Example from this very submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28962122
I'm sure there are more people who want to see these content-free comments than not. That's exactly why Reddit is full of them, and why HN was special.
Example from this very submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28962122
I'm sure there are more people who want to see these content-free comments than not. That's exactly why Reddit is full of them, and why HN was special.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852
Of course there are vectors pointing that way, and datapoints on those vectors, but there are also countervailing forces. I think after 14+ years we can at least say it's not collapsing. That's the reason for the final guideline of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (note those carefully curated links! I spent an afternoon on that.)
If there's truly some illusion going on, I'm not sure what the mechanism would be.
I think the fact that people have literally been making the same complaint over and over about how HN is turning into Reddit since literally before it was even called HN is strong evidence (not proof, but strong evidence) that that perception is bogus. Had it ever been true, HN would have become dramatically different a long time ago. Not only the perception but the phrases people use to express it have been unchanged for almost 15 years. That's an internet eternity.
Two rules of thumb about how this stuff works:
* Never underestimate the number of children on the internet
* Never underestimate the number of people intoxicated/high on the internet
Using those as a guide, lots of popularity metrics make sense.
It's mostly like real life, if your community can avoid attracting children or people actively doing drugs, it'll mostly be fine.
Reddit decided at its redesign point to pull hard and accelerate to both these groups as fast as possible.
Slashdot is kind of interesting. After floundering for maybe 2 decades it's starting to get a new focus as effectively legitimate tech journalism.
Digital spaces are like physical spaces. Intentional social rules dictate that say, punching people is ok at a boxing gym and not a library.
Spaces are always created through a stochastic collaboration of randomness and intent
The randomness part is controlled by who's coming in and staying through the physical or digital door and part of the intent is what kind of randomness is being actively invited.
Alright, back to the brass tax. Most people with the capability of building such communities and dictating such rules surround themselves in their physical spaces with a narrow range of people that completely misrepresent the internet audience as a whole.
Because nobody knows if you're a dog on the internet, the creators can go quite a long time before realizing the community they've built is populated by say middle school children.
Keeping in mind that Everyone is on the net and what that actually means is a really important part of creating such spaces.
One of reddit's aha moments happened about maybe 8 years ago and I wish I could find the article. After a site wide audit they banned a number of child pornography subreddits that had become quite popular. But after further investigation they discovered it wasn't adult pedophiles posting photographs of others but teenagers posting their own self produced content. It was a big self reflection for them on the question of "who have you brought on your platform and what are they doing in it?" Is it a boxing gym, a brothel, a bar, a bureaucracy? Better figure it out
From the Guidelines:
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
Last few words are linked:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513
And three more, but I have other things to do.
I was reading HN in 2009, but I don't remember how it was back then. I do remember how it was a few years ago, and the difference to today is obvious, to me.
Trying to silence this opinion is not going to make it less valid, you know.