
Identity as Collateral: Preserving Hacker News - e1ven
http://e1ven.com/2009/04/06/identity-as-collateral/
======
pg
I'm pretty sure the solution isn't to identify users. That would be too
intrusive. I'm still betting on keeping crap off the frontpage.

The definition of crap may have to get broader. We may have to kill stories
related to politics even when they're intellectually interesting. We'll see.

~~~
e1ven
Encouraging (or requiring) users to link their accounts with a physical
identity is certainly a more drastic action than Reddit.com or Digg.com could
take, and it very well might be overly broad, but I strongly suspect that
limiting the front-page stories won't be enough.

As you commented in "What I've Learned from Hacker News", it's not so much the
stories, but the comments, which see the greatest tarnish as new users enter
any community without necessarily understanding the culture.

I love Hacker News, and I suspect I'll remain a member as long as you will
permit me, but it disappoints me when I see comments along the line of "So
what?"..

What's more subtle is the increase in sarcasm- It's not that any particular
comment is terribly hurtful, but it indicates a culture of people who are
showing off, or attacking one another, rather than working together.

I'm ashamed to admit that at the worst of times, it reminds me more of 4chan
than a college coffee shop.

Of course, such feelings are mostly isolated, at least for now, but I'm more
worried about preserving the commenting culture than the submitted stories.

~~~
tdoggette
I am a relatively recent arrival in that I've got nothing to do with the
"seed" group: someone mentioned this site and Paul Graham at a DC OLPC meetup
last year, and I checked it out.

I would not object at all to linking what I say here to my real name. Indeed,
my name is Thomas Doggette. My username is my first initial and last name. I
don't use my real identity on sites where I argue with others about sex and
religion and politics (in rather mixed company), nor where I play games, but
something like HN provides a benefit to me (reputation among potential future
colleagues and employers) in exchange for being upfront about who I am.

~~~
Tangurena
I understand your point, and respect it. I, however, use a nickname I've been
using for some time. Last year, I ran for election (I came in dead last). If I
had to associate my handle with my real name, I'd log off and never frequent
any forum or blog ever again. Not only would political opponents use nasty
snippets from anything I might have every posted in the past few decades, I'd
also get ridiculed on boards and fora with incessant _ad hominem_ attacks of
"oh you're only saying that because you're an evil $POLITCAL_PARTY politican!"

------
frossie
I am one of those recent arrivals. I do work in software, but in a semi-
academic environment and don't have the slightest interest in owning or
working for a start-up. I came here for the signal to noise, so I guess I am
exactly the newcomer that vexes the author (though not having commented until
today, I can safely say I have not stoked any flamewars).

For the record I don't have a problem with user identity - after all I post
under my real first name which is unusual enough to google me very quickly. I
certainly _do_ object to the suggestion of user identity being enforced
through membership of a social network. Much as I love Hacker News, I don't
love it enough to jettison my misgivings on social networking.

It would be a real shame to kill interesting stories because of the comments
they would attract. Perhaps allow those stories to be posted, but lock them
down for comments?

~~~
e1ven
Glad to have you, Frossie!

I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression- I'm glad to see the site expand, and
I think it's great that you're coming ;)

I just want to preserve exactly that signal to noise ratio that makes the site
attractive to both of us - The comments in particular suffer when people don't
try to maintain a good front.

You're absolutely right that Social Networking may not be the best way to do
that- My contention is that digital identities are inexpensive; They don't
require substantial investment to maintain, so it's easy to turn abusive.

For example, say for whatever reason, I chose to be acerbic and taunting to
people on the forum, rather than engaging the larger community.

It would be trivial for me to create a new username, do things which are
destructive to the idea of a community of interest.. It's not just outright
trolling, but I might reply to comments sarcastically, and attack people when
they "Ask HN" on something I think is somewhat obvious.

The harm to myself would be minuscule- In this example, I've substantially
diminish the enjoyment of other people, and might even do so for months or
years under the same username.. But when I'm ready to move on with my life, I
discard the username I created for HN, and no one is the wiser.

I haven't left any trace that people might find when googling my name.
Essentially, I've made myself dispensable.

If I were applying for the YC program, I'd not want to do that, for fear that
PG et all would reject my application, but if I'm visiting, and this account
is in no way linked to me, what incentive do I have, other than common
decency?

Sadly, I think that common decency does not get us very far.

You might want to take a look at the article I linked at the bottom of my
post, on creating online communities.

<http://www.alistapart.com/articles/identitymatters>

I think that it does a very decent job at giving a general overview, but it
doesn't yet account for way inexpensive digital identities allow people to
behave in an uncivil manner.

Again, welcome to the site, and I hope I haven't scared you away ;)

~~~
Xichekolas
_"what incentive do I have, other than common decency?"_

It's a shame that 'common decency' has to be enforced in some way.

I post under a screen name (obviously), and while my real name is in my
profile now, even before it was I never felt the urge to push someone else's
buttons just for the fun of it. I realize I'm being a bit optimistic when I
say this, but I think people rise to the standard to which they are held.

We have a bit of a reputation here at HN for being stodgy and humorless. While
I don't think that is true, I'm fine with that reputation if it means
newcomers think twice before posting their witty one liners and meme-of-the-
week. Eventually the culture initiates the newcomers and they don't have to
think twice... they will know what the community values and what it does not,
and they will contribute accordingly.

In short, I don't think we need any technical solution to solve what someone's
innate desire to be valuable will accomplish for us. What we do need is for
existing members to set the tone, and so far they have done so admirably.

~~~
e1ven
"I think people rise to the standard to which they are held."

Perhaps you're right- An extension of the Broken Windows theory, if you will.
But so far it might seem that evidence is against you.

Look back, not just at HN, but Reddit, Digg, Kuro5hin, and even Slashdot have
people who say how nice it was before the trolls arrived, before the site
became as popular.

I certainly don't want to come across as a wistful elderly man looking back
with nostalgia at his youth- I think that there's more to it than hazy
memories of the past.

Communities evolve and change- I love Reddit, and my Alien Bobblehead is
amoung my prized possessions.. But at the same time, I know that the level of
discourse has fallen sharply over the few years. Pun threads are common, and
people attack one another frequently.

I once read someone mention the "4chanization" of reddit, and unfortunately, I
worry that that is the natural state of all communities, if they aren't
tended.

The level of discourse on HN, while still exemplary has been declining of
late, and I've seen more personal attacks and discussions of identity
politics.

I wish I had your optimism, Andrew, and I hope you're right.

~~~
Xichekolas
Yeah I'm familiar with the history as well, I was just saying that I think
those other sites were not conscious of the need to set a good example for
newcomers, and HN mostly is. We have had these self-examination threads almost
monthly since we first appeared on TC.

I think setting a good example will cause people to rise to it, and I think
being conscious of setting a good example means we will preserve our community
values. No one on Reddit or Digg was clamoring to "maintain the level of
discourse"... their '4chanization' happened because those communities had no
immune response. Here, we have a powerful social response, in that most people
set a good example and gently correct those that don't.

------
nkurz
I was wondering if requiring the creation of a "root level" URL on some domain
might be a good substitute for real identity. Perhaps something like
<http://domain.com/hn.html>, on any domain one has control over. A parallel
would be Google's verification for its domain applications. Each domain would
need to be unique per user.

Many (most?) people here already have a domain that they control, and this
seems like a reasonable hurdle for anyone posting to Hacker News to
accomplish. Unlike credit card validation or the like, it's equally accessible
for users from any country. And one doesn't even have to buy the domain, just
come up with some way to make a file accessible on the root of some site.

It's also a nod to history of the internet. Long ago, essentially in the
predawn of time, Usenet started being filled with spam and low quality posts.
The alt.hackers newsgroup came up an interesting solution: self-moderation.
Users were required to figure out how to add an "Approved" header to their own
posts. Thus perhaps the file could just read "Approved". :)

------
horatio
I have to chime in just to say that there are people here who for various
reasons (e.g. bootstrapping/moonlighting) would not publicly disclose who they
are. I know those people would be thousands upon thousands of karma points
less helpful to other hackers if they were forced to identify themselves
publicly simply to provide their insight.

Look around your LinkedIn and Facebook communities. How many of those groups
are thriving in the way Hacker News is with useful, helpful information? How
many of you read them every single day and contribute to them in the way you
do here?

I, for one, would rather pay large monthly fees before making it trivially
obvious to the rest of the world, Google, future investors, etc, what I
contribute here on HN.

(This isn't my primary account, so consider this post even more "anonymous"
than usual.)

~~~
e1ven
That's a very fair criticism, Horatio. Perhaps it may be best to encourage
people to post under their names, but not enforce it in any technological way.

Keep in mind, however, that "making it trivially obvious to the rest of the
world, Google, future investors" is exactly the point of the proposal!

People are unlikely to engage in disruptive behavior if they're "being judged"
on what they say- Instead, they have far more incentive to contribute, in
order to increase their reputation.

~~~
horatio
> Keep in mind, however, that "making it trivially obvious to the rest of the
> world, Google, future investors" is exactly the point of the proposal!

Which is exactly the problem-- it's important not to throw the baby out with
the bathwater. There are good things and bad with attaching real world
identities and that was not considered in your post. It's not a panacea and
has real and (to me, at least) severe consequences.

I happen to work a great deal with gaming communities which are notoriously
trollish and awful. In my experience, physical identity would help with those
problems, but it's overkill. It's like the "nuclear" option, in a sense.

What we've found works best is the general act of tying the identity to
something the individual does not want to lose casually. The real enemy of the
net is casual trolling out of boredom or random flashes of meanness. The
highest return on investment is found by eliminating that one aspect-- it
doesn't require the "nuclear" option of turning us all into our public
personas.

For example, we've found that physical/real-world identity is not nearly as
important as the combination of:

* Tying access to something people don't want to lose, such as months of their time/effort, their reputation to people they respect, or to their wallets. Note that reputation can be based on limited identity revealing to key people, or even simply reputation amongst people they associate with under a particular identity (even if they whole group is using non-real identities-- for example, a gaming clan).

* Broken window theory (i.e. <http://ta.gd/broken> )-- hiding/fixing trolling as quickly as possible. This is one of the best methods we've found to keep incidents down and people behaving. If they don't see it as commonplace (as trolling is on Reddit/Digg) then they aren't going to dive in as readily.

* Having strong, respected moderators/spokespeople encouraging respect and frowning sternly (and directly) upon negative behavior. This ties into both of the above points.

My company is actually investigating using some of these techniques in a
service to reduce griefing in games, but requiring physical identities in that
case is a deal-breaker.

> Instead, they have far more incentive to contribute, in order to increase
> their reputation.

This is only true if you believe that people want to increase their reputation
solely tied to their real world identity. This is a motivator for you, but it
is not for me and others-- otherwise people would already be using their own
names 100% of the time on things they are proud of.

Anyway, I agree with your desire to keep HN strong. I actually think HN has
been doing great for the while I've been here. It has its ups and downs, but I
think we have other options to improve that don't include tying Facebook
Connect into every aspect of the online world.

------
plinkplonk
Interesting idea, but I have neither a face book id nor a Linked In id. I
wouldn't want to create either just to participate in HN. Perhaps I could link
to my webpage and/or blog, but I use distinctive "tones" for each, so I'll
have to think about how that works.

~~~
e1ven
It's not so much the specifics of linking real world accounts to HN accounts,
but increasing the investment cost of accounts, such that people want to be on
their best behavior.

Even charging money for an account wouldn't do that, because it's easy enough
to write off the account, and get a new one later.

But for example, look at my user account, e1ven. If you Google it, you'll see
work I've done with Zimbra, Freenet, SQ7, and a dozen other projects.. The
username certainly has a great deal of weight on it's own, without needing to
link it to my resume.

How else do you think people could be encouraged to have "weighty"
reputations, so they don't want to give them up?

~~~
plinkplonk
"But for example, look at my user account, e1ven. If you Google it, you'll see
work I've done with Zimbra, Freenet, SQ7, and a dozen other projects."

yes and if you google my username you won't find any connection to the "real
me". Yet I (like to think I) am a responsible and constructive member of this
forum.

"How else do you think people could be encouraged to have "weighty"
reputations, so they don't want to give them up?"

I don't know. I don't even know if it is the right question to be asked.

------
bbuffone
I like the identifying people idea but don't think it will have the
preservation affect. If the preservation of the "Hacker News" is the goal then
moving to "class" system would be more efficient then identifying people.

As hacker news grows, there would come a time when a new
news.news.ycombinator.com would be created taking with it a certain group of
people that would form a more tight knit community similar to the way it was
in the beginning. The stories and comments would flow up to
news.ycombinator.com but not the other way.

Then repeated...

~~~
e1ven
I think that's been the approach that Reddit.com has taken with subreddits-
Note their refrain that "Subreddits aren't tags". I believe they're attempting
to manually and intentionally fracture their community to such that each
subreddit might stay small enough to be manageable.

I think it's worked, to a degree, but it's somewhat at odds with the purpose-
If X people want to be members of a community, I'd prefer to find a way to
work together and ensure we all behave ourselves, rather splitting into small
groups.

I'm honest curious- Would you agree that under ideal conditions, if everyone
behaved, it would be better to be a larger group such that you could share
disucssions, or would it be better to remain small, so that you know all the
posters?

If you did want to remain small, how do you ensure the communities are of
sufficient size to be viable even with people leaving?

Personally, I'd rather find ways of encouraging people to be on good behavior
all of the time- That's something I liked about the applicants knowing their
posts might be used as part of their YC application, and something that might
work well if they posted under their real name.

~~~
10ren
Colin, I appreciate your signing your name, but the guidelines suggest using
your profile for this (presumably because sigs take up comment space):

    
    
      Please don't sign comments, especially with your url. They're already signed
      with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click
      on it to see your profile.
    

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

~~~
e1ven
I apologize- I thought that for a post specifically about using one's names
more, it would be an appropriate way to inject humanity.

I'll remove them. Upon re-reading the thread I can certainly see how that
might be frustrating, and counter to the intent.

~~~
10ren
Hey, no problem; I took it as you sincerely acting on your beliefs.

I guess you could do it by changing your username (though you can't take your
karma to your reincarnation - unlike real karma). But I like your present
username.

~~~
e1ven
Thanks. That's part of the problem I'm currently stuck on, however. My current
username is more expressive, and more "weighty" than my resume or linked in
page.

If you google "e1ven", you see 14 pages, most of which are about me. My posts
about the Zimbra mail server, the Freenet project, Slashdot comments, and the
like.

That's far more expressive of my body of work/experience than my Facebook
page, which I seldom use for anything, or my linked-in page, which I use as an
addressbook which updates itself automatically.

The only advantage that those two do have is that they are specifically tied
to my offline identity, which I can't easily change.

~~~
10ren
I didn't think about the same username across different sites - but of course
most would do that. Makes what in some cases might have been a frivolously
chosen name very sticky as you say.

------
jacoblyles
It would certainly be an interesting experiment for some social sites to make.
I wonder what a non-anonymous 4chan or reddit would look like?

~~~
mahmud
It would be like real-life; anonymity is the third pillar necessary for The
Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory:

<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/>

HN is the first "community" I have ever given my real name to.

~~~
e1ven
Absolutely- One of the things I enjoy about the HN community is that is is,
most of the time, much more like spending time at a school lounge, than it is
like an internet forum.

Being more like real-life isn't such a bad thing ;)

------
erlanger
Well, that's one way to keep people away.

