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Comment by joshdavham | Hacker News Reader

This pretty much describes a lot of what I’ve experienced in online language learning communities. A large majority of my friends who eventually reached fluency in their target language ended up leaving or becoming significantly less active over time despite their success. Over time, the quantity of ‘wannabe’ language learners has generally increased and reduced the overall quality of the communities. I used to be completely anti-gatekeeping but my opinion has been slowly changing on this point.

It is interesting that HN still seems to be very high quality (though I haven’t been using it super duper long to truly judge). Does HN have any healthy gatekeeping mechanisms aside from its (ugly) UI to keep it high quality?

View on HN

> Does HN have any healthy gatekeeping mechanisms aside from its (ugly) UI to keep it high quality?

Yes, the mods.

> Does HN have any healthy gatekeeping mechanisms aside from its (ugly) UI to keep it high quality?

Aside from the users being elitist egocentric pricks and the frontpage being indecipherable to anyone without a CS formation?

I don't think so. But yeah the layout is mostly what does it. Before reddit redesigned itself, it wasn't so bad. Normies want Instagram-like feeds to endlessly scroll through, and they don't like reading because it hurts their brains. So they gatekeep themselves.

I believe you are confusing "effective" with "ugly" There is only one thing that could improve HN interface, and that is an NNTP mirror feed, so you could use any NNTP client you like.

I mean, the upvote buttons could be bigger on mobile.

Great comment. I almost downvoted it by mistake ;)

There is a downvote button here??

only after you prove you fit in

> There is a downvote button here??

Haha yes. You get access after getting a bunch of karma.

But it's that friction and all the other small details, that make HN what it is. There is value in permanence, and there is beauty in imperfection :)

HN being almost unusable on mobile is probably another kind of gatekeeping feature that has a slight positive effect on quality.

I routinely read HN on my phone. I'm doing it right now.

I think I've only accidentally flagged about posts by mistake...

> I believe you are confusing "effective" with "ugly"

Oh no, I truly believe it’s ugly.

What makes it ugly? It's very functional, straightforward, and minimal. No huge padded tailwind components or anything.

Have you tried upvoting, or favouriting a post on mobile? It’s borderline impossible without zooming in like crazy, and I still have to check it I saved or accidentally flagged someone’s work.

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