
Ask YC: (&lt; (/ signal noise) too-low) - BrandonM
T<p>I've been a member of Hacker News (actually Startup News when I joined) for over a year now. I've learned a lot here and been exposed to a lot of interesting ideas. Recently, however, I've often seen the front page have at least 10% of the stories be either more Reddit-worthy or be submissions discussing how to combat Hacker News deteriorating into just-another-news-site.<p>With the value I'm getting from Hacker News being much lower than it was when I joined (and up to a couple months ago), I think it's time for me to go. There have been several posts I've seen on the front page where I've wanted to say, "Well, this is definitely it," but I think it's better this way, to just keep it to my own submission and leave.<p>Best of luck to everyone on their ventures and in your lives in general. If I ever get something going, I'll be sure to mention it here first.<p>Thank you for some great discussions.
======
dcurtis
I'm not upset with the front page changing-- I think it's still just as
awesome as before, and I'm sure Paul and the moderators are doing a great job
at keeping the crap off.

What I am worried about are these increasingly common AskYC posts reflecting
on News.YC. This post, for example, is a somewhat self-centered broadcast of
BrandonM's exit. I hope this doesn't become a common practice, because this is
the kind of stuff I don't like seeing on the front page.

There's certainly a ton of awesome conversation still going on. But I wish the
community would feel like off-white paint again: unnoticeable and non-
criticizable. It's what the people in the community say that matters, not the
color of the walls.

~~~
pg
That is one real change. There are more Ask YC type posts on the frontpage
than there used to be. I've been thinking of measures to fix that. One
possibility is to have a karma threshold for posting them, but I don't want to
silence new users. So I think what I may do is make gravity stronger for Ask
YC posts: make them have to get e.g. 2x as many points to stay at a given
position on the frontpage.

~~~
ericb
Good Ask YC posts are among my favorite on HN. Many news stories offer little
meat for discussion--they're straightforward. My feed reader catches most
interesting news, already, so for me, the discussion provides the greatest
value.

To keep the baby not the bathwater, what about putting up the submission-level
down arrow, but only for Ask YC submissions?

~~~
greendestiny
I don't think down arrows would be enough. Unfortunately a lot of new Ask YC
posts are opinionated and people vote as means of identifying with the post
rather than as a measure of interest or quality. Its interesting how well the
poll system reverted the up arrow to a quality measure rather than an
agreement measure in polls.

Most of the objectionable AskYC posts could probably be shoe-horned into polls
by editors - just with 'agree' or 'disagree' options.

Maybe every post could have additional [agree] [disagree] buttons, because a
lot of poor quality submissions are equally opinionated.

~~~
ericb
The missing thread-level down arrow does prevent reddit-style polling. Pg
might not like this suggestion because a worse nightmare might be "vote up if
you like candy" threads.

If the down-arrows were karma-restricted to ensure adequate assimilation,
though...

------
doubleplus
My 2 cents: I think you're overreacting and being a bit melodramatic by
"leaving" and going out of your way to make a post about it instead of, say,
just not voting up or reading posts you aren't interested in (or just
leaving). It's not like your sentiment isn't expressed in some way already
several times a week. The only thing more annoying to me than noise is noise
about noise. Yes, I see the irony in my saying that.

~~~
BrandonM
I'm sorry to seem melodramatic, but I didn't feel like I was only speaking for
myself, and I hadn't yet seen a post like this. For a while I thought others
were overreacting when they were saying that HN was changing too much, but
lately I think I know what they're talking about. Several times I've clicked
through and read about half of a story only to find that it was a waste of my
time, and judging by the names on the comments, most of the story's score is
coming from new members.

I'm not saying the community isn't good for a lot of people, I'm just saying
that it's changed enough that it's no longer what I came here for. I would
apologize for making this submission, but it seems that enough people agreed
with me that it did make it to the front page.

------
iamelgringo
It's hard to quantify, but there have been changes on HN over the past year. I
do suspect that's going to be as hard to change as it is to quantify, however.

I think that this is partly, because a lot of the truly great content has
already been posted. Hacker and geek culture is really a small town once you
get over the big learning curve. There are only so many PG essays, Greenspun
essays, Spolsky articles, Jargon file content, _The Cathedral and the Bazzar_
, _In the Beginning Was the Command Line_ , PMarca blogs etc.. that can be
posted. After the bulk of these got posted, the early adopters started having
to work harder to find content that was as good. As they say, the low hanging
fruit is easiest to pick.

I know that this has been true for myself, at least. I put a lot of hard work
into finding great content and posting it on Hacker News. But, the well for me
is running dry. It's harder to come across articles/essays/posts that are as
good , because there are only so many great, game changing articles about
hacking and startup life that have been written.

So, I've changed my focus from trying to post great articles, to trying to
improve the quality of comments that I can post. And, I'm spending more time
getting through school so I can get to work on my startup instead of just
reading about them.

------
pg
Can you list some of the stories you didn't like seeing on the frontpage? (You
can probably still find them by clicking on More at the bottom.) I'd be
curious to know if they're statistically distinguishable from older frontpage
stories.

~~~
prakash
IMHO, the biggest concern is HN going the reddit way. So here's a stab at
trying to fix that:

\- If we can get the list of the top 10-50 hostnames (xkcd, etc) posted on
reddit, and deny publication of those hostnames on HN, the signal to noise
ratio should go up (how much I don't know?)

\- Obviously, some good posts would be missed, but it's alright to have a few
false positives, since this is a website of aggregated news and not email

What do the folks here think?

~~~
dcurtis
I don't usually come to News.YC for the links, I come for the comments on the
articles. Your idea would prevent News.YC comments on popular articles, so I
disagree.

~~~
prakash
That's a good point.

In which case, how about NOT awarding karma for posting links for those
hostnames, and award karma for the comments. what do you think?

~~~
jauco
instead of/besides a fixed top 10 sites, I would add any site that has been on
techmeme. If it's been on techmeme everybody here has probably heard of it
already.

------
cstejerean
I'm getting more disappointed with the front page as well. It's not
necessarily the quality of the content, but the fact that too many posts stay
on the front page for too long. Something about reading the same piece of
"news" for 2 or more days really irritates me. If I was at least on the same
computer it wouldn't be too bad, as visited links would get marked. But I read
this site on my desktop, laptop, phone and work computer.

I've mentioned this earlier and requested the ability to dismiss items for
view (archive), but pg didn't seem to think it was a good idea and/or
worthwhile to implement. Every time time I see the same story on the front
page 2 days in a row I get this sudden urge to add

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

to /etc/hosts. Sooner or later I'll go ahead and do it, and not return until
HN gets archiving and keyboard shortcuts.

~~~
pg
Stuff doesn't stay on the frontpage any longer than it has in the past. If
anything the frontpage changes faster.

~~~
edu
I also have the feeling that some news stay on the frontpage for a longer time
than before. My hypothesis is that it happens because nowadays stories get
more points.

Paul, can you check this? The average points of news that reached the
frontpage, the points of the max. scored piece of news, etcetera?

------
edw519
I, for one, think that this site has gotten much BETTER in the past year. It's
the first (and last) I go to every day. It's got just the right mix of outside
content, intellegent discussion of that content, "Ask YC" threads, and self-
examination.

I sure hope I don't upset anyone, but here goes:

1\. BrandonM, I recognize your name from encountering you many times in
interesting threads. Sure hope you'll reconsider. We'd miss you.

2\. BrandonM, you've been a member for 369 days and have posted an outside
submission 8 times. AFAIC, your complaint carries no weight. If you don't like
the content here, submit more better content.

3\. If anyone sees a thread they don't like, don't vote up or click on it.

4\. If you're tired of what I call "self-examination" threads, don't vote them
up or click on them.

5\. Personally, I find the threads discussing this site the most interesting.
Here's why. Even though most of us are hackers, we're also users. (We'd better
be, or we'd lose all perspective.) The one thing we all have in common is that
we are users of THIS SITE. We NEED to keep talking about it. It provides
valuable feedback to pg, and interestingly, it provides us much better
feedback about each other. I learn more about how you guys think and work from
your comments in these threads than any other type. Not sure why, just the way
it is.

6\. If you're concerned about the content here, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I surf
about a dozen other sites throughout the day, and whenever I see anything
interesting, I submit it. I don't feel like I've gotten everything out of the
story until I get feedback here. Many stories die quickly (I'm disappointed),
but many others take off. If you find something cool somewhere else, don't
keep it a secret; let us know about it.

7\. Vote!

8\. Visit the "new" page more often. Lots of good stuff falls out of the top
30 to a quick death. Maybe we need a more prominent link to the new page, a
"split screen" default, or more than 30 new links.

9\. Starting a software business takes a lot more than good hacking skills and
raw intelligence. You need passion, perserverence, thick skin, and big balls.
Don't like something (here or anywhere else)? Shut up and do your part to make
it better. Whiners don't belong here.

Sure don't mean to offend anyone, especially you, BrandonM. At least you had
the balls to say what others must be thinking but won't say. And you gave the
rest of us a chance to get a few things off our chest. Thanks. Hope to
continue to see your name around here.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Good comment.

I notice that your karma is over 4000.

Could it be that you're just one of the "chosen few" who are supposed to
represent the community at large? If so, it would stand to reason that your
karma would go through the roof and you would be finding the site more and
more interesting.

I wonder if the reverse holds true: if by choosing the "holders of quality" it
also has the effect of choosing certain personality types as being "anti-
quality" In other words, when a site gravitates to being represented by a
select few (which we all know happens) does it also tend to completely turn
off people of opposite personalities and tastes?

This is probably not such a big deal with a low volume of articles and
submissions, ie, everybody gets a chance to make a difference in the
conversation. In a 10-article-per-day site, everybody's opinion can get
something on the front page. But as the volume increases, individuals get lost
in the system and those that don't exactly match the opinions of the select
few feel more and more isolated.

Just wildly speculating here. I didn't mean to criticize you personally, just
using your account and comment as an example. Hope that is okay.

~~~
edw519
"Could it be that you're just one of the "chosen few""

I've never been "chosen" for anything in my life. That's why I'm a hacker.
With few exceptions. everything I've ever had or accomplished has been a
result of hard work and perserverence (good thing I love what I do).

"represent the community at large"

Ha, if only it were true! I often wonder if I'm the most contrary person here.
I've never "audited" my comments here, but I'd be willing to bet many of them
were "against the common grain".

A little background: I have absolutely NO formal computer education. I was a
math major in a college without a computer science department. I have written
tens of thousands of original programs in many technologies in over 80
companies. I don't fully understand social networking, or ad based revenue,
but I do know how to build what users need. I don't blog, facebook, twitter,
instant message, or text. I often worry that I don't fit in here, because I
feel so different from the "typical" member, if there is such a thing.

My karma score is a direct result of participation, nothing else. Anyone can
do it. I have no idea (nor do I care) if that score "entitles" me to anything.
I love it here. I sit at my terminal from 12 to 16 hours 6 or 7 days per week.
Except for the few precious hours with friends and family, THIS is my social
life. Don't even have to get up to interact with other humans, alt-tab does
it.

Yes, you are wildly speculating. But that is okay. How else would we know
about things unless we talk about them?

------
andyn
I _feel_ like there's been a slight creep in people posting articles about
recession, polictics, current events because they believe that these things
are important to this audience. It all still falls within "Hacker News".

I think people may have formed an internal model about the sort of things they
think appropriate for this (or any such site) and get concerned when a
submitted article doesn't conform to this. I feel it occasionally on
programming.reddit.com, sometimes there are articles there that seem to be on
there purely because it mentions the word "computer" or "internet".

But to my surprise when I visited archive.org and pulled up the front page
from just over a year ago I see:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

There really isn't much change at all in the sort of articles being posted.

Out of curiosity, where will you go instead of HN? I've not encountered
anything better than this place yet - the high comment quality especially.

~~~
BrandonM
Thanks for pulling up that page. I have to take the opposite viewpoint,
though, and say that I like that page much more than the ones I've seen
recently here. Of course, back then, it was all startup-related, so that makes
some difference.

I'm in the US, but I'm fed up with our politics and recession, and seeing how
flawed the system is is just depressing. That's why I only visited the
politics sub-Reddit for about a month before I quit going, and now I see some
of the same discussions here in submissions and comment threads.

I also think you're right about the internal model. For me, though, my
internal model of Hacker News isn't just about what I think is appropriate in
a website, but what I think adds value to my life. When the site doesn't meet
the model, it is inherently less valuable to me.

I will not go anywhere instead of Hacker News. I might pop in a couple times a
month to see the "hacker sentiment" and to be referred to some interesting
blog posts, but my overall goal is to waste less time on the computer and
spend more time getting real things done.

------
gaika
Ironically, this is a typical reddit post too. And why do you think that posts
suggesting different strategies to combat noise are not worthy your attention?
This is #1 problem for any news site, and this one of the best communities to
discuss and test approaches to solve it.

~~~
BrandonM
I think that the first 100 comment threads discussing strategies to combat
noise were worth my attention. While the ideas have gone nowhere, though, and
the discussions have kept coming, it has gotten a bit old.

------
DanielBMarkham
Brandon,

Thanks for the personal observations.

I find that I never make such a black-or-white decision: usually I have
periods of increased or decreased usage which eventually peters completely
out. So it's interesting to see someone who is either participating or not.

Don't let the commenters bug you -- one of the not-so-good traits here is that
they sometimes seem to have a bit of a self-admiration society going on. It's
not unusual that your post would get criticized. I found it right on-target
for what I liked about news.yc -- some person making an observation about the
market/program/philosophy-of-business and then asking others for comments. I
remember some great AskYC and AskPG questions. Don't seem to see those a lot
any more -- at least not as much as before. People who provide honest negative
feedback are doing a great service for a community like this. PG owes you
thanks for taking the time to rant a bit on the way out.

~~~
apathy
_PG owes you thanks for taking the time to rant a bit on the way out_

I disagree, and here's why. PG is clearly benefiting from this bully pulpit as
a means to recruit startup founders. Especially in the midst of Startup School
(the periodic anti-September of YC) and a waning interest in risky ventures as
the economy contracts, it serves as a barometer. Plus the type of crowd that
sailed in from TechCrunch has been revealed (if that is the right word) as
generally free of merit. I do not believe that judging news.YC as if it were
yet another social news site (YASNS, if I have to use the phrase ever again)
is appropriate, and hence the rant is perhaps less valuable than it would be
on, say, reddit.

As BrandonM noted, it's still the best source for news that interests this
particular subset of the public. However, as another poster noted, perhaps the
interesting observations that previously lay unnoticed have been exhausted,
and the hard work of turning over new stones, starting new companies, and
learning new things must begin.

There's only so much you can learn in the library. Eventually you need to get
in the laboratory or out in the field. I suspect that is as much to blame for
the change in interest levels as anything else.

(JMHO)

~~~
BrandonM
You may have something here. Maybe part of the reason that some of the older
users (myself included) are becoming less satisfied with Hacker News is that
we're starting to get restless. We already know that we want to work on
startups, we already have some great tips and resources, we already know the
power of high-level languages, and now we are just biding our time, waiting
for... what?

I know that describes me, to some extent. For me, I think the original Startup
News was liberating. It was a fresh voice I'd never heard before saying that I
don't have to graduate school and go get a job in industry; I can actually do
what I want and make a lot of money doing it. After a year of hearing that and
getting some helpful tips along the way, perhaps it's just time for me to go
_do_.

~~~
apathy
_waiting for... what?_

Hard to say... but lord knows I hope that you'll have a better idea as a
result of perusing the better offerings of the site. I have found it useful to
compare my performance against the theoretical optima that I see documented
here, rather than just the work of other developers, in order to push myself.
Hell, that's why I went back to grad school in the first place (and went into
methodology, eventually succumbing to math envy, as it happens).

 _perhaps it's just time for me to go do._

If you look on the front cover of your copy of SICP, the little yin/yang has
'eval' and 'apply' halves. Another endlessly useful shorthand metaphor,
IMHO... It's always tempting to go too far in one direction or the other, but
fortune seems to favor those who balance the halves.

------
Alex3917
I was thinking the other day that there must be some ideal homogeneity level
of a social news site. If homogeneity was zero, then there would be nothing
separating news.yc from every other community in existence: 4chan, or the
catholic church, or rec.food.drink.tea, etc. But if the homogeneity was one,
that is if the community were perfectly homogeneous, then clearly no one would
get any value out of that either.

The only reason I mention it is that you can actually kind of measure this. If
news.yc was perfectly homogeneous, then the new page and the front page would
be exactly the same. So you can measure the percent homogeneity by dividing 25
by the number of new submissions since the oldest item on the front page. I
would bet that there is some ideal number.

------
raganwald
Point one:

A question for everyone criticizing Brandon for being a "Drama Queen" (my
choice of words, not yours). Which one of Paul's "levels of disagreement"
applies?

Point two:

You can make the argument that his "suicide note" is contributing to the
problem, but unless he has a flotilla of sock-puppets voting it up, his note
is on the front page because the people here--on aggregate--vote things like
this up.

Which means that he's right! If the community does not want to read this kind
of thing and discuss this kind of thing, it would be voted into oblivion.

You can hardly blame him for 27 of the 28 points it currently has.

~~~
BrandonM
Nope, no sock puppets, and I definitely didn't mean for this to be as
depressing as a "suicide note". I was mostly curious to what extent older
members feel the way I do, and at what point they, too, would consider
leaving. Not that I'm trying to start a trend or anything, nothing like that,
I'm just curious.

------
hooande
I can understand your decision, but I think "leaving" news.yc might be a bit
drastic.

I've been reading hacker news for months now and I personally haven't noticed
a dramatic drop off in the quality of posts. The signal to noise ratio has
gone up and there are a lot more "meta" posts recenty - posts to news.yc about
news.yc.

Despite these things, I still find quality information on a consistent basis.
HN is pretty timely...I'm as likely to read something first here as I am on
reddit or digg or any other social news site. The posts tend to be more start
up oriented and many of the technical posts are of a better quality than I'd
find anywhere else. Despite the noise, there is still a lot of legitimate
value on news.yc

I'm not trying to ask the question "well if you don't like hacker news, what
site is better?". That would only start an argument based on preference.
Instead I'm asking "Isn't some startup focused social news, even with a high
signal to noise ratio, better than none at all?". It's possible that at some
point, there will be so many worthless posts that sifting through them will be
more trouble than it's worth. But at this point, it seems to me that there are
still interesting posts and insightful comments everyday on news.yc and it's
still a ways away from not being a valuable daily read.

------
kirubakaran
_> I think it's time for me to go._

No offense dude, but this made me think of ESR.

------
johnrob
I'm curious, what will you do in place of the time spent on ycnews?

~~~
BrandonM
That is a great question. I just might start my first real blog and make the
first post be something along these lines, not just in regards to Hacker News,
but other time-consuming activities as well.

------
mattrepl
The problem may be that the growth of users and, it follows, submissions is
independent from the growth of HN-worthy postings. That is, there isn't enough
good content for everyone to make good contributions.

As more "poor" submissions are made, the "mediocre" submissions begin to look
better and the community standards are lowered.

------
NewWorldOrder
Although there's been a influx of new users, I would conjecture that there are
still more veteran users than novices.

If this conjecture is the case, then the solution for the "problem" on HN
would be for the veteran users to vote more aggressively on the "good"
submissions. After you've been vectored off to an interesting Web page via a
submission, don't forget to come back to HN and vote it up.

Veteran users can use their frustration with front page stories, and turn it
into determination to find better stories. This way, everybody wins :o).

------
rms
Keep it real.

btw, your profile says to email you, but the email field in the profile is
only visibile to admins. You have to list it again in your about me if you
want it to be visible to the public.

~~~
BrandonM
Added. I didn't realize that e-mail was only visible to admins, although I
supposed I should have guessed that.

------
ejs
The biggest problem that I have noticed most recently has been all the
complaining about quality reduction. If there is any reason to leave it seems
like posts like this always on the front page. I think the karma system will
work things out in the end and all of this just makes the 'problem' worse.

~~~
r7000
> I think the karma system will work things out in the end

Karma systems have an awful track record, from my experience. It is not a
solved problem.

------
atoulouse
This idea sounds controversial, but I think folding news.YC into a section on
reddit (at least in name) would prompt people to post the irrelevant fluff on
reddit, and keep news.YC on topic.

I'm sure there are many reasons not to do this, but the idea still has merit,
IMO.

------
xenoterracide
I can understand this. I've just joined. I'm not sure that I'm benefiting in
really reading this feed over digg or slashdot. I'll give it a few days before
I determine that.

~~~
BrandonM
I would still choose this site over the alternatives. Before Startup News, I
never visited news aggregating sites (except through Google searches), and it
will probably be the same after.

------
vegashacker
#f

~~~
iamwil
I don't get this comment. explain, anyone?

~~~
tptacek
Scheme's "false".

------
TrevorJ
I agree. This isn't dig, this isn't Reddit, nor should it be.

------
jey
I'm also phasing out of HN.

------
pibefision
Come on. Grow up. Change is good.

~~~
neilc
"Change is good" is one of those things people say but don't actually mean.
Not all change is good.

~~~
mynameishere
But surely diversity is our strength?

~~~
xlnt
Ignorance is Strength

~~~
xlnt
Why is this downmodded _and_ the parent downmodded? I was making fun of the
parent. If the parent is bad, I was right. It should go one way or the other.

~~~
BrandonM
Making fun does not add value. Hacker News is not about who's right, it's
about making a point rationally enough that others can see where you're coming
from.

See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=149052>

~~~
xlnt
You just linked me to a thread I wrote half a dozen comments in? Did you read
it? :)

Certain types of making fun of things make for valid comments. In this case, I
was pointing out the striking similarity between what he said, and 1984.

~~~
BrandonM
Sorry about that, I somehow missed the reference. As for the comment thread, I
did read it a few days ago, but I don't typically go back and re-read comment
threads. Also, I don't tend to recognize names until I've seen them a lot. I
was making the (apparently wrong) assumption that as a relatively new user,
you weren't familiar with Hacker News karma-assignment trends.

I had already voted all three of the posts up, anyways, because I felt the
highly-negative karma was a bit unfair.

~~~
xlnt
People missing the reference was kind of my guess, but I wasn't sure. Thanks.

And, yeah, I knew that asking why the downmodding would be downmodded. It's
ok. It was worth it.

And I expected you had read the comment thread and just didn't remember my
name, but it was still funny ;p

------
nazgulnarsil
Scholars have known for ages that the best way to get the riff-raff to leave
you alone is to make what you're doing seem extremely boring. :)

------
michaelneale
"be submissions discussing how to combat Hacker News deteriorating into just-
another-news-site"

Irony?

