Dang is going to have 65,535 karma points soon

Are there people whose upvotes count for more than others? Or are these actively suppressed? Either way, it makes it hard to have important/robust conversations when the people seeing them gets suppressed

A lot of people who are stomping mad are mad because they think, for example, that you personally flagged #Thing and don't realize that's not how that works. A lot of that -- the best antidote is calm, cool education without getting cranky, etc.

In my experience and similar provisos.

To explain a bit more:

On the one hand, you need a critical mass of people to have a discussion. On the other hand, large group dynamics seem to be a problem.

HN is generally many multiples larger than the critical mass for the former, at least on the front page. Attention drops off a lot if you go further.

So as an experiment, you could do something like 'rendezvous hashing' to show each user a random 10% subset of submissions. (If you want to gradually introduce it, run the experiment on 20% of the users only, but show them a 50% subset, so that each of the longer tail items still gets 10% of total users? You can play with the numbers.)

You could make this opt-out, too, so that people don't create ten accounts in the hope of seeing everything. Direct links would also still work.

Newer, widely purposed tech that hasn't taken hold yet is the one I see most often. Where people have invested non-trivial time. Eg the rust crew which I choose as an example because I quite like rust so I'm not bashing the tech here.

There are bogus "here's a cool library/app/thing" articles which get to the front page where I scratch my head and then discover "oh, it's boring as hell but in rust." I see people expressing legitimate points of view (which I frequently disagree with) about cases where C might be a better choice or where a rust re-write doesn't buy the user much that are immediately massively downvoted. It's mob mentality, is it organised or self-organising? Doesn't matter either way. Makes rustaceans look pretty stupid though. And yes you can do this for non-rust stuff and it happens. And it's easy to see why. You invest a ton of time into a tech you really want it to succeed to maximise the payoff for doing so.

What do you do to counter it? Anything at all?

HN is gamified on karma - an idea taken from slashdot with a mildly different implementation but a really good idea that has been under-applied accross the web. In this game popular in the zeitgeist massively trumps interesting, well written, thought provoking and well supported. Sure by the time you've got 50 points you probably should stop caring and you've got karma to burn to be thoughtfully unpopular, but if you take the time you probably want that seen and it's the stuff you want to see - which is kind of the point.

The other question I have is why has there been next to nothing here (that I've noticed - maybe I missed it?) About the twitter files revelations and their importance or lack thereof? Intervention? If so please would you share the thinking behind it?

The point being, to suggest what you could do differently requires a clue on what you actually do now, which I'm not at all sure I have.

From then on, whenever a user takes an action on the site (posting, commenting, voting, flagging, etc.) they are prompted to provide an explanation as to how their action contributes to the community. All actions and their transparency notes are stored in this log.

Make it so that it can be skipped, but where applicable the action is delayed, marked with a sigil, and down-weighted.

I dunno, something about the text-only medium seems to keep a lot of junk at bay.

It's ridiculous that this impromptu feedback session is happening here in a sub comment of a trivia thread that many users will just overlook. Feedback and community engagement should be an ongoing, (semi-)formalized process, not an ad hoc, once in a blue moon type of thing that will have been buried under a deluge of garbage by tomorrow morning.

If I could say anything, it would be to stand by your TOS and limit political threads. We are here for tech related news. That’s what HN is great at.

10 years now on HN.

- the voting behaviour is just like reddit or rather just as bad - it is herd voting, flippant voting (but I really don't think how this can be fixed; maybe it can't be - but that is how it is to be honest and maybe it's time we acknowledged it)

- there is a sense of "aura/legend" attached to certain users, I find it maybe a bit extra weird because I am not from the US (later about it), and maybe not from the "in" crowd that I can't understand the why of it (I would not have known even if I knew of those users) - useless/meaningless/contentless comments get upvoted and reach the top -- not showing showing rank/voting might be a great idea imho (again, I really don't know how this can be fixed or whether this has to be fixed)

- HN seems like a "US only" forum largely, maybe that's the intention, I am not sure. I mean some comments and even posts just make it look like everything and everywhere works as it works in the USA

- Brigading or soft-brigading either just happens or maybe allowed as well - esp. on political threads - maybe just do not allow politics at all (no exceptions!) or those might need extra attention. I mean there is no point in allowing a political post when it ends up just getting raided. Also I often feel political posts specifically about USA are more kosher than political posts about other places.

- Encourage non-technical discussions more (but with the exception of political posts :P) - personally my best experiences on hn have actually been on non-tech/sw/hw posts really

One of the things I like about hn is its simplicity but maybe wouldn't mind "sections" or "categories" for different types of posts. Again this has its own trade offs.

I mean it's not so bad and whatever is bad maybe cannot even be fixed.

And either ban "this is offensive" comments or politics altogether.

Some of them are not exactly idle: just a few hours ago I submitted a piece about an epidemic of "voice scams", AI boosted: the idea was that it is not simply "intellectually interesting", but important, urgent and pressing, and especially calling for the awareness of the community.

I have put some consideration on the matter to come up with proposals, but no good idea yet.

This could go after the reply button, before it, before the comment box even. Or, to get fancy, positioned based on karma (a little more in the way when it's low, more out of the way as it climbs).

No functional change.

I've found myself delete a lot of less useful comments when I stop and say "is this really helpful? Or am I trying to 'win' a discussion".

I visit hacker news so that I can avoid current affairs news, but all too often non "hacker" stories appear on the feed and it feels like they shouldn't have made it out of New

So I post a well-researched article that refutes something the parent says. There's no reason that should be downvoted past 1.

- On HN someone downvotes it because they don't like the article

- On Slashdot someone downvotes it because they don't like the article. The pick "-1 flamebait" as the reason because "I disagree" isn't available, and because they are happy to lie. Then someone else metamoderates - "is this flamebait Y/N?" they say it isn't. The moderator then has their moderation judged as unfair and their moderation powers limited.

It reminds me of my former neighbor's dating strategy. A few times I used Python and the HN API because I was interested in the average karma per submission for top users and whether it matches my own opinion about their post quality. It led me to believe maybe a good metric for limiting the number of submissions someone makes: daily submissions allowed = average karma per submission (once you've reached 20 or 100 submissions)

It's not something I can relate to---why people do this shotgun thing; shoving a mound of potentially interesting (and often not self-written) articles in hope that two or three land on the front page. The karma doesn't do anything except give you validation that your contributions "mattered", but if you repost someone else's work (or even your own from the past) you're basically getting validation that other people might care about this thing you care about... which feels empty, to me.

I personally can't develop something technical and interesting more than once per week, and then I doubt how many users want to read about my really obscure and often futile interests (automating cloud publishing of ABC files, trying/failing disassembling an obscure DOS game, random SCAD files for one-off minor life improvements, buggy Python libraries for poker/tailoring/instrument tuning, learning just enough to almost push a stylus driver for two unpopular Linux laptops)

Mostly, I like reading the articles by people who do something technically cool and new and put a lot of effort diving into that thing and sharing its secrets, like this CAN injection post. The expectation is that those users can only post a few times a month unless doing cool stuff and writing about it is their full-time passion/job. Another expectation is that there are enough of these people that the front page can stay full with technically cool/new posts.

The third---and by far, the hardest---expectation is that great* (by my own flawed definition) posts need to be promoted reliably and without bias from /newest to / while also working to reject only-fanboy-/self-voted content or poor quality wikipedia links and seventh "own repost" in four years and New Yorker articles about hip-hop...

I used to flag bullshit articles right away, but they arrive like waves on the beach, and I've learned to filter past the stuff I dislike rather than bother losing some unseen privilege because I get put on a "user who flags too much for bad reasons" list.

To elaborate my skimming: in this moment, there are two reasonably popular but reasonably "not so techy" Wikipedia articles in the front page 30. There are two non-tech (historical) posts---one by a hit-or-miss "often poster" and another by someone who basically only posts non-tech/historical subjects---although in this case, once every two weeks. Five users I recognize as "I post all the damn time" users, although I only consider one of those in the "I post all the damn time and it's annoying" camp. I instantly recognize one repost, but it's one I would find interesting if I saw it for the first time. The majority is stuff I find appropriate for HN, and a minority of that is stuff I personally find interesting. If I get two or three decent articles on the front page and one from /newest, that's still 20 minutes of content that I enjoy, and the HN status quo gives me this.

"GPT, express all the above thoughts and sentiments but only using 30% of the characters I used and with far fewer personal pronouns."

1. Remove non-hacker type content (i.e. news concerning the death of the Queen and anything Trump). Or move it to an off-topic list that doesn’t appear on the front page or other lists. It’s not in the spirit of the site, and I come to this site to avoid it. I treasure the actual hacker discussions on this site and feel like those articles do not add to or even diminish the value. Plus many of those stories that make it to the front page tend to be very focused on America / the English-speaking world.

2. Remove karma or deemphasize it. Discussion is important. Arbitrary numbers are not and (unintentionally) influence how people engage.

3. Add a higher barrier of entry. It’s great how you have to earn 501 karma before you can downvote. Perhaps up that limit and/or require a year old account. Prevent new accounts from posting for a period such as 3 months. This would allow people to pick up on the culture and etiquette before they begin commenting; like an apprentice studying under a master before beginning his own work. I’d even consider adding a simple quiz to create an account. Something that proves you’re a hacker in spirit. The purpose of all this is to prevent the website from stooping to Reddit standards and keeping the quality of content high. Those who engage in discourse on this site should be here because they really want to be part of the community and are willing to jump through a few hoops.

4. Create smaller communities. Find a way to group people across time zones into smaller pockets. A classic issue on Reddit is that smaller subreddits for niche hobbies are often great until they reach critical mass. Past a certain number of users, the culture is lost and everything appeals to the lowest common denominator. If hn is to grow too large, perhaps there could be a way to artificially divide it up.

5. Increase the damn font size!

Thanks for all that you do :)

This ongoing "you are posting too fast" notification has significantly impeded my participation in meaningful conversations. For instance, during a recent debate on the implications of artificial intelligence in the job market, I found it challenging to effectively engage with other users due to this restriction. Similarly, in another thread discussing the merits of various statistical approaches to a subject, my contributions were stifled by the same limitation.

I kindly ask that the administrators of Hacker News consider adopting a more flexible approach to managing user interactions. This approach should accommodate the occasional expression of strong opinions while preserving a respectful and productive environment for all community members.

(Ironically, this very comment was subject to the "you are posting too fast" limitation, which is why I could not respond sooner.)

i was mad about it at the time tho lol

The other aspect (which is hard for a lot of people to admit) is that trolls often have good points. They're mostly standing up for things that have been excluded by the majority.

Edit: they're also usually not trolls, in the sense of deliberately trying to stir up drama. Mostly they're people with strong feelings who (let's call it) underestimate how they come across to others.

And truly, thank you. Rock solid. Steady hand.

For the philologist, from around 1780, The chapter of accidents: a comedy by Sophia Lee.

> Jacob: Dang it, doan't I zeay, I'll tell thee present...

> dang it, I thought at first I ha' zwounded...

https://archive.org/details/chapteraccident00leegoog/page/n4...

...But I also immediately think of Gary Larson.

I thought it was the only picture not published on YC and kept private.

signed 16-bit ints are -32768 to 32767, unsigned 16-bit ints are 0 to 65535

https://youtu.be/UtvS9UXTsPI

(I'm familiar with ... all or nearly all of it, but a one-stop-shop for HN features and behaviours is quite useful.)

The points= parameter is quite useful, and one I'd either not known or forgotten. E.g., posts with >100 votes: <https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100>

Dred's HN CSS Madhackery: <https://pastebin.com/gLXiqKyd>

Dred's HN CSS Madhackery -- Dark Mode: <https://pastebin.com/6PF3dCXH>

Recent local tweak highlights mod comments as well:

  /* Highlight mod(s) */
  .comhead .hnuser[href="user?id=dang"],
  .comhead a:link.hnuser[href="user?id=dang"] {
      color: #ff6600;
      color: #dd5500;
  }

The other HN superpower, available to anyone with an email account regardless of karma, is to email the mods. That's how I started interacting with dang, and still do generally a few times per week/month, mostly for mundane stuff (titles, link disambiguation), occasionally to vouch killed stories, or to point out spammish or hostile behaviour (rarely on the last, flags really do most of the work here).