

Ask PG: Quick tips on creating a successful online forum? - yters

I'm sure this is great material for an essay, but I'm wondering whether you could say a couple sentences about why you think HN's been quite above the mean for courteous, rational debate online?<p>I suspect the biggest factor is karma being relevant for applying to YC.
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pg
Stay under the radar. Kill the kind of fluff stories that attract stupid
people. Ban trolls and spam. Have explicit policies and tell new users about
them when they sign up.

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byoung2
_I suspect the biggest factor is karma being relevant for applying to YC._

That has a lot to do with it I bet. HN members know that they might be
applying to YC someday, and they don't want the YC founders to see a year's
worth of 4chan-worthy drivel. In effect, your HN body of submissions and
comments make up an additional application component.

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jacquesm
I disagree with that strongly.

I'm estimating the size of HN's 'real' userbase (not counting spammers) at
around 23000 accounts, there is absolutely no way those are all thinking of
applying to YC one day, maybe 10% of them do. Even if the churn is 50% and
there are only 10000 accounts left that would still not explain the
phenomenon. I think that it has more to do with local culture and
indoctrinating newbies through the votes than anything else.

I'm fairly sure that Karma does not enter in to it in the mind of the posters
once they reach that stage.

And I'm not sure if it would be a factor in applying to YC even though I read
that 'making thoughtful comments' would make a difference (as opposed to
making inane ones I guess).

I know for a fact I'll never apply to YC, and with me probably many others. On
any other forum I would not behave much different than from how I behave here,
as long as the culture stays the way it is there will be a lot of 'happy
hackers' hanging out here, the majority of them will probably never apply to
YC.

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byoung2
_there is absolutely no way those are all thinking of applying to YC one day_

I said _might_ apply. If each of those 23000 members thought that there was
even a 1% chance they would apply to YC someday, I'm sure they would think
twice about posting that Admiral Akbar ascii and a funny quote in a comment on
HN when they probably do it all the time on Digg and Reddit.

