

Why intelligent communities will always fail - instakill
http://thegrinch.posterous.com/why-intelligent-communities-will-always-fail

======
jacquesm
I think that it is a bit premature to speak of an 'always' when we haven't had
more than a few years of experience with any of this. It may take some time to
get it right, and as long as the lessons from the failed communities stay
learned there should be some visible progress.

HN is an excellent example of progress compared to those that came before. It
almost certainly won't last forever but whether it succeeds or fails it has
already raised the bar for what is possible considerably.

~~~
wazoox
"Eternal september" isn't really new. We've had nearly 20 years experimenting
this, we've seen usenet declining, slashdot, digg, reddit and whatever other
net community you want to. Even HN is on the downward slope nowadays, I'd say.

There's an nice article on lesswrong about this :
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/>

What's interesting in this analysis is the second drawing. It looks like one
of the best "well kept garden" out there, Perlmonks.org ; it never devolved
thanks to its users and moderators dedication, but it's probably losing steam
and users to stackoverflow and al., I think because of its 1999 look and feel.

------
nhangen
I agree with the premise, but believe the author cites the wrong reasons.

What happens to online communities over time is the same that happens in any
social organization. A few, more aggressive and hardcore members gain the
power to snuff out dissenting viewpoints and opinions, thus overwriting any
chance for diversity or originality.

To make matters worse, those that use downvoting systems wind up alienating
new users that can't seem to figure out the "game." Those without voting
systems use humor, belittlement, and castigation to do the same.

In the end, the scene is controlled by those holding a majority opinion, and
any objectionable opinion is pushed out. This happens in any community,
whether it's your local church, a football forum, or a place like HN. Where
they fail in terms of diversity, they succeed for the group that holds the
power.

~~~
jdp23
as somebody who's fairly new to Hacker News, this very much matches my
experience here

------
RiderOfGiraffes
I remain unconvinced. Yes, the arguments presented here are persuasive, but
we're talking social phenomena here - nothing is black and white, there are no
unbreakable rules.

So use the analysis to design a system that works in spite of these pressures.
Perhaps you can start by being less restrictive of the membership and the
topics, and then become more restrictive once you've gained users. Perhaps
those who are contributing directly to the core subject can be rewarded in
some way, and see an impact in the "real world," such as more exposure in
relevant communities, more followers for their blog or on twitter, or similar.

Break the rules. At least, break the rules that need to be broken.

This piece finds rules that need to be broken. Find a way.

~~~
jdp23
I agree. But what's your attitude to people who break the rules here?

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
I'm trying to work out whether you have a hidden agenda under that question,
but instead of doing that, I'll take your comment at face value.

It sounds to me like you either haven't read or haven't understood PG's essay:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html>

There he talks about rules that matter, and rules that don't, and I think that
partially encompasses my attitude.

But only partially. In addition I'd add: when it makes things better.

When people break the rules here they usually make things worse. Duplicated
items split discussion. Multiple items about the same story with no extra
information dilute the "New" and "Front" pages. People who leave witty replies
that teach us nothing reduce the information density.

I expect there are ways of "breakingthe rules" here on HN that make things
better. Generally people frown on "meta" items and discussion. I break the
"rules" on that, so do others, and sometimes we get down-voted, and sometimes
not.

It depends.

Does it make things better? That's my usual guideline, and that's why I've
taken the time to reply to you, even though your question could be taken as a
content and information free jibe. Maybe it wasn't intended that way, so I'll
assume you were intending to be helpful, and provide my thoughts for your
consideration.

~~~
jdp23
The reason I asked was because a while ago you had posted about flagging
people who you saw as breaking the rules, and I was wondering how you
reconciled that with your very valid point here that the only way to keep a
community vibrant is to break the rules. Your answer here makes sense and is
pretty much how I think of it; for example, I knowingly break the rule of
"don't bring it up if you're downvoted" knowing that my popularity will take a
small hit.

The challenge though is that what rules "matter" and "better/worse" are
subjective -- and when groupthink sets in, attempts to change the rules are
opposed even if many people think they would result in a better community.

And yes, I've read PG's essay. My thoughts are at
<http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2091> ... our earlier discussion is in the
first comment

------
hvs
I found that this article had a lot of conjecture and not a lot of facts.

~~~
instakill
I'll admit it did - but I just wrote it up quickly during lunch.

~~~
jdp23
It would be great if you did a revised version or a followon in a day or two
after the discussion here ...

~~~
instakill
Might just do.

------
patrickas
This seems to be another way of stating Clay Shirky's "A Group Is Its Own
Worst Enemy"

<http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html>

------
rorymarinich
MetaFilter just celebrated its 11th anniversary this summer, and it's bigger
than it's ever been.

When's that supposed to fail again?

~~~
silvestrov
The big difference between metafilter and e.g. Hacker News/reddit is that the
moderators at metafilter are very active and often delete posts and comments
which are of too low quality, and they have a very active discussion with the
community about the moderation (see <http://metatalk.metafilter.com/>).

In addition to this, signing up (required for posting) costs $5 and this is a
significant barrier of entry for creating spam accounts and for users that
just don't care enough about quality.

~~~
rorymarinich
The MeFi moderation team is simply the best at their job that I've ever seen.
Considering the shit they have to deal with (which gets _way_ more heated on a
daily basis than _anything_ I've seen on Hacker News), the fact that they're
able to consistently establish the center and keep MetaFilter welcoming to
such a variety of people really astonishes me.

I don't know if the $5 is as significant as the quality of their moderation
team. Perhaps it helps regulate the flow of new users. What really wins it for
them is that the moderators are willing to respond to each member individually
and talk them through the site if need be. I've never seen a Hacker News or a
Reddit moderator do anything similar. (The Reddit mods are cool people but
moderation isn't their focus at all.)

~~~
mquander
To be fair, I can probably count the number of communities that have full-time
paid moderators (I mean moderators that actually help guide discussion and
interact with the community, not just administrators) on my hands and toes.
Being the best isn't hard when you have such little competition.

~~~
rorymarinich
Good point. God, I'd love that to change. Imagine communities competing to
have the most professional moderation. Almost a tournament.

------
PaulHoule
As Groucho Marx put it, "I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a
member"

One thing that HN & Reddit do right is put a time limit on discussions... They
don't quite close, but they become less prominent. So if the system "fails"
and a bad discussion starts, at least it goes away.

There was a discussion on LinkedIn about the poor quality of discussion on
LinkedIn... The quality of LinkedIn users might be a factor, but we see the
same problem on AMZN. General discussions on AMZN are dominated by idiots and
cranks, whereas the product reviews on AMZN are intelligent and useful. The
populations might be self-selected, but mostly you've got the same people
being intelligent in one format and stupid in another.

Both LinkedIn and AMZN have the format that the most "active" discussion stays
on top. So if you've got some hardheads who've got nothing better to do than
argue about abortion or creationism, they crowd out good discussion.

So you don't just have communities burning out, but discussions also burn out,
so it's good to retire them before they reach heat death.

------
Vivtek
Even if I accepted the left side of your first graph, the right side tells me
that intelligence continues to fall monotonically during the final burnout of
the community. It's just as likely that average intelligence would start to
rise again (especially given the basic quality of the archives of the
community) and so you'd see a damped oscillation finding some equilibrium.

And in fact, I'd argue that equilibrium has been reached, and is high, here at
HNN, as well as at other fora here and there (Making Light being a great
example, or PerlMonks.org). There are, in fact, smart communities that don't
get overwhelmed.

~~~
mquander
I disagree; by the poster's definition, HN failed. It started out discussing
technical items and startups, lasted for a while, and the topic has been
completely diluted to "anything at all which is either new or interesting." In
the words of the post, it has "pivoted to an off-topic focus." PerlMonks is a
good example, though.

I agree that the presumed link in the post between topicality and
"intelligence" is a strained one.

------
debugging
One thing to always keep in mind when starting a site on a particular topic,
don't go too narrow on the domain name.

Choosing a name like ____forums where ____ is some brand (or nickname to avoid
trade mark issues) becomes stale once that brand/model is out of style. Having
a narrow name yet broad enough to last through the years is always a better
approach (unless of course you don't intend the site to last pass the shelf-
life of the brand/model).

------
mquander
Sentence one is good enough for me: _I'm of the opinion that online
communities that focus around a specific topic or group of topics..._ That's
not really the kind of community that you expect to last very long, is it? At
least without a change of topics.

He also seems to assume a priori that effective moderation is impossible, and
thus that off-topic and banal discussion is inevitable -- which seems to me
like assuming the conclusion.

------
lhnz
> Either way, they will fail eventually (the former due to dilution, the
> latter due to alternatives) and this is perhaps the reason why no online
> community can last for relatively significant amounts of time.

No online community can last because they will fail eventually... Does anybody
else see anything horribly wrong with this kind of thinking?

------
theBobMcCormick
I'll agree that _most_ online communities seem to follow this pattern, but I'm
not sure it's inevitable. There _are_ at least a few community sites that
(IMHO) have managed to maintain a high level of intelligent, polite discourse.
MetaFilter comes to mind as an example as well as, so far at least, HN. Anyone
else have other examples?

------
ranprieur
"they cannot be sustainable without a certain amount of growth"

Why?

~~~
instakill
Churn is inevitable and unavoidable. If the influx of new members doesn't
match the exit rate of existing members then a community would shrink.
Constant shrinkage is not sustainable.

------
lhnn
Slashdot and 4chan are still strong.

~~~
powrtoch
The point of the article is to argue that all sites like this (HN, Reddit)
will devolve into 4chan. The fact that it has a large user base does not make
up for the fact that it's full of banal memes, porn, racism, and idiocy.

