

The ascendancy of Hacker News & the gentrification of geek news communities - rabble
http://anarchogeek.com/2008/7/7/the-ascendancy-of-hacker-news-the-gentrification-of-geek-news-communities

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pchristensen
I think democratization is a better word than gentrification. In
gentrification, something bad is turned into something good, in the process
displacing those who made it good. In democratization, something scarce and
luxurious is devalued by its increasing popularity. Niche Communities (like
HN) _despise_ the unwashed masses and recoil when their community is invaded.

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biohacker42
It's not so much that I despise the unwashed masses, it's just that the
greatest common denominator tends to go very low, as the total number of
participants goes up. Take a billion Nobel prize winners and the only things
they will all have in common will be sex and violence, that and the Nobel
prize.

My point is, it's not that the masses are unwashed, it's just the masses - law
of averages.

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pchristensen
Thanks! I was going to go into normal distributions, communities of interest,
etc, but I just used some sensational language that got the point across. For
anyone offended by the original, biohacker gave the explanation I was too lazy
to write.

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esja
What mechanisms are in place here to punish noise and reward signal?

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icey
I would say HN has maintained a remarkably high signal to noise ratio thus
far.

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esja
I agree. "Thus far" is what I'm worried about. This is a valuable community
and at some point will need defending from the hordes. There are lots of ways
to do that, hence my question.

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greyman
Good points. Regarding HN, I think the basic concept of submitting links by
community members works. What HN needs to fight is mainstreamisation and
spamming. So far, HN fares satisfactory.

What remains to be seen is, if the relatively high quality of front page can
be maintained for the long time by using technology and algorithms alone, and
if not, what kind of editorial control would be suitable.

p.s: Why every article about community tech sites have to bash slashdot?
Slashdot is alive and well, outliving both reddit and digg.

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rabble
Just wait until the tech crunch crowd realizes that this is the place that
folks like Fred Wilson gets his leads and you'll start to see folks gaming the
system. I mean Fred already has said he gets news from here, i'm sure other
VC's do too. Once the techcrunch biz dev types realize that, then you'll see
the attacks on the system.

~~~
allenbrunson
there are _already_ attacks on this system.

i have no insider knowledge of this site, other than i keep my "showdead"
parameter turned on. we get quite a few spammy submissions and comments, most
of which are killed within seconds. most of this must be automated, there's no
way the editors can be patrolling the place 24 hours a day.

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DanielBMarkham
BTW -- DZone, which is mentioned in the article, is awesome.

Great little startup out of North Carolina. Terrific material -- topical,
technical, and relevant. (No -- not a paid endorsement, just I like the site)

You guys should check it out.

