

Ask HN: Does this concern anyone else? - mlLK
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ycombinator.com

======
jwecker
As they say in Samoa, fai fai le mu (: Relax. Sites evolve and change. Small
towns get bigger. Eventually you become an old man who yells at neighborhood
kids for walking on the lawn. Before you get to that stage, enjoy the fact
that these systems evolve, and for every one that gets too big for your own
personal tastes, there are a multitude of smaller ones. And then there are
even your network of actual friends. Take it easy (:

~~~
cubedice
Maybe. But it's still sad to see this site change into a big site with a wider
audience. I definitely care less and less for the "discussion" that takes
place here, which is frustrating to watch. Perhaps I'm just feeling
pessimistic, but it seems like recently the tide of new visitors is too large
to be assimilated without permanently changing HN's culture. Damn, maybe I am
getting old...

EDIT: I also seem to recall that constant vigilance about the site's quality
has always been a topic of discussion here. It's definitely healthy to raise a
concern or two every now and again

~~~
jacquesm
How to say this without getting moderated into the ground...

Look, this site is what you make it. If you do not like the conversations,
then start your own by submitting the kind of content that you'd like to see
or at least participate.

You've been here almost 2 years, in that time you have not made a _single_
submission and one of your 20 comments in that time is about how you don't
like the direction the site is going in.

If you don't like it then take action, change the discussion to contain those
elements that you care about and use your mod points to promote the content
that you think contributes to the discussion most.

There is an awful lot of 'oh, I really don't like the direction HN is going
in' here, as well as 'it used to be so nice'. I don't get that, it's pretty
good right now, there is a _TON_ of interesting stuff posted and discussed
here.

I haven't been here nearly as long as you have, and I concur there are some
'growing pains' but on the whole it is pretty good. Help make it better!

~~~
cubedice
I agree that users should participate if they want to make the site better.
And yes, there still are interesting posts. Still, I see people getting modded
up for saying "go with the flow," and modded down for questioning the site's
direction. First of all, these are OPINIONS, usually not worthy of up _or_
down mods.

I guess what I should have said was discussion about this site's direction
used to be an important part of HN, and I wanted to continue that tradition.

~~~
jwecker
Introspection is very healthy and worthy, I agree. My response was meant to
counteract a little of the alarmism. As for opinions getting mods, that's
generally how it works- in a way every post is a poll and you get people
agreeing with that opinion or not- everyone understanding that it's really
just an opinion. It's certainly rarely meant to be personal.

In short, if someone is modded down for questioning the site's direction,
people are indicating that they respectfully disagree for the most part. (Man,
I must have reached some kind of zen state today.)

------
jacquesm
Well, first off, alexa.com is to be taken with about a pound of salt because
of their way of sampling, even so, obviously something happened (maybe half
the HN visitors decided to install the alexa toolbar).

Also, other such institutions can show wildly varying data, for instance have
a look at 'compete' for ycombinator.com:

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ycombinator.com/>

It tells quite a different story.

The final arbiter here would be the log files of HN or some third party
logging service (but HN doesn't use any of those afaik).

The traffic rank that alexa ascribes to news.YC is not in line with what I
would expect at all (~5500), at that level HN should be seeing 150K uniques
daily and I doubt that from the activity on the forum.

~~~
aneesh
Traffic to HN was around 30,000 uniques per day at the end of April (source:
<http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html>)

~~~
Deadsunrise
I have a site with 20.000 uniques per day and the 3 month average rank in
alexa is 7,771 so it seems pretty accurate.

Before alexa changed the ranking system it used to be on the top 1000.

------
pedalpete
Which part? Concern?

Interestingly, the growth over the last 6 months has been fairly consistent.

Check out the 'max' option, and from the start of the big jump in January, its
been quite consistent.

I think things on the site have remained pretty good through the growth, but
then again, maybe it is the constant evolving change. I'm curious how
different the entries are from last year.

I think there is less a risk of the quality of HN degrading due to the fact
that most people don't submit.

It would be interesting to see the stats on what % of users submit, what %
leave comments, what % vote, and compare that with overall visits.

I suspect most of the growth has come from readers only. What do you say PG?
have you got those stats?

~~~
htsh
I am not sure but I think what has gone unspoken here is the recent decline in
quality of content on this site. Perhaps this is why he's concerned?

~~~
tlrobinson
I think the quality of Hacker News is sort of like Escher's "Ascending and
Descending" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascending_and_Descending>).

People perpetually talk about how the quality is going down, when in reality
it's not changing much at all.

I attribute it to the "honeymoon effect". New users are excited when they
first find HN, but eventually the amazement wears off, even though the site
hasn't changed.

~~~
TheSOB88
Possibly - but don't deny that this stuff doesn't happen. You may have been
around for Reddit, and that's most definitely changed for the worse since when
I started there (I've since quit). Turning into Digg and all that.

~~~
htsh
Reddit is still a fantastic place for discussion. Also it arguably has a
better interface i.e. orange mailbox, saved links, etc. Perhaps not for
startup stuff, but for politics & pop culture I think Reddit continues to do
as good a job as anyone. Also, its tough to criticize Reddit with a blanket
statement considering there are many independently moderated subreddits
(arguably including this very site).

------
icey
The biggest thing that I've noticed is that it's becoming more and more rare
that I'll recognize all the names in the comments.

It used to be that you would go into the comments section and it was the same
herd of people talking, which was really useful because you didn't have to
judge every comment on its own. You had an idea of where most of the
commenters were coming from because you'd read a lot of their other comments.
You knew if they tended to get their point across with sarcasm, or that they
were really working on a startup that was very similar.

There are people here that I disagree with a lot of the time, but I have a ton
of respect for their opinions because I know that they've always really
thought about what they were saying and haven't just come in to stir up the
pot.

With all the new faces, people get concerned because they don't know all these
people so you have to judge every comment on its own.

In a way, it's like a favorite old bar suddenly becoming a hot night spot. The
same people are still there, but there are _all these other people_. It's the
same bar, but it's a different experience. Either all the new people will mesh
well with the old people and it will be good for everyone, or they won't and
the old people will find a new favorite place to hang out.

The only certain thing is that it will never be the way it used to be again.

------
Periodic
I hate to to have to say this, but could we please have more descriptive
titles? You can tell from some of the comments that a lot of people, myself
included, are trying to figure out what would is so concerning on that page.

Also, the post title seems to be deliberately trying to manipulate readers
into clicking through. HN isn't a newspaper that has to grab eyeballs with
exciting headlines. Anyone worried about the "decline" of HN should be worried
about posts like this.

------
jeremymims
It's highly likely that many startup founders have installed these types of
toolbars to boost their own startup's numbers. Because of sampling issues, one
additional person coming to this site gets extrapolated out many times over.

Rampant themes in most groups: 1\. It was better before. 2\. Quality has
declined. 3\. New people do not respect the rules.

Stop being so paranoid. Or if you can't stop, start a new outpost for hacker-
like discussion somewhere else on the web. Only invite good people. When the
rest of us realize that this place has gone to hell, we can come join you. :-)

"Oh, my God, they found me, I don't know how, but they found me. Run for it
Marty!" - Dr. Emmett Brown

------
aneesh
It's interesting to note the significant drop-off on weekends in Alexa's data.

~~~
ojbyrne
I think every website on the planet experiences that.

~~~
jacquesm
It depends. If your focus is 'media/entertainment' you actually go up in the
weekend.

~~~
JustAGeek
I can confirm that, I own a computer games-focused site and our peak is on the
weekend, too, with Sunday being the busiest day.

------
vaksel
didn't pg post a HN link, that just shows posts from only old users?

~~~
JimmyL
news.ycombinator.com/classic only counts votes from users more than a year old

~~~
icey
At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I would really like a 2 year old version
of /classic as well.

news.ycombinator.com/getoffmylawn would work if pg needs a URL suggestion.

~~~
die_sekte
Actually, getofmylawn would omit anything except for "everything was better in
the past". Now, statistical analysis of that might yield some interesting
results, but otherwise it would be pretty boring.

------
ErrantX
which bit exactly?

~~~
mlLK
The 37% increase in volume + some stuff that's showing up on the front-page, I
fear HN is under siege

~~~
cubedice
Why is this at -2, exactly? All mILK did was respond to a question. If people
don't like the response, they should at least post a reply.

~~~
scott_s
I didn't downmod it, but I don't feel compelled to "correct" it back to 1. I
grow tired of "the sky is falling" comments, and I guess some others do, too.

------
lucifer
Does <http://twitter.com/newsycombinator> have anything to do with it?

