
Ask HN: Do we no longer support our members? - covercash
I saw a link marked [dead] earlier today and decided to click through and check it out.  The submitter had a simple post describing where the idea originated and then broke down the development into a nice timeline of events.  He threw this little project together in a few hours with his buddy, working through the night.  That sounds like it would be something HN members would support.<p>At this point, I wasn't sure why it was marked dead, so I visited the site and found some pretty disgusting submissions from what I can only assume are HN members.  Comments along the lines of "keep this crappy site off HN" and one submission even telling him to die.  These submissions have since been removed.<p>In any case, the response from HN made me angry and I've been thinking about it all afternoon.  Who cares if it's not the prettiest site, or if it's not something you'll ever use.  This guy built his project and shared his experience with us.  The least we could do is give him some constructive feedback so he can improve it and maybe learn a thing or two.<p>Here's the link to his original post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800925
======
jacquesm
I understand that you're not referring to the post on HN that got killed but
to the activity on their website.

What happened there is no different than what happens when someone posts a
spreadsheet with useful stuff here. Within minutes it will get destroyed or
defaced.

The 'griefers' have definitely discovered HN. I suspect that some of them are
people that took rejection by YC a bit harder than they should have, and that
some others are simply here because they can't see a good thing without being
tempted to try to destroy it.

Anything - and I really mean anything - that you put out there on the internet
needs to be designed with abuse in mind, because no matter how small it is the
abusers will seek it out and will try to destroy it.

That's something that you need to be aware of as much as you need to be a
coder or a designer when you plan on making a living online.

Better get used to it.

~~~
pg
_I suspect that some of them are people that took rejection by YC a bit harder
than they should have, and that some others are simply here because they can't
see a good thing without being tempted to try to destroy it._

It's almost entirely the latter. Only a small percentage of HN users actually
apply to YC, and I can only think of one who became abusive on HN after being
rejected (and he sent me an email recently apologizing).

Most of the nastiness we get here is from new users who show up and think they
can behave like they do on other sites. This has been happening for years. But
I wouldn't attribute to them such complex motives as not being able to see a
good thing without being tempted to destroy it. I think they're just 13, or
nuts.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_Only a small percentage of HN users actually apply to YC_

Slightly off-topic, but what about the inverse of that: how many YC applicants
are active HN users [1]? Just curious as to how much of the applicant pool
comes from HN.

1\. Since you have to create a HN account to apply, I'm assuming 100% of YC
applicants are HN users, so maybe how many actively participate?

~~~
navanit
Also interesting would be to get an idea of what percentage of people who get
accepted into YC participate actively on HN.

~~~
pg
That would be hard to reconstruct, because we don't keep track of people's
karma at the point when we accept them, but we usually have 1 or 2 startups
per batch with founders whose usernames I recognize as being top contributors.
6 of the 100 users on the leaderboard are YC founders.

~~~
mlLK
Yeah, I think YC applicants or founders is statically insignificant, but I
think your total user base is just as insignificant as this since it doesn't
tell us much about what stories are showing up on the front-page and who is
saying what about it. Instead, considering you're still only interested in
comments, what if you filtered your user base for anyone that has posted a
comment in the last 30 days then extrapolated the proportion of comments
posted given a threshold of karma or "days alive" on HN against everyone else
in your user base.

I think it's more revealing this way if you are interested in how increased
traffic and site participation is effecting this 6% you mentioned above or
that "days alive" value; IOW, how is increased traffic and new user
participation effecting the rate at which this sample is posting comments?

In the end, I don't think increased traffic is effecting the discussion to the
extent that it really matters; I think what really keeps everyone else in
check is the frequency at which older members are posting comments.

------
mattlanger
His project reminds me of this great passage from Colson Whitehead's _Colossus
of New York_ : "No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker
the first time you say, That used to be Munsey's, or That used to be the Tic
Toc Lounge. That before the internet cafe plugged itself in, you got your
shoes resoled in the mom-and-pop operation that used to be there. You are a
New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here
now."

I suspect that same sentiment speaks to quite a few HN'ers as well.

------
rriepe
It's funny. So many people come to HN to get their daily dose of commoditized
inspiration. And yet, when it's their turn to help someone out and give _real_
inspiration, they do things like this.

I don't think HN is getting worse, really, but I do think it's getting faster.
Sometimes posts get lost in the flood of new stuff. Or sometimes posts just
get stuck with a bad crowd who happened to click.

And it is a bad crowd, too-- it's one thing to give bad feedback; it's another
to actively go on a site to misuse it only to insult the creator. Who does
that?

That said, _most_ of the time you still get the usual HN crowd, the good
crowd, when you post things like this. And maybe those things boil down to
"Your site sucks," but it's delivered in a helpful, constructive fashion.

~~~
riledhel
Change what you can change, and stop worrying about what other people do.
Trolls will always exist. Maybe we all need some small change in the algorithm
to make things slow down...

------
cletus
If you think this is bad, go visit proggit (programming.reddit.com) sometime.
It's a cesspit. Not only do I not post/comment there anymore, I don't even
read it.

Submissions can't really expect more than a 4:1 ratio of upvotes to downvotes.
Say anything negative about Python (even things that are demonstrably true
like the performance degradation of CPU bound tasks on multi-core machines
because of the GIL on CPython) or positive about Apple (even something
demonstrably true like "the iPad is a successful new product launch") and get
downvoted into oblivion (sadly, HN is starting to get a few knee-jerk Apple
haters /sigh).

Someone posted a "Physics of Angry Birds" post here in the last week and
someone took the time to post a snide, self-righteous "this doesn't belong
here" comment, which is similar to what you're talking about. Frankly I don't
understand this attitude at all: if the post doesn't interest you, move on.
3/4 of the HN posts are of no _personal_ interest to me. That doesn't make
them objectively bad.

~~~
SwellJoe
"sadly, HN is starting to get a few knee-jerk Apple haters /sigh"

I'll have you know I've always been a knee-jerk Apple hater, and I've been
here for years.

~~~
awakeasleep
Look, even if you're joking, is that the sort of attitude you want represented
here?

Knee-jerk hate might be a beneficial strategy if you're trying to survive in
Darfur, but we safe people should try to minimize it for the benefit of our
own minds. We learn and grow by studying things, especially the things that
rub us the wrong way. The other benefits of arbitrary hate like feeling you
belong to an in-group seem out of place on HN, a site mostly devoted to
curiosity (from what I've seen).

I'm not saying you should or shouldn't feel or act a certain way, but for all
of our sakes lets keep it mental and not bring that sort of thing into the
public light here where it might be perceived as community endorsement of that
point of view.

~~~
SwellJoe
"I'm not saying you should or shouldn't feel or act a certain way"

But, that I shouldn't _say_ it at Hacker News?

I'm disappointed. First, I'm disappointed that you've suggested that my
comment, whether a joke _or_ sincere (I'll leave it as an exercise for the
reader as to whether I intended the former or the latter), is unacceptable
speech. Second, I'm disappointed that 12 other HN readers agree with you.

I now have to conclude that, as others are talking about, HN is losing the
culture it once had, and that saddens me.

~~~
invisible
I agree with you that it should be fine except that you are joking about it
while we're talking about critiques of HN itself. He was talking about how
posts get voted into oblivion for saying good things about Apple (which could
be a serious problem with regard to addressing intellectual conversation) and
you downplay the importance of that by making a joke.

~~~
v21
A joke which has as part of it's humour a reflection on how there is a
tendency to glamorize the past. A joke designed to purposefully downplay that
critique.

------
yaskyj
It might have been marked dead because both developers posted a submission for
the site. The other post is at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800422>
and contains some constructive comments.

~~~
edanm
If that's true, I wish whoever flagged would have left a comment on the thread
explaining why they did so. Much more helpful than just flagging.

------
DanielBMarkham
Interesting.

I posted an article a couple of weeks ago. The point of the article was that
get-rich-quick-by-blogging stories are a dime a dozen, when the formula is
really very simple: write for yourself, make friends, and keep doing it.

Because it was so simple, I thought it was cute to do a 1 or 2 paragraph
format. Here it is

[http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/10/how-to-
make-a...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/10/how-to-make-a-m.php)

Of course, it only got one vote. (Thanks mom!) But the weird thing was that
somebody from HN came by my site and took the time to add a snide comment
along the lines of "Why did you post this on HN?"

To which I (logically enough) replied: then don't vote it up.

Seems to me we are getting a fair share of drive-by trolls, downvoters, and
flaggers. Ten guys hate you that are on HN all the time? They can zap your
article no matter what it is.

Why folks from here would visit blog submission sites and berate the blog
authors is beyond me.

That's not reddit, but that's definitely a change in the atmosphere.

~~~
Tycho
If there really is 'vendetta downvoting' going on, perhaps it could be negated
by limiting the number of times a user can downvote another specific user's
comments/submissions within a certain time frame. Eg. you can't downvote the
same person more than twice a day, and if it's a submission you can't downvote
two in a row

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I hope I didn't come off as making sweeping generalizations. I think 99.9% of
the folks on here are awesome. If anything, I think this is just a problem of
growth, as I said on another thread today:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800252>

------
chaosmachine
Weird, I saw it before it was [dead], seemed like an OK project, if a bit
unpolished. I was going to make some suggestions (sort results by rating,
etc).

Here's the url: <http://www.notanewyorker.com/>

One thing I would suggest to the OP: use a more descriptive title. Instead of
"Are you a New Yorker?" maybe something like "Show HN: My one-day GAE project
for New Yorkers".

~~~
bmelton
I didn't see it before-hand, but I suspect that it was inspired by a recent
episode of "How I Met Your Mother", in which they were debating the
qualifications necessary for being a New Yorker.

Because of that episode, I immediately recognized the purpose and intent of
the website, though I'm certain it was far less obvious to those who didn't
see it.

Of interest, the criteria they came up with were:

You're not a New Yorker until: \- You've stolen a cab from someone who needed
it more than you, \- You've killed a cockroach with your bare hands \- Seen
Woody Allen and, \- Cried on the subway, oblivious to what anyone else thinks

~~~
symkat
Yes! 20 minutes after watching that episode I conned SimCop into doing the
front-end for me. I was dismayed to see that RateMyTeacher already has _real_
websites. :) We've been rapidly reiterating the site based on the comments
from the thread here (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800422>), and
other feedback. We got a rated view about 2 hours ago because everyone kept
asking for it, and some UI changes. =)

------
momotomo
Similar behaviours and reactions can be seen on a lot of otherwise
professional internet forums. I think its the difference in the following kind
of people

\- A highly skilled professional

\- A highly skilled, non-professional

Just because someone has a very well developed skillset, it doesn't
necessarily dictate good conduct. Most art / illustration forums suffer from
this problem - to generalize, they will have a subset of highly skilled people
who ultimately aren't professional in their conduct and reply with some
severely inappropriate responses.

It's the same scenario too - when a user submits content that is significantly
below the general quality standard of the community (in earnest, being a
legitimate effort on their behalf), two responses are generally provided due
to the difference in these groups:

\- Professionals tend to ignore the content or provide some indicators of
which basics to cover

\- Non-professionals flame and attack the user due to their level of ability

It's regrettable but the latter often has quite a negative effect. If you can
look at someones work and recognise that they are highly skilled, but not
understand that they are of poor professional character, you will take on
board what they say as being correct or fair.

It's the kind of conduct that stunts a lot of people who aren't thick skinned
about their trade.

~~~
jan_g
Yes, I think you are correct. Downvoters have to be people with otherwise
insightful comments (they need certain amount of karma to be able to
downvote). Newcomers cannot downvote.

On a side note: I think that too many people misunderstand the purpose of
voting. If you agree, upvote. If you disagree, do nothing. Downvote only if a
comment is trollish or completely off-topic. If you think that the commenter
doesn't understand the topic, help him overcome his ignorance, don't downvote
him.

~~~
prodigal_erik
As I see it, "upvote = agree" increases the danger of groupthink. I try to
downvote complete wastes of time or detractions from the discussion, and
upvote thought-provoking contributions even when I disagree.

~~~
noverloop
groupthink is a state where people self-censor in fear of rejection or
repression. Only down-voting when disagreeing can cause groupthink since
people who disagree with the consensus will stop posting disagreeing comments
to preserve their karma.

------
vaksel
it does seem like moderators are taking a heavy handed approach. But then
again, take a look at the new page and see how much crap they have to deal
with.

personally I think, HN needs to put some filters in place to stop newly
registered spammers. Even a simple 200 point requirements to submit new posts
should be enough to trim the "check out the awesome prices on this nikes!"
posts.

~~~
ABrandt
I could certainly get on board with a better filter system, but I think a 200
point minimum might be setting the bar a little high. I've been moderately
active on HN for about 2 years now and just barely have 200 karma. If I would
have been unable to post anything during that time, the utility of HN would be
greatly reduced.

Then again, perhaps it would just encourage me to be more active in
discussions.

~~~
mkr-hn
I've been lightly active for two months and am approaching 200. Maybe your
writing style doesn't quite click with HN's readership.

People are weird.

~~~
jjs
Or he could be a night owl, or live in a timezone that doesn't match prime
upvoting hours.

~~~
mkr-hn
I don't see how a comment's upvote-worthiness changes with time of day.

~~~
epochwolf
> comment's upvote-worthiness changes with time of day

You have fewer people around to upvote you.

~~~
bobds
Another issue is that if you read HN through the RSS feed, you will almost
always be commenting on older submissions.

------
simcop2387
I don't know about the disgusting submissions but I believe my post was marked
dead as my friend had also submitted a very similar post here that I was
originally unaware of, so no hard feelings there.

------
gojomo
No one group of drive-by downvoters, flaggers, or downbeat commenters is
representative of the HN community as a whole -- especially over weekends and
times of thinner attention.

So it's fairly common for some initial votes/comments to be negative, and
occasionally even legitimate articles get auto-killed by a group of grumpy
flaggers before sufficient upvotes arrive. But then in time, the sentiment
rises as other more good-natured people pass by. (It seems harder to reverse a
hair-trigger auto-kill, though -- maybe upvotes are no longer counted and it
requires an admin intervention?)

Some of the grumpiest people have the most time on their hands, so can
constitute the first unrepresentative wave of downvotes/flags!

------
jbm
For what it's worth...

I was at the Tokyo hackernews shindig. Everyone was quite supportive of each
other and everyone was willing to offer constructive criticism.

Your princess is in the castle but you do have to squash some gombas to get
there. It's just an unfortunate reality.

------
jeromec
Was the original post listed as an "Ask HN/Review" type thread which
theoretically invites constructive feeback, or just a "check this site out"
submission? I'm wondering why it went dead.

~~~
prawn
It was a dupe.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1801814>

------
famousactress
If we're being honest.. what percentage of people with accounts on HN are
actually bashing together applications, pushing them live, and posting for
feedback? A mammoth minority, I'm sure. For me this community is about putting
in hustle, and having the guts to take ideas public. The submitter's post
deserves encouragement.

------
Zev
The people who made the nasty posts aren't representative of the HN community
in any sense.

I didn't see the posts you describe, but, if they did say what you're
describing, good riddance at them being removed. Moderators exist for a
reason, although its better when they don't have to do anything.

~~~
covercash
Sorry, my original post wasn't clear. The comments I mentioned took place on
the submitter's site (notanewyorker.com), not on HN.

------
bdr
As HN's population grows, the social motivation for "let's help is each other
make stuff" shrinks. Maybe there should be a dedicated subsection (or a
different site) devoted to that.

~~~
derefr
It has always seemed to me that "let's help each other make stuff" is the
agreed-upon "definitive purpose" of HN. The news, and the articles, and
everything else posted here are just tools and information we share to help
each other make stuff. In fact, I would _define_ a "Hacker" to be "one who
makes stuff." This is not Slashdot, and we are not "nerds"; we are makers all.
Thus, shunting the "part" of HN that focuses on helping hackers (i.e. all of
it) somewhere else wouldn't leave anything (except perhaps TechCrunch
articles.)

If we want to keep HN purpose-focused, then perhaps we should just _stop
growing_ (or perhaps shard/undergo mitosis evenly, rather than dividing along
topic lines and creating us/them enmity.)

~~~
bdr
As much as I'd like to be part of a community like that, you are wrong. The
closest official definition of on-topic is "anything that gratifies one's
intellectual curiosity." Many people come here simply because they're smart
and bored.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Clickable: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800925>

------
AlexBlom
I remember reading the same post and Instapapering it to give feedback when I
got home. As the community grows (I'm still relatively new here, 1 year) this
will become a bigger problem. I just hope we collectively solve it.

~~~
metageek
Thanks for the reference to Instapaper; hadn't heard of it before. Nice app.

------
cookiecaper
Someone is probably going to have to make a site for HN refugees to become the
new good HN. As things become more popular and better-known, their userbase
tends more toward the average just by the nature of popularity. In most cases
involving online communities this is a bad thing.

------
davidmurphy
I hate the, uh, hate on the internet sometimes.

I posted a self post on Reddit about my startup, and the first comment was "Go
F*ck yourself". The second comment, QED.

I ended up deleting the post. Not cool. :(

~~~
code_duck
Reddit is pretty much lost at this point. At one time, it was a community of
college age people with above average intellects. These days, if someone posts
something like "Did everyone stop caring about the oil spill?", the top
comment will be something like "I never cared lol". Offensive racist comments
end up with a positive vote balance.

You just have to pick your communities. It takes a bit of evaluation to see
just who is on the other end of a forum.

------
xentronium
I think it's all about anonymity. I suspect there is a non-empty subset of
HNers who like doing destructive things on anonymous basis.

~~~
c1sc0
Anonymity vs. Real Identity is a very influential variable in online
communities. While I used to be a big fan of anonymity I've come to review
that opinion in the last year or so. Maybe it's time for HN to start rewarding
people who put their real identity on the line?

------
chaostheory
I agree with calling out what happened, but I don't think it's good to make a
big assumption using just one instance of a bad event.

------
smokeyj
HN your feedback would be very supportive if you get the chance,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1801861>

------
DiabloD3
When the hell did HN turn into Digg? Or 4chan, for that matter?

~~~
chegra
"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying
that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" -
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

~~~
absconditus
HN is turning into reddit.

~~~
code_duck
Seems like a natural progression; after all Reddit's transformation into a
combination of Digg and 4chan is nearly complete.

------
xenophanes
He should have linked to his website instead of putting the link in the text
area. It's not OK to put the URL in the text field where it's intentionally
not clickable, without a good reason. If you want to do commentary, either
post a comment or make a blog post and submit that url.

~~~
jacquesm
I've seen that done hundreds of times and nobody ever made an issue of it,
usually it gets reposted as a comment by someone else. That's insufficient
reason for a flag or a deletion. Apparently it was a duplicate submission.

