

Has Hackers News Become Less About Hacking? - brennannovak

Just a question for the people who have been here longer and contribute more than I do. It used to always seem I could find some of the most cutting edge links about many aspects of technology and hacking. Now there is a lot of content, most of which is awesome and I usually click on anyway, but it's not as tech/hacker centric. Is this good? Should it maybe be split into two news portals? I dunno.
======
jacquesm
You can flag submissions you find inappropriate.

That said, I'd have to agree with you though, there is a lot of non-hacker
stuff that makes the homepage and stays there.

What frustrates me more than that though is that there is plenty of hacker
stuff that gets drowned out by non-hacker stuff.

Basically if a submission doesn't have 5 votes or so (on a normal day) before
it scrolls off the 'new' page it will never make the front page.

That's not a bit loss for the submission itself (I use the 'new' page as
though it were the homepage) but the discussion can be as interesting or more
so than the submission, and that _is_ a loss.

~~~
jim_lawless
Do you think that there's a need for a HackerNews feature or maybe a separate
site altogether that would allow one to add their favorite HN links ( both the
original post and the HN commentary ) as public bookmarks?

One could then link to their faves list in their profile so that others can
see these links. Like-minded individuals could then see what links their
counterparts found interesting.

I suppose this wouldn't have to be a specialized site. Any HN member could
build a page in static HTML or whatever programming-language listing their
favorite links.

~~~
jim_lawless
I wrote a quickie AWK script to demonstrate what I'm talking about. The first
link below is my blog post about it. The second link is a very spartan list of
HN links that I've saved in a text file.

[http://jimlawless.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/preserving-my-
fav...](http://jimlawless.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/preserving-my-favorite-hn-
links/)

<http://www.mailsend-online.com/hnfaves.htm>

------
ntoshev
I have the same impression - less hacker stuff, more startup/business/tech
celebrity/drama/fun stories.

I am experimenting with something that may help. Here is a URL to the RSS feed
of Hacker News, filtered to contain only hacker stories:

[http://www.lemmatica.com/emit_topic?key=aglsZW1tYXRpY2FyDQsS...](http://www.lemmatica.com/emit_topic?key=aglsZW1tYXRpY2FyDQsSBVRvcGljGLjCagw&format=atom)

There is an automated text classifier behind it and I'm continuously training
it for hacker stories. The classifier and my definition of what are hacker
stories are, of course, imperfect, so there will be errors (I'm training the
filter with some delay, usually once per day). If you want to filter your own
feeds like this please ask me for an account.

------
aaronsw
<http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>

"Stories on HN don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't
only interested in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting.

"What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about
the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be deeply
interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger, underlying trend,
then perhaps it could be."

~~~
l0stman
I used to agree with these principles, but in the long run it will cause HN's
demise. It was fine when we used to be a low-traffic website, but I think
these guidelines don't scale very well. The most upvoted stories are the ones
which everybody agrees upon, not the most interesting ones.

But who am I to complain? I don't contribute that much either.

~~~
brennannovak
This is exactly what I was thinking when I asked this question. It seem that
since Hacker News has gained more traffic > more submissions > more activity
the quality of interesting has got a lot larger... perhaps it's the point
system that encourages people to submit any old thing that they think is
interesting in pursuit of more points, community status, etc...

------
markbao
I dunno, I always wanted to see more startup stuff here. Maybe I'm in the
minority.

~~~
zaidf
Me too, I specially enjoy posts about monetization/customer acquisition etc. I
was a little sad when it was renamed to Hacker News from Startup News.

~~~
markbao
Right on, Zaid. Andrew over at TechStars was setting up a more startup-
focused, discussion-focused social news site under TS. Not sure what's going
on with that lately, though. (btw, not to sidetrack, did you know that the
article profiling me that was on the Boston Globe front page opened with you?)

~~~
gruseom
Perhaps they figured out that copying both YC's business _and_ their news site
would be a bit over the top?

------
ranprieur
I'm one of the people to blame. I came here less than a year ago after someone
recommended this site as a smarter alternative to reddit. I haven't mentioned
it on reddit because I don't want it to be dumbed down, but inevitably, non-
programmers like me will shift the content away from hacking, because we're
only going to upvote links that we understand... which will make the site more
attractive to non-hackers, and so on.

------
bitdiddle
I'd say yes. I'm not a major contributor and do comment some but I've been
here since the beginning and have noticed a general decline in the content and
quality of comments.

It's a reminder to me that I ought to vote more. Thanks for posting this.

~~~
jacquesm
You are assuming that your votes are actually counted, this is definitely not
always the case.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Another interesting point, jacques. Either I'm brown-nosing or you're
especially insightful today :)

As I understand the algorithm, a vote on a story that has been posted for an
hour and is on the way down is not the same as a vote for a story that's only
five minutes old and on the way up.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong in this

~~~
jacquesm
I wished it was as simple as that.

As a rule I now refresh the page after voting, if the vote does not 'stick' I
don't bother voting for 24 hours or so.

Since there is no clear indicator of which votes are 'real' and which ones are
'dummies' and I refuse to be treated like a six year old pressing buttons that
have no effect other than 'for me' (pacifier votes ?) there may come a point
where I will simply completely stop voting.

Edit: hey there downmodder, whoever you are. PG is on the record about this, I
don't know where you get your information but it doesn't get much better than
that.

~~~
icey
Sometimes it takes the server a minute to catch up; have you tried refreshing
after a minute or two? I've noticed this as well, but usually the vote shows
up if I wait a minute and refresh.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, but that's a different issue.

Votes are definitely not always counted even though you get the illusion that
they are.

~~~
tokenadult
Above you wrote,

 _You are assuming that your votes are actually counted, this is definitely
not always the case._

I'm not seeing this. Some of what's on the site is "lazy loaded," as I recall
being officially said, but to the best of my knowledge and belief a vote is a
vote, and votes get counted. (There are two HN voters in my household, who
visit different threads most of the time, and neither of us feel our votes
aren't counted.) What would be definitive evidence of votes not being counted
(as contrasted with some other possible explanations for what appears to be
that condition)?

~~~
jacquesm
Whether you don't see it or not is not relevant, I'm seeing it and that's good
enough for me.

Belief doesn't enter in to it:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=871202>

It persists to this date, you just have to work a bit to see it in action.

------
zaidf
I remember early on, I almost exclusively visited links under the "new" link.
These are almost always more diverse and usually interesting.

These days there is too much spam to make the "new" page work.

~~~
markbao
I wonder if PG could filter spam-tagged items out of the new page.

EDIT: wow, the new page also needs |flag| on the listing page. so much spam.

~~~
jacquesm
> EDIT: wow, the new page also needs |flag| on the listing page. so much spam.

I've asked for that many times, but since it seems that both my flags and
votes are being ignored again I won't bother any longer.

~~~
ErrantX
mine comes and goes for no apparent reason (I was without votes for about a
month at one point).

So I've given up flagging more than once a week and voting a more than a
couple of times a day. Sadly all the older HN members I talked too say the
same thing.

I wonder if the site algorithm is actually favoring newer / less active
members?

~~~
jacquesm
I'd be fine with that, if it was disclosed.

~~~
ErrantX
same, it's annoying not know what im doing "wrong"

------
hnhg
Maybe we could have a trial week where a bunch of representatives prune out
anything that doesn't conform to a set of rules that enforce a strict
interpretation of what hackers news should post. Then the following week we
can discuss or vote on whether the guidelines should be changed.

------
richardw
I'm starting to suspect that many more stories are being submitted just to get
karma. One example is people dredging up old vaguely-related articles and just
dumping them here to see if they can get a few points.

~~~
lhuang
Pardon me if this is a noob question, but whats the point (value) behind karma
points?

I ask because is there really a tangible difference between a poster with say
300 karma points and another with 500?

Also, since (typically) older posters have more karma points isnt the whole
system skewed in favor of those posters who have been here the longest (you
can make the same argument for those who post vs those who submit).

Basically what do HN users derive from having huge karma point tallies?

(edit: aside from the obvious that is)

~~~
icey
After being able to downvote and change your topcolor, all you get out of
having karma is proof that you spend way too much time here.

~~~
lhuang
Hmm i see. A quick search on google tells me that you need 100 points to
downvote. I only have 11 :(

Something to aspire too I guess.

I wish there were more search/filter functionality. It would be interesting to
filter submissions by posters who meet certain criteria (points, trending
info, etc.)

~~~
richardw
I suspect it's more mysterious than that. I have 182 and can't see a downvote
thingy anywhere.

And to me a visible points system is part of the problem. If people 'try' to
get more points then they'll post lots of stuff that might just get in. Then
you end up like Digg.

~~~
allenbrunson
it's not that mysterious. it takes more than 100 points to downvote now. pg
keeps increasing the point totals you need to do various things, due to karma
inflation.

------
orionlogic
This question asked several times before;nothing changed my habit of visiting
HN daily. As long as i believe the quality of people in here remains as it is
in the first day then i am ok.

What bothers me not the points,karma,content or improper comments; Its the
number of fresh news that increased a lot.I started to use RSS reader and what
i observe that there are so much news in HN(79) then Slashdot(13) even
delicious(48)?! The more i spend time in HN the more i miss good links because
given more choice to the people, they tend to put aside the quality and take
all.

A bit thinking about the number of fresh news i think several problems lately
addressed here(other topics) closely linked to this. More news leads to more
comments and more comments creates more fuss(noise) Quality of a discussion
greatly reduce as more participants, lengthy comments(self reference here) and
deep reply branches.Like your favorite TV discussion program where after
couple of hours everyone has a word and shouting each.The quality of comments
may be,may be, increase if (high karma)&(register date) take precedence. Think
about the anchorman of your favorite tv discussion program: does he start with
people in the backseats or starts with some wise figure?

------
Pistos2
My point of view, being mostly a lurker for 1.15 years: I'm a programmer,
musician, comp sci graduate, neither a Windows user nor a Mac user, and
generally an all around geek. I don't remember how I came across Hacker News,
but it didn't take long for me to conclude for myself two things:

1) the proportion of interesting (to me) links was high; 2) the comments
revealed a community of clear-thinking, logical, rational, articulate
individuals.

That hasn't changed significantly since last year, though I admit that I get
the sense that the community has grown lately.

I don't have a big problem with HN's current state. If it has deviated from
its original goals or gone through some other metamorphosis, that doesn't
bother me; I still like what it is today. In fact, if it were extremely
focused on entrepreneurship and startups and such, I probably wouldn't be
interested. What I get out of HN is great tech/geek links and insightful,
intelligent commentary.

If the percentage of links that interested me eventually fell below some
threshold, and if the comments started getting inane, irrational, nonsensical
or just plain stupid, I'd probably just leave HN and find another community,
or start my own.

------
onewland
HackerHackerNews.com seems to do a good job of separating the more
sensationalist articles from the drier articles. (This is what I perceive your
complaint to mean).

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Last updated at 17:55 on 15 October 2009 (PDT).

Shame, really.

~~~
onewland
He does supply the source code, though:

<http://bitbucket.org/sqs/hhn/src/>

------
sli
I see it as news for hackers, not news about hacking. You know, news related
to things that likely interest hackers.

------
j_baker
Personally, I think the point of view is that hacker-friendly jobs are hard to
find, and thus founding a startup is almost a necessary evil for a good deal
of hackers. I mean, let's face it: starting your own company so you can do
whatever you want is the _ultimate_ hack.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying that I agree with this point of view. But the
point of this kind of social news site is that the readers get to choose what
is and isn't relevant to them.

That said, I personally would like to see more hacker-oriented type stuff. My
advice: submit more hacker-related content and vote it up when someone else
submits it. Remember that it usually just takes one vote to move things to the
front page if you catch it early enough. So your one vote can make all the
difference.

------
GHFigs
Meta-posting is not the answer. Especially when the questions you're asking
are subjective and your own answer to both is "I dunno." At least have an
opinion! Otherwise you end up with aimless and impotent discussion. That, more
than anything, seems to be what kills sites like this. People start spending
their energy talking about the one thing which is not new to any of them and
equally familiar to all of them, not because it's so very important, but
because it's _so easy_ to. Sure, community standards are important, but
discussing them without the power to enforce them or the will to drive them
one way or the other doesn't do much for the site.

------
tokenadult
I'm an offender, in that I participate in these metadiscussion "What is the
true best topic of HN?" discussions routinely, but personally I would like
fewer of these topicality discussions and good suggestions for new filtering
features to be on the main page. They could live as comment threads under the
existing feature requests thread

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>

and if participants aimed their comments and suggestions there at subthreads
that have already brought up the same issue, it might be more clear which
features are most in demand among regular participants.

------
pg
You don't have to guess about this. Item ids are sequential.

~~~
hnhg
How would he go about rigorously analysing them over the lengthy time periods
required? Maybe I'm missing something obvious but automated analysis is
necessary and simply looking at the distribution of keywords over time
wouldn't be enough. And, for instance, a gradual change in the way YC
headlines are composed might be enough to misrepresent any apparent changes in
content over time. In this case, personal opinion is as probably as informed
as any form of analysis.

------
vaksel
yeah I kinda agree, I wrote a post yesterday about the emails we used and a
copy of our press page from launch, thinking it would generate some
discussion(hell you guys asked for them on the other thread), and maybe get
tips on how to improve those for us and other people, and that didn't even get
a single upvote.

And that post, just like all other posts was solely for HN, so why should I
bother writing this stuff up and restoring an old press page, if I don't even
get a single comment or upvote out of it on here?

It's like the twitter/facebook promotion we just finished, I was going to
write a post with all the numbers, what worked, what didn't, what prizes are
the best bang for your buck, the goals behind it etc etc. But now I'm not so
sure.

Why? Because it'll take like 3-4 hours to put up a decent post with all the
data, pics etc. So why should I waste my time, if there is a 90% chance the
post won't even get a single upvote?

------
edw519
You want hacking? Here.

    
    
      // Hackerocity on a scale from 0 to 10
      // for each entry on the front page of hacker news
      // Hackerocity determined by edw519
      //
      Hackerocity     = []
      Hackerocity[01] =  1 ; // Ira Glass on storytelling
      Hackerocity[02] =  9 ; // Lisp OS: what has been lost: Kent Pitman
      Hackerocity[03] =  0 ; // They Killed My Lawyer
      Hackerocity[04] =  7 ; // MIT Open Courseware - Free Lectures
      Hackerocity[05] =  6 ; // Facebook marketing: one of the better campaigns I've seen
      Hackerocity[06] = 10 ; // JMatch: Iterable Pattern Matching
      Hackerocity[07] = 10 ; // Regular-expression derivatives reexamined
      Hackerocity[08] =  1 ; // Sorry, Shoppers, but Why Can’t Amazon Collect More Tax?
      Hackerocity[09] =  3 ; // Schneier on Security: Separating Explosives from the Detonator
      Hackerocity[10] =  9 ; // jQuery Plugins
      Hackerocity[11] =  0 ; // Has Hackers News Become Less About Hacking?
      Hackerocity[12] =  8 ; // If You’re Nervous About Quitting Your Boring Job, You’re Sane
      Hackerocity[13] = 10 ; // Hello HN, take a look at my new (beta) app BonMp3?
      Hackerocity[14] =  7 ; // Why the web economy will continue growing rapidly
      Hackerocity[15] =  8 ; // Ask HN: How can I move to USA?
      Hackerocity[16] =  7 ; // Ample SDK - Open Source GUI Framework
      Hackerocity[17] =  9 ; // Palindromes (Clojure vs. Common Lisp)
      Hackerocity[18] =  3 ; // Incredible paper sculptures - many cut from one sheet of A4
      Hackerocity[19] =  9 ; // If You’re Nervous About Quitting Your Boring Job, Don’t Do It
      Hackerocity[20] =  5 ; // Why Does Facebook Want to Suck the Fun Out of Unfriending?
      Hackerocity[21] = 10 ; // Machine Translates Thoughts into Speech in Real Time
      Hackerocity[22] =  0 ; // Ask HN: If there was a bury/upmod brigade on HN, how would we know?
      Hackerocity[23] =  8 ; // How to commit brand suicide
      Hackerocity[24] = 10 ; // The Pmarca Guide to Startups: product/market fit
      Hackerocity[25] =  0 ; // [dead] Ajax on Rails
      Hackerocity[26] =  5 ; // One year of Redis
      Hackerocity[27] =  2 ; // New wheel for your bicycle: The Copenhagen wheel
      Hackerocity[28] =  0 ; // In 2010, Demand For US Fixed Income Has To Increase Elevenfold... Or Else
      Hackerocity[29] =  2 ; // Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety
      Hackerocity[30] = 10 ; // Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition
      //	
      TotalHackerocity = 0;
      for(i=1;i<31;i++){TotalHackerocity += Hackerocity[i]};
      //
      // Yep, TotalHackerocity aint what it used to be :-)
      //

~~~
hack_edu
You oughta throw this script up on a web server and style the front page like
HN. Then link to the story and comments on news.YC

~~~
jacquesm
A certain amount of AI (sorry Ed ;)) seems to have scored the 'hackerocity' of
the links.

That would be a tough act to follow without mturk assistance.

------
csomar
The number of users rised a lot... Now HN is becoming like the next Reddit.com
(and may be Digg.com), some users use it to promote their content or just
increase their points.

My resolution was to search for another community. Joel Community is also
good, but there is few members. Still better, the day it gets a lot; quality
will drop.

~~~
j_baker
I emphatically disagree. I think that HN has done a great job of making sure
it doesn't get reduced to the lowest common denominator.

------
bmj
When I looked at this thread, I counted twelve programming/technology posts on
the front page, and seven directly related to start-ups. Of the rest, I reckon
at least half were hacker-ish, though not directly related to computers.

~~~
jacquesm
That's a moments view though, if you monitor the site over longer periods,
especially when it is busy (which right now it is not) you can definitely
observe what the OP stated.

~~~
bmj
Agreed.

I'd be curious to know, however, what those ratios look like over time.

------
moron4hire
if you want moar hackz plz, check out <http://hackaday.com>

------
abennett
I came to Hacker News late and so I have only known it as an aggregator site
with a better than average community participation. Certainly more valuable
than Reddit and Digg. But I can see how it's not really hacker news or startup
news any longer and you have to wonder at what point it's not even going to be
technology news.

