally differ.

> what exactly are you worried about with having a few thank you posts?

They don't add anything to the discussion. They're meaningless. I'd rather see a story with 100 upvotes and 0 comments than a story with 1 upvote and 100 comments with a full text of "Thank you."

Ultra-short "Thank you" posts are basically spam. They clutter the page visually without adding any content. I tend to downvote them when I see them. If you don't have anything more than "thank you" or "I agree" or "lol wtf +1" to say, just upvote instead of commenting. Those types comments add nothing to the discussion but take valuable visual space that could instead contain a thoughtful, well argued comment.

If you're talking about [1] then I'm one of the people who down-voted it yesterday, for the reasons that steveklabnik [2] cites.

It's just an assertion with nothing backing it up, so it's not contributing anything to the discussion. It's an assertion that I happen to agree with in large part for my own reasons. But as long as you're not making a case for it it's just noise that deserves to be down-voted, while comments that back up their assertions and stimulate thoughtful argument deserve an up-vote.

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1643726 2. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647505

What's also interesting is how the appropriateness of this particular metadiscussion seems to also come in waves. Today this is top of the front page. Tomorrow the same post might be flagged or comments downvoted into oblivion.

What a coincidence, that's just like everywhere else too. It's like an eternal september or something.

It reminds me of the famous "Wear sunscreen" video :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=MX&v=0CVB8YSOLK4

Ugh, got decontextualized.

I meant the video reminded me about the recurring ranting (or praising) cycle that takes place when looking life in hindsight. :)

"... when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble ..."

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