
Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News.. - sw007
I joined Hacker News around 5 years ago. I used to wake up and do the grim commute each morning to London from my home and the only thing that made it vaguely ok was Hacker News. It was a great place to go and find interesting articles from genuinely passionate people. It also used to be a really safe place to launch a startup that you'd spent days, weeks, years on - your project. It was a place where you could launch your startup and know you'd get great constructive feedback. People may not necessarily like your site but they'd admire you for having the balls to launch it, for spending time developing something that you hoped could benefit people in some way. They'd want you to succeed and they'd try and help you succeed with feedback that would ultimately help you. Unfortunately, today's Hacker News audience is no longer the same.
Today's Hacker News is a place where users want to snipe at other users and find negative aspects to anything thing submitted. No longer does someone say 'This and this I like but this needs work'. Oh no, now the response is 'Hate this, hate that, this is pointless.'. Hacker News now is about correcting grammar and points scoring. It is pointing out anything negative at all that anyone has done, has said. It is no longer a safe place. It has fast become an acidic forum.<p>I've launched 2 projects (11kclub and Favilous) on here over the last year - both got a similar response. There was nothing constructive, it was just sniping - they saw someone had put themselves up there and they just shot them down. It's a real shame. I hope one day the site returns with the kind of audience it once had. Until that happens, I won't be going on my favourite site anymore - the commute just got a whole lot longer.<p>For now I wish you all the best...<p>Thanks<p>Steve
======
pg
It's a genuine problem and has been growing gradually worse for a while. I
think the cause is simply growth. When a good community grows, it becomes
worse in two ways: (a) more recent arrivals don't have as much of whatever
quality distinguished the original members, and (b) the large size of the
group makes people behave worse, because there is more anonymity in a larger
group.

I've spent many hours over the past several years trying to understand and
mitigate such problems. I've come up with a bunch of tweaks that worked, and I
have hopes I'll be able to come up with more.

The idea I'm currently investigating, in case anyone is curious, is that votes
rather than comments may be the easiest place to attack this problem. Although
snarky comments themselves are the most obvious symptom, I suspect that voting
is on average dumber than commenting, because it requires so much less work.
So I'm going to try to see if it's possible to identify people who
consistently upvote nasty comments and if so count their votes less.

~~~
hnriot
Sometimes saying an idea is pointless _is_ positive feedback, there are a lot
of people here that 'launch a startup' which basically means some half-assed
website that does something utterly pointless and then expect the community to
be like some kind of benevolent uncle and pat them on the back and say what an
awesome idea and execution. _Many many_ ideas really are pointless and
negative criticism is very much a part of being an adult. This isn't grade
school where it's all about self esteem boosting.

The OP sounds like he should find some other support group, this is a
community of smart people that will quite happily - and quite rightly - rip
any pointless idea apart.

If you're going to editorialize and discount any comments/votes you consider
not aligned with boosting anyone's self esteem, or what you consider negative
you will create an artificial community - one that is the website equivalent
of the _old boys network_ , where the old timers consider themselves superior
to the newcomers. Negative comments can be as useful as all the back patting
attaboys.

If you really want to do this, the simplest solution is one I am sure you're
aware of. Pick a few dozen people you 'like' (their voting habits) to train a
Bayesian classifier, then you can weight those those that don't fall in-line
with the way you'd like to see you community behave.

Can't we all just act like adults and learn to deal with the negative comments
- possibly even learn from the? Do we really need to protected from snarky
comments?

This reminds me of a comment thread I saw earlier about people getting bent
out of shape by cell phone usage in restaurants! I find lots of things are
annoying, loud trucks/buses, cyclists that ignore road signs, rude people etc
etc, but I am not going to complain and try to stop buses or give discounts to
people who drive to discourage cycling. People need to start learning to cope
with the real world and not expecting 'the system' to protect us from
ourselves. It's embarrassing to be part of a community that needs voting bias
that only encourages positive comments.

~~~
sbierwagen
Here's a thread from 847 days ago full of people being mean and negative about
Groupon: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1288116>

Today, Groupon stock is worthless, and the company is doomed. Should the
people in that thread be penalized for being right, but mean?

~~~
raffi
Most companies fail. It's a _safe_ bet to predict failure. It's pretty lame to
celebrate that failure from the sidelines.

Vision is not "how is this guaranteed to fail?" but how could it possibly
succeed despite the odds?

Which voice do you want to bring to this community?

~~~
mcherm
Groupon didn't "fail", instead it has been astonishingly successful.

However, around the time of it's IPO it was receiving so much undeserved hype
that in comparison to THOSE lofty goals it appears to have failed. HN readers
at the time were pointing out the hype, and I think that is a GOOD thing.

Nevertheless, I agree that the tone of the community could be better and I
will strive to adjust my own comments to reflect that.

~~~
raffi
Thank you for the correction. My intent was not to speak to the state of
Groupon. Groupon has had far more success and impact than anything I have
created to date. I felt it best to not argue with the parent and focus on the
attitude behind the comment and not an assessment of Groupon.

------
tomku
I can't speak for other users, but I'd rather see more project launches than
any of the following types of submissions:

\- Rumors about what Apple will do next week, and the ensuing flamewars
between Apple fans and Android fans

\- TorrentFreak articles of any kind

\- Overbearing hype about the latest fad (App.net at the moment)

\- Mindless hatred towards the latest villain (Twitter at the moment)

\- Anything political that's posted under the justification that "all hackers
need to care about politics"

Sorry to see you go, I hope that you find somewhere with more civil discourse.

~~~
mindcrime
_I can't speak for other users, but I'd rather see more project launches than
any of the following types of submissions:_

Agreed. "Show HN" posts are probably the most important part of HN to me. I
don't always comment, but I always enjoy seeing them, and I love it when you
see somebody post something that _is_ incredibly useful to the OP. It warms
the heart to see one of those conversations that goes:

 _somerandomuser_ "I like this, but FOO seems kinda wonky. We did something
similar once, and found that BAR increased our conversion rate by 12.9%"

 _submitter_ "Holy shit, that's a great idea. I never thought of that, but I'm
going to implement that tonight! Thanks for sharing."

------
victork2
Hi Steve,

I don't know if you are going to read this, but I'm going to write it for the
rest of the audience too.

I think the trend of dismissing critics and commenting along the lines of
"sour grapes" or "haters" very disturbing. Yes I go against your commentary.
The great thing about internet and communities based on pseudonyms is that you
get the first reaction that people have. Very few will take a few minutes to
give their opinion, weight the different possibilities etc... It's brutal,
it's direct. If you have run a service online you certainly know that you
receive very angry/ threatening emails from people that use your services and
are displeased. If it disturbs you it means that you are not ready for having
a personal project on display, it's as simple as that. People in life and
particularly on the internet are very angry and you have disturbed
individuals. Opening a service with your name and your address is becoming
some kind of "celebrity", people will HATE you for no good reason.

To come back to what I think is bad/annoying on Hacker News is of a different
nature and I'll list a few:

* Well thought comments are often ignored and not read ( not up/downvoted, just ignored )

* Stardom: No matter what they post some ""famous"" people around here get their post on the front page. By courtesy I won't list who they are but everybody can spot it pretty easily. I'm very disappointed by this attitude personally, and it doesn't speak highly of a place that is supposed to be almost a pure meritocracy.

* Fads/ Jealousy: A lot of people here want to be rich and famous thus it creates tension. It allows me to come back to your point: these people are likely going to dismiss your ideas based on jealousy.

* Over-repetition of some stories ad nauseum: dumb benchmarks to see the number of req/s, analysis App.net, Education sucks...

All that being said it remains an interesting community but with some
drawbacks. I guess nothing can have it all.

~~~
nonrecursive
With all due respect, I think you missed the point of this post. The OP is not
dismissing critics with claims of "sour grapes" and "hating". He is saying
that the community is no longer a "safe place" where he feels OK to share work
in its early stages.

In other words, he was not saying that negative criticism should be dismissed.
He was saying that there is too much negativity for him to find the site
enjoyable and that he thinks the change in attitude is for the worse.

That said, I also think that you're off the mark when you say the OP is not
ready for having a personal project on display. The premise of OP's note is
that he considered HN to be a more positive, supportive community than the
larger Internet. There is nothing wrong with wanting to associate yourself
with people who will build you up rather than tear you down. If Steve's been
using HN for five years, he's probably well aware of how vicious people can be
on the Internet. It sounds like he's sad that HN isn't a haven from this
viciousness like it once was. And just because he's sad that this one
community has deteriorated, that doesn't mean he's not capable of handling the
slings and arrows of the wider Internet population.

~~~
danielweber
Maybe we need a new headline. Instead of "Show HN" it's "Get Constructive
Criticism from HN," and it's intended for products in the early stage.

~~~
swift107
that would be awesome. maybe a hotornot for hackernews

------
Aloisius
I spent the time and read your post for reviewing Favilous* and I have no idea
why you think there was nothing constructive there. Frankly, it looks like
_mostly_ constructive. Most of the comments are even in your format of 'I like
this but this needs work' for goodness sakes. I don't know what you expect. If
anything, they pulled a lot of punches.

I've had the exact opposite reaction as you. I disliked the old HN community.
It felt like a circle jerk who would hype each other up and offer little to no
constructive criticism. Products that clearly had no defensible business
models or clones of clones that would rely on kickbum business execution to
see any adoption. You still see the same thing today, but at least there is
some dissent.

I'm glad HN is no longer a place where clones of other platforms cobbled
together in a few hours gets praised as the greatest thing since the
memristor.

* <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060022>

~~~
alecco
The 11kclub post (mod deleted, it seems)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4323459>

BTW it seems OP has multiple accounts sw1205, sw007 and mdoyle at least. So
it's a bit tricky to get the context of what is this about.

It seems the sour end of the 11kclub thread was about a witch hunt by some HN
users finding out the submission had conflict of interests. (Myself, I don't
see it and I don't care)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325159>

------
untog
Sigh.

Personally, I don't have a problem with people being negative. 99% of startups
fail, and I think it's worthwhile reminding people of that every now and then.
Hacker News shouldn't live in some magical land where everyone is going to
make the next billion dollar company.

If you truly, genuinely, believe in your idea then you can take the negativity
in your stride. There will be plenty of constructive feedback buried in there
somewhere. If you can't take a little negativity directed towards your
project, then maybe you're in the wrong business. And maybe it _is_ a bad
idea. Sometimes it's best to find that out and move onto a new idea, rather
than bathe in the vague compliments of your peers.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
> _And maybe it is a bad idea._

^This.

Sometimes people feel very passionate about something and they get tunnel
vision. They invest hours, weeks, years on something and to them it is going
to be the next big thing that will get the girl, kill the baddies... and save
the entire planet[1]. But guess what? Sometimes... _sometimes_... it really is
just shit. _Sorry to tell you this but your idea sucks... or the execution
sucks... or both._ [ _strawman alert_ ] If all you want to hear is how awesome
it is, then go show it to your mum. I'm sure she'll tell you how special you
are and that you can do no wrong.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aD3XSOBCxk>

~~~
mindcrime
_If all you want to hear is how awesome it is, then go show it to your mum.
I'm sure she'll tell you how special you are and that you can do no wrong._

Sounds like a strawman to me. Who here has said anything about wanting nothing
but positivity, or to be told how awesome they are? Even negativity can be
combined with encouragement and support. And it doesn't really cost anymore to
do that.

A. "Your idea is pretty bad. You suck. Kill yourself."

B. "Your idea is pretty bad; have you considered XXX? At any rate, best of
luck to you!"

OK, to be fair, (B) cost a few more characters of typing for the pedants in
the audience. But there's no _significant_ extra cost involved with throwing a
little encouragement and support someone's way.

~~~
sw007
Mindcrime hits the nail on the head. I don't want people telling me how
awesome my project is - no where in my OP have I said that. My mum would be my
toughest critic but she'd also be my fairest and explain to me what she liked
but more importantly how something I'd done could be made better. That's what
HN was to me - a place for amazing constructive feedback. Constructive
feedback is something much different to criticism - which is where HN finds
itself today imo.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
The 11K Club: I like the site design. I think the muted wood grain back ground
is kind of cool. I have no idea what the site is for. The ToS scares me ( _The
more people you refer ... the higher your chances of becoming a member_ ~ o_0)

Favilous: It looks like a bookmarking site. Solid site design and layout. Not
too cluttered. I don't use bookmarking sites so I can't really comment on how
it is different/better than other bookmarking sites.

Edit: Ok I see from posts here what 11kclub is. I'm not sure why user napillo
is hellbanned but [s?]he makes a good point here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4397318>

------
steve19
I wonder if we are being trolled. sw007 has been a member for just 18
months[0], not five years, and in that time he has only submitted "Ask HN" or
"Show HN" posts and written only a handful of comments, half of them being on
this post.

Steve never participated in the community. He used the community when it
suited him to get advice, and after 18 months of not liking the advice he
received, he quits.

I am not defending negativity, but participating in a community is essential
in understanding it. Maybe Steves expectations were far to high, or he come
here looking for positive affirmation. I would prefer HN to stay honest and
objective, providing constructive criticism and encouragement, rather than
just praising each other.

[0] <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sw007>

~~~
estel
I don't think it's beneficial to this discussion to be so cynical about
sw007's intentions or motives. Many contributors to the site have multiple
accounts, or have moved from an older to a newer one. Attacking his/her
credibility doesn't further the conversation, especially as a number of people
seem to agree that it's a point worth discussing.

It's almost besides the point, but if you'd researched a bit further you would
have found a post confirming that this is an alias of another account.

------
brador
I was going to post the same thing. I felt physically sick reading some of the
vile comments to the makr.io team. They took it with a smile, and I applaud
them for it, but that stuff hurts.

I've noted a substantial drop in show HN posts, which I love, over the past
weeks and an increase in bullshit media sensationalism :"twitter says : drop
dead".

Reasons? I say a rise in celebrity users and those seeking to impress them and
a lack of recent presence from Pg. He needs to whip that front page back to
what it's all about - hackers and startups.

~~~
MartinCron
_I felt physically sick reading some of the vile comments to the makr.io team_

You're not the only one. I have, in the past, tried to say things like "hey
now, we can do better than this" to people being negative in a malicious way.
Maybe we should all be more persistent in nudging people toward civility?

------
brandon272
In my view, the main thing to change about this community over the last 5
years is that it's simply gotten bigger. As a result, the range of individuals
you see is more diverse and the more there are a greater range of interests
represented.

There is a nostalgia associated with when the community was smaller and more
intimate and I think that's what drives people to make claims about how things
are declining. And I can relate to that. But, the fact is that there have
always been "negative" people here, as there are in any community, and there
always will be. But there are also a lot of people who have a lot of positive
feedback to contribute. I know that it is increasingly difficult to get your
ideas heard by those who are willing to provide feedback, but that's to be
expected as a community grows.

This site remains, for me, the go-to source for intelligent, thoughtful,
informed discussion on tech/hacking-related issues.

~~~
paulgb
I've been here 5 years as well, and there's always been an element of knee-
jerk negativity, but if anything I've noticed less of it lately. The community
has always valued intellegent discussion over mindlessly cheerleading
eachother. I do see unconstructive negativity here and there, but it tends to
fall to the bottom pretty quickly.

~~~
kls
I think the difference now is, the negativity was dealt with by the community
pretty severely. I lurked for a long time, then joined and now I rarely
participate, in total I have probably been reading HN for over 5 years, and
actively commenting for over 3. To me it seems like the community policing
itself, and the individuals that helped have been overrun by a larger
community that is apathetic to the negativity.

------
acabal
HN is just like any other social network.

I've run a social network for writers called Scribophile for almost 5 years
now. People have said exactly what you're saying in this post about my site,
all the way from day 1 to the present day. Too much negativity, people are out
to get me, everybody is mean, person X is poisonous but I'm actually very
nice, things used to be better in the "good old days".

But as an impartial observer (I, strangely enough, don't really participate in
my own site), I can say that things haven't really changed that much in 5
years. There were nice people then, there are nice people now. There were
jerks then, there were jerks now.

Any place you get messy, emotional people together in an anonymous social
situation, this is going to happen. What is also guaranteed to happen--and I
think your post is illustrative of this--is long-timers will grow bored and
decide to drift off. A guy (I can't remember his name right now) wrote an
insightful post about this and called it "evaporative cooling". It happens to
every single community, in mine, and in HN.

Does that mean HN is on an irreversible slide into decadence? Not really. It
just means you're over the community, and it's time for you to move on. In
reality I doubt the general vibe of HN has changed _that_ much over the years.
Otherwise nobody would be here.

However as an administrator of a community, I can tell you that I certainly
_do not_ appreciate disappointed, emotional, "it's not the good old
days"-style, long-winded farewells. If people aren't finding a site useful,
then just leave, or send a private note to the administrator with your
thoughts. Absolutely nothing good comes out of a public complaint-fest. Sorry
if that sounds harsh and brutal.

~~~
danielweber
_long-timers will grow bored and decide to drift off_

This is why the community needs to always bring in new users. I see some
people talking in other comments on this page about how to stop the new users,
but if you aren't bringing in anyone new you are only shrinking.

In HN brings in no new users, it will be dead in 5 years.

------
studiofellow
Just wanted to share my perspective as someone who is relatively new to HN,
but has had some successful (if that's the right word) threads about my
projects.

The first post I submitted was a most-mortem about my startup. IIRC, it make
the top 5 briefly. The doors opened to me because of that were shocking. I had
many job offers, phone conversations with a few well-known tech personalities,
and tons of traffic.

At the time, I felt the comments on HN were _extremely_ negative. But, many
opportunities and contacts arose from that thread outside of HN.

Later, someone posted my new ebook landing page to HN. The ensuing traffic
built up my email newsletter and is still one of the main sources for my
sales. Again, the comments on HN were very negative, but I met lots of
positive, supportive, excited folks when they signed up to my newsletter or
followed me on twitter. All because they found me on HN.

From these experiences, here's what I've learned about HN. It might not be
very surprising:

-There is a very negative and very vocal minority that comments actively.

-There are many more positive, helpful people lurking. (If you can find them.)

-If you post your project to HN, you better have thick skin.

-HN is not only a great source for news, it's a powerful resource for founders.

-Because of all the strange and hidden rules about up-voting, getting your project in front of people on HN is all about luck. It has nothing to do with you.

*edited for bullet point fail.

------
dazzawazza
Here's the thing: Not everyone is super confident, not everyone has a thick
skin. So when people just snipe it really damages that person and potentially
their idea.

It would be fine if ALL the good ideas were made by super confident thick
skinned people but they are not. So we, as a species, just lose the potential
of the less confident, thin skinned people. This is a HUGE waste of talent.
This community should be here to fix that.

Now it's true that in the wide world, thin skinned people need to 'toughen
up'. THIS community should be here to help them by helping, guiding and
supporting. After all that is what communities are for.

I agree with sw007 that this community is atm worth less than it was a few
years ago due to this.

~~~
briandear
However, if they are thin-skinned, a tech startup is not the place to be.
Better to weed out the insecure before they invest their entire life into
something. If anything HN has made me stronger -- if one of my ideas flies
well among this crowd, then talking to a skeptical VC is cake. And, it would
seem that most of the harshness is well meaning. In NYC, bluntness isn't
considered rude, it's actually doing the other person a favor -- we don't have
time for smoke to be blown up one's ass.

I think my main complaint about HN is the cyclical obsession with the
Torrent/Kim Dotcom/Wikileaks side of things. There is a sizable minority that
seem to have some ignorant idealism that everything should be free and that
developers/musicians/filmmakers ought to just produce content simply out of
the joy of doing so, while neglecting that if you give away the store, you
can't pay your bills. The recent story about the 200,000 downloads game devs
who were now homeless illustrates what happens when that logic is actually
implemented.

As Fred Wilson has said, the key to reducing piracy (and the need for it) is
the frictionless, low-cost ability to acquire desired content.

I'm am glad that the Bitcoin fad seems to have faded from the HN pages. The
fringe types (constantly looking for conspiracies, no problems with "warez"
and very "hack the planet" (i.e. Hackers (1995)) seem to provide some
interesting "color" but also occasionally drown out the original purpose of HN
-- startup-related news and the technologies involved therein.

I was a late comer to the party, so perhaps I'm part of the problem, but
still, on the whole, HN, even with its snark, is a great place to be and I'm
proud to have earned a few Karma points over the last year.

------
Jun8
"Unfortunately, today's Hacker News audience is no longer the same. Today's
Hacker News is a place where users want to snipe at other users and find
negative aspects to anything thing submitted."

You base this statement on a sample size of N=2. On many Show HN submissions I
tend to see just the opposite, people act as test users/engineers/etc for
_free_ and then write their impressions.

The problem that you faced, I think, is one I (and others) have noticed
before: HN response dynamics is not stationary, i.e. it tends to change quite
a bit with time of day (different moods or geographic audiences?), time of
week (TGIF or the reverse effect), and even by time of month (full moon?).
There are many posts analyzing the optimal time to post.

Having your project (or thoughts) bluntly criticized publicly can be painful.
One solution could be: (i) Closely read and re-read comments offering
constructive criticism (ii) ignore "snarky", etc. comments _but_ note their
ratio to the constructive ones, if the SNR is low then you _have_ to think
what on your product triggered such an outpouring.

------
hooande
Can someone provide an example of an online community that has an
appropriately positive attitude?

Hacker News is the most civil, useful and intelligent conversation on the
internet, period. HN is easily two standard deviations less cruel or petty
than any other discussion site you could name. The rest of the internet makes
us look like Miss Manners.

I'm sorry that people weren't supportive of your personal projects, sw007. But
do you have any idea how much worse things would have been on reddit?
TechCrunch comments? God forbid, 4chan?

HN is an amazing resource and I'm glad to have it. The top comment is always
1) the other side of the argument being presented in the story or 2)
information from someone on the inside (ie, "I work at fb and here is what is
really going on"). If there's any online discussion site that's significantly
more positive than Hacker News, I'd love to hear about it.

~~~
TillE
Gotta agree with this. Most of the really bad comments I've seen on HN wind up
downvoted to light grey. Here, negative feedback directly to a creator is
almost always constructive, even if you don't like the tone.

It's still the best you're going to get on any public forum I'm aware of.

> TechCrunch comments?

And those have real Facebook identities attached to _everyone_. I'm amazed at
the things people will say even when it has their name on it and will be out
there forever.

------
antirez
This is not something specific to hacker news IMHO. The "cool kids" are
ruining the hacking culture, that is, there is an emerging cultural movement
of programmers with big stress on critiques, trolling, culture of image
(hipster-alike dressing), technology as fashion (always use the latest thing),
drink at confs or you are a l00ser, no respect for other people's work, and so
forth.

Resist to this guys, stay on HN and provide worthwhile comments and votes.
They are their selves a brief fashion that will go away in some time.

Also my feeling is that while stupidity accounts for 99% of all this (as
usually), there is a small part of it that is driven by interests about
polarising social medias where there are many programmers so that technology X
or Y looks cool and technology Z looks lame.

------
xvolter
Recently it seems like Hacker News is just a place people use for marketing
and posting links to other blogs, it's truly more like a social bookmarking
site by now than it is about the feedback and community. I still have Hacker
News in my Google Reader feed but it's becoming more and more about people who
find an interesting page and posting it, even if the post was from 4 years ago
and was on Hacker News 10 times already, it is still posted. There are no
moderators, but if there were it would be restrictive. Can you think of a
better solution to save Hacker News or would it turn into jumping from one
site to another and trying to have the startup community follow but leave
behind the unwanteds?

~~~
russtrpkovski
I read HN in Google Reader as well. Do you use the regular or big RSS feed?

~~~
xvolter
I use the Google Reader chrome extension and just get the updates.

------
Jun8
OK, here are some recent Show HN posts that I randomly picked (with more than
2 comments):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396195>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4382846>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4381905>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396195>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4379278>

Skimming through the comments I didn't see much support for the condescending,
snarky attitude, many user seem to genuinely help the OP.

You can probably find examples of the other kind (but please _do_ , rather
than just saying "I feel like ...") but this at least shows, I think, that the
attitude is not very common.

------
Swizec
Hi Steve,

I have to disagree. Over the past year or so I have launched two things on HN,
both of which got incredibly positive feedback and a whole bunch of
suggestions for improvements.

One of the launches went so well, I actually made money off the project - from
HN users.

However, I think it probably depends on how you frame the launch, on whether
HN is in fact the right community for the product and whether you don't do
this when everybody is looking another way or worrying about something else.

For instance, it would have been a terrible idea to launch something when ACTA
was going on.

Cheers, ~Swizec

------
bhousel
What projects are you working on now?

If you're still stuck with a long commute and you are looking for something to
build, you could try your hand at a Hacker News replacement. There are
certainly enough people here jaded by the toxicity that would make the jump
someplace new.

My only piece of advice, if you decide do this, don't post it as a "Show HN".
Reach out to smart people privately to beta test it.

~~~
sw007
So I shut down (albeit people can still sign in) a site called favilous which
was a bookmarking site. And recently I read a book called Join Me by Danny
Wallace and thought it would be cool to see if that translated to the web so I
created www.11kclub.com but got castigated by HN for being unoriginal, for
being a rubbish idea and for the manner in which it was posted. I accept
people will be negative and won't like everything that's published but I feel
the old HN crowd used to seek the positive first and then give their negative
feedback which was always done in a constructive way. I'm a young guy who is
just trying to follow a passion and work for myself - but I find myself
increasingly demotivated but hey Maybe that's more down to me than HN

~~~
luser001
Hmm, I just pasted the 11kclub URL into my browser. The front page has no info
on what this is about, but you still go ahead and ask for some personal info.

I looked at the favilous front page. It looks pretty decent. Good luck.

~~~
sw007
11k is part of a social experiment to see if people will sign up to something
they know nothing about just because it is exclusive. And thanks, appreciate
it.

------
TravisLS
I've also noticed this negative trend and was thinking of writing about it. I
was going to try and quantify it, but never got around to it. I don't post on
HN very frequently, but I've read it several times a day for the last 4+
years. Lately it does seem like the tops of comment threads are almost always
negative dismissals of the post, rather than additions or constructive
contributions. It's made the comments threads much less interesting to read.

Especially in the case of Show HN posts, like you mention, it seems like
people put themselves out there and most of the comments shoot them down,
often without really exploring or trying to understand what they've spent
their time on. Negative feedback is often quite helpful, but knee-jerk
negative feedback almost never is.

Obviously it's a tough game, and you've got to have thick skin, but it did
used to seem like this was a place to go to learn to succeed, and lately it
kind of seems like a place to go to learn that everything sucks.

As for what to do about it, I'm not sure. I'll just keep reading it every day
until a new, smaller, more constructive community pops up. I am (and I suspect
many others on this site are as well), basically just an education junkie, and
as the community becomes less educational, it becomes less attractive than
alternatives.

------
aespinoza
Steve,

In my personal opinion, receiving negative responses is good for your startup
because learn to deal with them. I do agree, that if that is all you are
getting, it is disconcerting. But, maybe there is something wrong with your
startup/project.

Think about this, I have a lot of friends, and when I showed them my project,
they all said: "That is amazing!" "It is going to change the world" So on, and
so forth.

See I love my friends, but that doesn't help me. I am not building a startup
to get fame, I am trying to solve a problem. My friends love me and don't want
to hurt my feelings, but honestly, my feelings are not part of the startup
equation. My friends will not help me improve my vision to solve a problem.

HN has been good at showing a lot of negatives when projects are shown here,
but you have to really try to understand what they are saying. Listen to the
negatives, they are the best response you are going to get, because they will
highlight the flaws on your business model, your project or even your idea.

Instead of looking at those negative responses as a way to get you down,
listen to them, and try to get the best out of it. Deep inside a negative is
just another way to tell how to succeed.

Hope this helps, Alex.

------
pilgrim689
Here's a perfect example from a few days ago. Read the most voted-up comment:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4340014>

~~~
MartinCron
That is such a perfect example, although it's a good example of replies trying
to encourage more positive discussion. I wonder if there's a small group of
people who _just don't care_ about social disapproval.

------
kmgroove
The bar for entry is so low when it comes to many types of startups today that
the grand majority of "Show: HN" posts are completely unimpressive,
unoriginal, and just plain boring. That is just the reality. This entire idea
that people should be supportive regardless is ridiculous when the amount of
people entering the market is enormous. Maybe getting great supportive
feedback on mediocre projects isn't what HN is for anymore. IMO that is a good
thing. The industry has evolved, so has HN, maybe you should as well.

And I still see great supportive criticisms, and general fluff "great project"
on the ACTUALLY GOOD projects.

Just building something isn't impressive anymore.

------
WiseWeasel
If people agree with this, what are some strategies for countering the trend?
People could put more effort into down-voting unconstructive comments. Maybe
up-voting should also be unavailable until a karma threshold is met. Maybe up-
votes could be made precious by limiting the number per day. Maybe there could
be honeypot content that's bad on purpose, or determined to be bad after the
fact, and everyone who up-votes it gets their voting privileges revoked. The
nuclear option might be to hide scores even from ourselves.

------
w0utert
So if all the negativity and people complaining is what made you hate HN so
much you are leaving it, why do I have to read about it on... HN?

~~~
sw007
Thank you for so perfectly demonstrating my point..

~~~
w0utert
That was deliberate, it's called irony. I really don't think using HN to
complain about people complaining on HN is a very good move. Sorry, but I
can't make anything else of it.

------
lv0
During a job interview I was asked what would be a personal goal of mine in
the next five years, and my answer was 'understand completley all the
technical postings I read on HN'

Today, there are less and less technical posts, and more fanboyism, rumour,
gossip.

I guess Gail Wynand took over YC ---- Let's let Roark back.

------
codegeek
Steve, we understand that you probably bitter with your recent experiences on
HN and wanted to vent out. no problem. We are all humans. But I am a more
recent user on HN and find it very interesting. A lot of Show HN posts get
positive and negative feedback equally. I personally always add any valuable
feedback if I can, even if critical. Do not be discouraged and keep trying.
You need to continously inspire yourself. I hope you still wake up everyday
waiting to get back on HN.

------
lidahasbrouck
Steve,

Have you considered this is due to the overarching change in the startup
society as a whole? I mean, have you HAD an actual conversation with other
startup founders/CEOs/early employees lately? :) Either they have nothing to
say (because they're so new to the scene and probably have an IQ of around
100), or they are ubercritical (because they've seen SO many microcompanies
come and go and they're still around - so everyone wants their advice).

Don't take it personally - their meaning isn't what's changed, it's their
wording. Saying "I hate your UI" is essentially the same as saying, "Your UI
needs to be cleaner." Look at extremely negative comments as a way to start an
excellent conversation:

Them: "I hate your UI." You: "I know! I wish it was cleaner. What do you think
about this toolbar?"

If someone is willing to give you honest "I hate" or "I love" feedback,
they're ASKING you to want their opinion. And it sounds like you do - so ask
them something in return.

And read if you haven't already: [http://www.launch.co/blog/good-to-great-to-
excellent-a-roadm...](http://www.launch.co/blog/good-to-great-to-excellent-a-
roadmap.html)

Lida

------
wkdown
TBH, I see VERY few "Show HN" posts. I would like to review a startup and give
constructive criticism, but HN has been flooded with op-ed blog posts with
sensationalist headlines, or articles that have no relevance whatsoever to HN.
Maybe the lack of "Show HN" posts is due to others feeling the way you do. But
continue to post. Don't let HN become another Reddit, 4chan, Digg, pick-your-
poison.

------
richardk
On the other hand when I criticized Chris Granger's "LightTable" I was told
that I was a "hater" followed by several statements suggesting that Chris
should ignore folks like myself: the "haters".

So I'm not sure, perhaps it is more about who you are than what you say. In
any case, I have noted the general fall in quality of articles here, but,
there's still some interesting stuff now and again... c'est la vie!

------
danso
I've posted several projects to HN, including both of my guides to programming
and photography...and I have been extremely disappointed...with the LACK of
harsh comments, and the more-than-deserved number of upvotes. And I mean that
only half facetiously, because the critical ability of HN posters, on average,
is quite high, so I half-expect people to be nitpicking and ripping on
me...and that's fine, since I generally don't take it personally.

Obviously my case isn't apples-to-apples, since the OP may have pitched
products that were attempting to be successful in a financial sense, whereas I
just like showing personal projects. But my experience has been very
supportive. This is not to say that OP is wrong, but just to say that whatever
corrective measurements are being decided on, that you shouldn't go too far in
fixing what may only be partially or rarely broken

------
johnson_deni
It's inevitable.

Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, HN.

On a two year or so schedule new ones come along, old ones become worse.
People on here are already using those illiterate, infantile 'memes' to
express themselves. The next step is HN gone wild.

The only question is, where do I go next? I'm not going to pretend it's going
to have than two years to live though.

~~~
debacle
New network hasn't really cropped up yet. Google+ is still working out the
kinks.

/. has gone entirely to shit, but some subreddits are still good (it feels
like the average user age has been suppressed down about seven years, though).

The problem is the revenue model. You can't be exclusive when you need to
cater to as many users as possible.

------
tcarnell
I have also pretty much given up on HackerNews now too. I used to love finding
novel and interesting material from any subject.

Now I just see the same posts over and over again:

\- "top 'n' mistakes starts-up make" \- "best 'n' ways to ensure your start up
will succeed" \- "'n' qualities that make a good founder/entrepreneur." \-
"why my start-up failed: lessons learnt"

The content is rarely ground-breaking and rarely written by somebody of note.

And a more disturbing trend is as soon as somebody write/posts something
interesting, there follows weeks/months of similar, non-original rehashed
posts/articles.

I think point-scoring is an important factor - as soon as the posting stuff
becomes a 'game' that can be 'won', somewhere the reason for it all is de-
valued...

Or perhaps it's just too big now... the book "the story of eBay" gives an
interesting insight to community growth...

~~~
tcarnell
oh, and not forgetting of course:

\- "'n' things every programmer should know'" \- "why every programmer should
learn [C|LISP|ASSEMBLY]"

And can we just have a new section for the zillions of new "essential"
JavaScript frameworks "we must learn" that get built every week.

------
novaleaf
I'm new here, so maybe I'm a bit of the "bad new crowd" OP is talking about,
but seriously, this guy doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on.

His last (current?) venture 11kclub
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4323459>

1) asks for your PII

2) wants you to do viral MLM on it's behalf

3) has ToS <http://www.11kclub.com/tos.aspx> that explicitly state "you are
applying to join a club you know nothing about"

4) and finally, the submitter lied about his affiliation (in the comments)

That said, maybe the behavior he's stating does go on "nowadays" (again, I'm
too new to know) , but really from what I see of 11kclub, He as a person does
not gain my sympathy.

------
1337biz
From my readings around here these negative comments are most often attributed
at developments that partially aim at creating controversy. If someone starts
a Twitter clone country club or runs away from Diaspora to start a meme blog
it seems save to assume that this is going to result in some form of
dissonance. I personally find the "Ask HN" section extremely civil never
really saw someone tearing down a project. Most backslashes seem to appear if
a project promises more than it can deliver. The community seems fortunately
resistant against too obvious forms of hype.

------
jedmeyers
Well, and I hate Hacker News for the whole bunch of startup hipsters that have
emerged because of it.

------
fairbalance
Thanks for sharing why you hate HN.

Is it unfortunate that you hate HN? I guess that is a question left to the
reader.

What's clear from your comment is you needed to vent. (And you need HN as a
way to cope with your commute/job.)

Maybe that's why there is so much harsh criticism on HN. Maybe people are
venting. Maybe it has little to do with the technical and commercial merits of
any given idea (e.g. a "launch") and more to do with what's going on with the
commenter. Maybe they are in a stressful job, or their home life is stressful.
And they need to vent.

Now, as for constructive criticism, it's a fair point. To be "constructive",
all criticism cannot be solely positive nor negative.

In FDA law, there is a concept called "fair balance". In lay terms, a drug
manufacturer has to disclose the bad with good. So, e.g., a TV advertisement
will include little innocuous messages about side effects, and that slip of
paper with all the tiny print inserted into the packaging will tell you about
some very negative and scary things, if you read it. The negatives may not be
front and center, but they are there. You, the marketer can say good things,
but you have to say some bad things too. Fair balance.

Why not make a rule for HN: If you want to level a harsh criticism, you have
to balance it with some praise.

This is a form of transparency. The reader sees both the positive and the
negative. They can then choose for themselves what to focus on.

"I like 11kclub for reason A. But I dislike it for reason B."

Fair balance.

------
tokenadult
Steve, I wish you all the best for your project. Could you please tell us more
about your latest project?

(A thought: if you launch a public-facing project and announce it here on
Hacker News, most of the reactions you get will be like reactions from the
general public. If your code base is not exposed to view of hackers, as it
would be as a GitHub submission, many of us will only be able to comment on,
for example, whether or not we see typos in the copy on your public-facing Web
pages, and not on how cool your technical solutions are. That probably
generates mostly negative--or at least, consumer-oriented--feedback, rather
than hacker feedback, but maybe that is helpful too. I can say as someone who
has written for a living in a journalistic organization and also has worked as
an editor that every writer needs an editor, because every writer overlooks
some of his or her own mistakes, if only because of being busy and tired.)

For what it's worth, I continue to find interesting (and uplifting) things to
read here on HN after 1369 days here. But I don't read every thread here. I
don't suppose that anyone reads HN exhaustively anymore. Maybe reading a
different sample of threads here will help you get more enjoyment and
encouragement out of HN again. Good luck.

------
electrichead
I think it doesn't have as much to do with HN as it does with the startup
scene itself. A few years ago before the mobile apps, there were fewer people
in the startup scene, and those that were there had a more communal sense.
Since we are now quite common, there is a lot more competition out there,
which probably fuels some of the frustration directed at you.

personally, I wouldn't tear anyone's work down, but I can see why some people
would, given how crowded it is now.

------
john_flintstone
I rarely read comments here anymore, preferring to stick to reading the
article linked to - for the same reason that I never venture into the comment
section on the Guardian's once great Comment is Free section. The first batch
of comments are always (without fail) in the same vein, and start with a
variation of "Yes, but..." or "But what about..." Attack, criticise, find
something to disagree with. It doesn't matter if the commenter agreed with 5
things in the article, the early commenters always go looking for that 1 thing
they don't agree with.

One of the great myths is that you have to put up with negative people online,
that you have to 'toughen up', because, well, just because... You don't. Seth
Godin wrote a great piece years ago telling you to fire your customers if
they're too troublesome, and I've used this strategy in 2 businesses since.
It's liberating. Negativity, insults, poorly mannered and poorly behaved
people - you really DO NOT have to put up with any of that. Kick them to the
curb and move on, because you really do not need those sorts of people
anywhere near you or your new business.

Unfortunately, a lot of 'those people' hang out on HN (and the Guardian).

------
DigitalSea
I couldn't have said it better myself. Although I haven't been member that
long, I've been lurking much longer, for a while I was afraid to really
comment on any story as the attitude of some of the users on this site is to
put it bluntly: elitist. It's these kinds of attitudes that causes arguments
and the deterioration of a community. I rarely see people posting up new
startups or web ideas they've come up with out of fear of ridicule any more.

To be honest I can come across as a cynical jerk, but unlike a lot of the
people I see chastising other people in the comments, I'm at times cynical but
never intentionally rude. There is a big difference between cynical and just
plain rude. Pick any story on the homepage at any given time and people are
nitpicking at peoples grammar and arguing something isn't right instead of
contributing to the discussion.

Case in point all of this recent discussion about App.net. There appear to be
two sides of the fence, one of those sides is hopeful that App.net will be
successful and wishing Dalton Caldwell the best and the other side are making
assumptions that it's going to fail and that people won't pay to use it, blah
blah blah. This is the exact attitude the poster is talking about and I think
all of the App.net submissions and comments are a great example of this
ridiculous behaviour.

Etiquette aside, don't get me started on the submission quality. It feels like
the homepage of HN is part interesting and beneficial submissions and the
other half is comprised of articles; "Hating on X programming language", a
blog post written by a Svbtle author (mostly Dustin Curtis), a Daring Fireball
blog post, TechCrunch news article or submission of a Github repository for
something built on-top of a programming language that I don't even know.

------
dpcan
You have a great point. Ditch the Karma, or make it invisible, and a lot of
people will stop commenting just to get votes. And only when you reach so much
Karma are you allowed to start seeing the Karma of others. But experiments
have been done here before, and a lot has not worked. People REALLY hate
change around here ;)

On the other hand, the larger the community gets, the more real it gets. And
the truth is simply that the world is snippy. They are opinionated, they don't
really care, and reality pretty much sucks. Well, at least that's how I feel
by the end of most days. So if you want honest opinions, you kind-of have to
take the good with the bad.

Don't get me wrong, what drew me in to HN was the brilliance of the
discussions too. The fact that people seemed to really care about each other.
It felt like sitting in a room filled with only the smartest people, all of
whom had intriguing insights into their areas of expertise. Man it was
awesome. Do I want this back? YES.

The only way I can see this happening is if everyone over a certain amount of
Karma, and that have been here long enough, get hand-picked and invited into
an elite HN community.

------
rnernento
Steve,

Where's the constructive criticism? It's a community, you can take your ball
and go home but if you actually want better feedback start by giving some.

------
geebee
I'm really bummed to hear that you feel you got shot down or excessive snark
about your projects. I learned something about this in my creative writing
classes - it means nothing until you write it down and put it out there. It's
easy to imagine how great your writing is until you actually write, and it's
hard to say "at least for now, this is my best effort." If you're putting it
out there, you're already doing more than most.

In spite of some snark, I still find HN to be a pretty good community. Up and
down voting actually reflects this. On most sites, it is, as you pointed out,
a way of keeping score (you know how it goes, if you like Mitt Romney, you
vote up, if you like Obama, you vote down, regardless of the tone or content
of the post). I actually feel that HN is still unusually inclined to actually
use the voting to moderate rather than keep a tally relative to pretty much
anything else out there.

I'd be really bummed to see this go.

------
mehulkar
I just realized that this is my fault. I'm not new to the internet by any
means, but I'm (relatively new) to the geek world. Now that the jokes on xkcd
and imgur actually make sense, and I can laugh at n00bs and answer a few
questions on Freenode, I feel like I can identify with the hackers. In fact, I
just watch the movie _Hackers_ yesterday and it was awesome. I would have had
very different sentiments a year ago, or I would have tried to fake what I
feel now.

In any case, this sense of elitism I now feel entitled to, has carried over to
Hacker News and I feel justified in snarking.

To the OP: Thank you for posting this. In addition to attempting to being a
good human being offline, I will double my efforts to being a good human being
_on_ line so that you may once again love this community.

------
sheriff
I think there are two distinct use-cases for posting to HN, and I think the
OP's pain can be partially connected to the fact that both types of posts get
treated identically.

The first use-case is "Person A discovers Thing X on the Internet and wants to
discuss it critically with the people on HN."

The second use-case is "Person B wants to share Thing Y that they made, in
hopes that the people on HN will give positive feedback."

As a reader, you can choose to treat the two types of posts differently, but
without a conscious effort, I think the default behavior is to use a
consistent approach to all posts on the site. The result is that either real
industry news doesn't get reviewed very critically, or personal projects get
reviewed more critically than the poster would have hoped.

------
superqd
I don't know, I looked at your past submission for makeusdate, and it appears
that you got tons of useful feedback and encouragement. Very little of the
posts I saw there were negative at all. Some were blunt, but still encouraging
and admonishing you not to give up.

------
bceagle
What a stupid post. Man, are you dumb.

Just kidding. Yeah, I see what you are saying, but I guess my view is that the
nature of a community is that you can't fully control it. I see some people
here coming up with different ideas about how to protect HN and make it a more
friendly place, but the reality is that there is no full proof way to maintain
the culture of an open community. The interesting thing is that while it is
very easy for a community with a positive culture to start to slowly degrade
to negative over time, it is extremely difficult to bring a negative culture
back to positive. Does that mean HN is doomed? Not necessarily, but I guess I
don't expect things to all of a sudden change for the better overnight.

------
vectorpush
_They'd want you to succeed and they'd try and help you succeed with feedback
that would ultimately help you._

You're seeing what you want to see. If your idea is truly noteworthy, you will
get lots of usable feedback on this site, despite all the negative (but still
relevant) criticism. Two recent examples are Ouya and App.net; these ideas
received tidal waves of negativity, but they were _interesting_ ideas, and the
ensuing threads were filled with useful and valid criticism (as well as
supportive comments from backers). If your idea is only receiving negative
comments, it's probably because it isn't compelling enough to merit the
attention of thoughtful critics.

------
gregsq
I'll add my tuppence and agree that I've noticed quite a few more "he's an
idiot" comments recently. Coincidentally, I've tried to assess whether this is
partly due to frustration with the quality of the original post. In some
cases, I think it may be a reaction to some fairly out there opinions; in
other words a kind of de facto criticism of genre rather can content.

The hammer of Thor seems to be wielded a little more. There's a lot more
players now, and defenders of the castle will mow down the barbarians, to use
a metaphor.

It's natural selection at work, but as any club owner can tell you, don't let
the doormen / bouncers get too self important.

------
shreeshga
One of the reasons for the negative comments might be the sheer number of
applications being developed and showcased.

Hence, many of the projects tend to bring in some deja-vu and the commenters
are drawn to the lack of features more than usual.

------
thenomad
FWIW, I've been feeling like the comments on HN have been more negative and
combative than usual over the last month or so, too. (I've been a HN user for
about 5 years, too). I've not been quite sure why - there just suddenly seems
to have been a bit of a tidal wave of snark.

It may be seasonal, or something similar, and I'll admit to having anecdotal
evidence only, but I have had a similar impression to the OP, albeit not quite
as strongly.

I wonder if some of it is defensiveness from users scared HN will turn into
Reddit? Certainly, I've seen a lot of "downvote this post, it's not something
that should be on HN" comments lately.

------
rgbrgb
Wow, 277 comments in here and just 10 in a front page article for a new
project: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4398344>

This is a good post but it also feels like you're just insulting the whole
community rather than giving constructive criticism. Want some constructive
criticism? Foster the community you want by being the kind of member you want
to see (Gandhi said it better).

Also, your post seems like flame bait but it inspired some really interesting
discussion about forum moderation. So maybe the community isn't as bad as you
say.

------
neuro
Too bad, people like nickb are no longer around, it just takes a few of these
types to make a world of difference. Oddly, it sounds as if you're describing
reddit 5 years ago when I launched a startup. Good luck.

------
marvin
Thanks for voicing my thoughts. I agree completely. I never thought I would
say this, but here goes: With the careful selection of subreddits i have at
Reddit these days, my experience there is more pleasant than Hacker News.
There are just so many snide remarks and so much hate in here.

It's the same problem I had with Reddit until I started being very selective
with which subreddits I subscribed to. Like PG said, it is a growth problem.
But I don't think a similar turnaround operation will be possible here. If
anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

------
seanhandley
There's a lot of negative, boring people hiding behind their keyboards. Don't
let them drain your enthusiasm. If they're not being constructive, their
opinion isn't worth noting in the slightest. Chin up.

------
lifeisstillgood
HNers are good people - we just need reminders regularly to do our duty to the
community.

So, it seems that you are the cure to your own ailment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396195>

I took ten of my valuable minutes to review the next thing on Ask HN - and
hopefully constructively.

I guess it is just a problem of being reminded regularly that this is a
community that needs contributing to as well as reading (my default). Perhaps
more of us need to actually release something ! (maybe that could be a means
to get a karma multiplier)

~~~
think-large
I think you have a great point. This is a reminder that we do need to be a
more proactive community as a whole.

------
indraneel24
> Hacker News now is about correcting grammar

I vehemently agree with this. Aside from a few parent comments on each thread,
the comment threads are sure to have somebody being overly finicky about the
minutia of another comment. Diction is important, yes, but an important tool
to any conversation is understanding when NOT to correct somebody, or make
them clarify their obvious statement. It's kind of like HN's much crueler
version of a Reddit pun thread, with the notable exception that, as soon as I
see one, I will immediately collapse the former.

------
jfaucett
I thought I'd just say I completely agree with you, though I've only been a
member for about 2 years and a reader for about 3, just in that small time
I've noticed a change, and I think its sad, it really is a bummer. I've
noticed many people posting their start-ups and either 1) not getting any
comments (what's with that?) or 2) the things you mention just hate, where's
the constructive critisism this site was so great for? I can only hope my
upvoting you that we can make a change here in the opposite direction.

------
dinkumthinkum
I think people are making some interesting proposals. I have a controversial
view: maybe things aren't that bad? I usually see nasty comments downvoted. We
want civility but I don't think anyone wants Stackoverflow level sterility.

Also I think the community still praises and gives great self-esteem boosting
comments. I can't tell you how many postings of "look at me project" that seem
like 3 hour mashups for which I don't undestand the point at all, but the
comments will have snark at all. Of course, this is just my anecdote.

------
smashing
If you are not applying for the Y-combinator or are an alumni, you will tend
to have a degraded experience to those that are in the "IN" group. Sorry to
see that this affects you, but I am in the same boat. I've learned to just use
this site as a kind of tech bookmaking site curated by popular trends.
Sometimes there are interesting or insightful comments, but the overwhelming
number of comments revolve around social politics or corporate espionage like
discouraging competitors in the emerging markets.

------
grandalf
I think it's part of a larger trend in startups. When there is no startup
boom, people who do startups do them b/c they love building things. When there
is a boom, ambitious people do startups b/c it is part of their calculation of
how to achieve power and wealth, the competition for which is a zero sum game.

The true visionaries who build amazing products and companies are not the kind
of people who, in the midst of a boom, decide to do a startup instead of
applying to a prestigious MBA program.

YC's new approach of choosing founders who have no idea is part of the
problem. The people who can get funding just b/c of their pedigree (how they
look on paper) is exactly the selection approach used by top MBA programs and
investment banks. For these people, life is a reputation game which they are
good at winning.

It's no surprise that YC went in this direction, b/c it clearly helps get
companies funded. The founder simply becomes a risk asset, just like a
racehorse, who clearly has a certain level of sophistication and metal
ability, and who will follow the guidance of the YC team. This works great for
attracting capital b/c the person with great paper credentials can be puffed
up and made to act the role of visionary by pantomiming the style of
successful entrepreneurs.

This is all in pursuit of capital, since to a large extent companies that are
well capitalized and not staffed by idiots can generate a nice ROI, and the
cynical investor view is that if you have n companies in a space where you
expect growth, then some percentage will fail, some percentage will succeed,
etc.

Ironically, though, it's never required less capital to do a tech startup, and
much of the capital is being burned up on young people who put off their MBA
and want to live in a major city for a few years and gamble on the boom.

This is just startups becoming mainstream, and attracting the same kind of
people that have always gravitated toward iBanking and other MBA oriented
fields. Sooner or later some of the startup funding will dry up due to
routine, cyclical forces, and the startup scene will once again consist mostly
of hackers and builders.

So I view it as both a good and a bad thing. The investor class is slowly
learning who makes a good bet, aided by tons of cheap capital thanks to
quantitative easing and stimulus. But for now nobody is being too picky and in
the midst of tremendous uncertainty people who look good on paper are a hot
commodity.

Just keep building and learning and ideally find a great team of people who
love your product and what you are trying to accomplish, and you will
eventually triumph.

~~~
MrMan
Man, well done. I am too exhausted by my cynicism about the startup world to
make such posts now. But it is very important to remember that in the current
environment cynicism equals knowledge. Naivete and idealism are mostly put-on.
Investors need this greed-based faux idealism to attract young talented
people. I think that people bemoaning the declining "quality" of members of
the HN community would be even more perturbed if HN lost any of it's potency
as a platform for hyping portfolio companies owned by the investing class.

------
NaturalDoc
This is the inherent problem with free, open Internet. I would not change it
one bit. Unfortunately, Hacker News is only one of many places like this. It's
the same reason I left Stack Exchange long ago.

However, I do feel your pain. I think it is disgusting that people have plenty
of time to destroy your hard work, but have not time at all to offer the
tiniest bit of encouragement. I've noticed it happening more and more often as
well. I'm just not sure why people cannot simply be polite to each other.

------
georgemcbay
I've only been here for a couple of years and while I recognize that online
communities always basically go downhill as more people are added, I suspect
there is another issue at play: startup fatigue.

Everyone and his mother's brother is launching a "like X but with Y" startup
now. Unless yours is something really special right out of the gate, it just
gets lost in the noise and is easy for the non-trolls to ignore, resulting in
a situation where the only feedback is not helpful.

------
think-large
Steve,

I'd hate to see you leave the community after such a thoughtful post.

I think some of the best ideas here support your plan and that this is a call
to action. We as a community need to support positive comments and refrain
from name calling. Acting like an adult isn't about growing a thicker skin,
but embracing the lessons we learn as children.

There is a balance between condescension and constructive criticism. Lets
strive for the latter.

------
suyash
I don't like Hacker News so much now because the hacker part seems to be
slipping away and this place is becoming more of reddit news type :(

------
lucb1e
In fact, for an experiment I created an account with which I posted a few
negative responses (so destructive criticism), which got upvoted.

------
sidcool
Wow, it almost seems HN is going the Reddit way. But it's fine to do that on
Reddit coz it's meant for the purpose. HN is not.

------
noonespecial
I worry about that too. I tried to look back at your older posts as I've been
around a while myself. What was your old username?

------
joeblau
For some reason, I personally feel bad about this. Being a newer member, I
feel like I'm somehow contributing to Steve's hatred of hacker news. I am
entrepreneurial and love seeing new projects being released, but I didn't know
about HN until I moved to San Francisco a year ago.

Hopefully I help make this place better instead of worse, Sorry Steve

------
qubot
On my first submission to this site, I acted like an asshole in the comments
section to reciprocate the attitude of the comments I got. My opinionated tone
earned me more points, when I hate doing that kind of thing to begin with.

This is a cultural issue. I should not be rewarded for being a dick, nor
should anyone else. Period.

------
arnarbi
Don't worry, you don't need to be married to HN. There will be something else
replacing it, probably giving you exactly the kind of community you look for
(because, simply, you are not the only one).

I hopped from slashdot to digg, from digg to reddit, and from reddit to HN.
It's just another link in the chain.

------
lukejduncan
He complains that people don't offer constructive criticism. He gives the
example that people no longer say 'like this and that, try this instead' and
now say 'hate hate hate'

and yet

the title of his criticism is he 'hates' hacker news.

My feedback: I like the sentiment, but try not to do the same thing your
criticising in your op-ed post.

------
waterside81
Whenever I read posts like this I wonder if I happen to be really lucky at
reading comments to posts that are never negative in nature. I've never (or so
seldom they don't stick out) seen any of these issues on HN - my experience is
almost universally positive. I think HN is just fine.

------
dsirijus
Ok. How about this...

I promise to do my best to make my comments, submissions and votes more
constructive and relevant.

As simple as that.

------
xtracto
I am quite new here, but one thing that I have looked in the last months or so
is that more and more new submitted links are mainly personal rants.

Not trying to attack sw007's post specifically, but I am talking about blog
posts linked from here that seem to be added only to spike controversy.

------
jakejake
Hey, I can't say that I feel your pain. I can't seem to get my projects on the
front page even though some negative feedback would be welcomed and even
helpful.

I think done amount of negativity is something that just happens on all tech
forums. Programmers are an opinionated lot.

~~~
rjzzleep
negativity is why you have awesome projects like linux, ffmpeg etc. things
don't thrive because you tell them how great they are. they strive because a)
someone tells them what the crap is. and b) the person is strong enough to
tell himself, ok you'll see i'll build something so awesome even you will have
to accept it.

------
dj2stein9
This is probably an outcome of the comment engine on this site, it could use
some real work. If it worked a little more like Reddit, with upvotes and
downvotes, then good, useful comments would bubble to the surface and negative
useless comments would get hidden.

~~~
lkbm
I think HackerNews exists largely because Paul Graham saw Reddit NOT working
for what he wanted--it was (and is) extremely popular, but was shifting toward
a snarky, depth-avoidant population. I'm guilty there--I upvote dozens of pics
in a few minutes, while skimming past the insightful articles that take too
long to read and evaluate.

It's worth noting, though, that HN does have up and down votes for comments,
but only users with moderately high karma can downvote.

This might not work well given relatively quick growth. A small number of
people consistently downvoting bad comments may be outvoted by a huge mass of
new users who from time to time upvote. Maybe everyone should be able to
upvote AND downvote, but experienced users get double weight.

Personally, I think we need something different than minor adjustments to the
voting weights/allocations. Slashdot-style moderation? Revamped guidelines?
Hard to say what will work and what won't.

------
olalonde
Personally, I really wished pg would bring back the vote count next to
comments. It used to be a very good indicator of what kind of comments were
encouraged by the community. I feel HN has been getting worse since although
it was intended to make things better.

------
gavanwoolery
Mostly I try to stay unbiased, but like many others I have been guilty of the
behavior you describe at times. It think that whenever you post a comment,
there should be a bold disclaimer above to remind people to be nice,
constructive criticism only, etc.

------
chrisjtow
Hey Steve, don't let the detractors slow you down. As Steve Jobs aptly
responded, "What have you done that is so great?"

Constructive feedback is the best way to test out hypotheses and ideas. It's
unfortunate you have to weed out the noise to get to the meat.

Cheers and continue on.

------
jdevonport
I have been a huge HN fan for many years and read daily but the unnecessarily
hostile atmosphere in the comments often detracts from the otherwise great
content.

I guess it's a problem that gets more difficult to solve with scale but there
must surely be a solution.

------
ngokevin
Really, I prefer the discourse over the circle-jerking. It's sort of why I
like HackerNews because people don't simply just all agree with each other and
pat each other's back. If I want that kind of stuff, I'll just head on over to
Reddit.

------
mikelyons
It's cause a bunch of redditors have moved in, I hate reddit, it's pointless.
;)

------
ephekt
HN starts with the elites. Elites make HN popular. Others join HN to be elite
by proximity (or invested in). Elites leave.

This is the exact nature of an internet community that is successful. Thank
god we (kind of) still have IRC.

------
kruhft
The bigger a news site gets, the more it starts to resemble Orwell's Two
Minutes of Hate. The irony today is that it's not some overbearing
totalitarian power that's doing it, it's the users themselves.

------
ja27
I've seen the same thing happen everywhere from Usenet to Slashdot to Reddit.
It's just how things go online, especially when people are allowed to be
anonymous or just don't care about looking bad.

------
Mitchella
Tip: On Favilous lighten up the black just a little bit. It's unnaturally dark
and is constantly drawing my attention thus preventing me from focusing on the
text on the page.

------
mratzloff
Harsh criticism is often the most useful criticism.

------
thinkdevcode
You can do what I do: don't read the comments. Pretty simple solution and you
still get to find some great articles to read.

------
laconian
A good many of the linked articles are full of snark and vitriol, setting a
poor example for the commentariat to follow.

------
hindsightbias
With billions in play in the Social Network universe, someone needs to write
an opus on Mitigating Eternal September.

------
minhhuong
HN usefull <http://www.phongkhamdakhoaathena.com/>

------
reubeneli
Nice post Steve. Assuming anyone even gets to read this 420 posts later...
[Proposed solution at the end] For years I got my daily fix of HN too. PG was
a legend of the Valley for me and YC an admirable exclusive club of amazing
success stories. Many we work with and many friends have had tremendous
success. (Disclosure: we never applied to YC nor tried simply because we had
two seasoned founders with many successes under our belts and felt
respectfully it wasn't our cup of tea, but we admired and loved HN and the
people at YC)

As an entrepreneur for 15+ years, I really admired the community support and
its relationship to startups and hackers. Something all founders and tech
leaders need. From outside of Silicon Valley it was very inspiring to watch.

When we started <http://geekli.st> about 1 1/2 years ago we broke into the
Silicon Valley scene and hustled like nobody's business to get known, get
ahead, raise funds and do all those things all entrepreneurs must do to reach
their goals. One of the tools we looked towards was HN. We got some initial
love in there, but once they invested (YC) in a company that was copying our
every step the HN love shut down. Articles we posted/very relevant news even
picked up by Huffington post, TNW and other media outlets, was repeatedly
removed and shut out. At least with no transparency to voting or the 'karma
factor' we had no way to know why. Along with that came the barrage of
complaints from many influential developers and tech leaders we knew about the
voting system, the mystical 'Karma' system and basically the fact that
something once so simple and pure, full of positivity and support, became a
place to lambaste, harass, condescend, denigrate and shut down intelligible
and news-worthy items, startups and human beings. But like Friendster, MySpace
and the ever famous forums and bulletin boards of past... things evolve from
what once was innovative and positive, causing new generations of innovators
to learn from the mistakes of their elders and build something better. more
relevant. more useable. more friendly and more open... Thank you Paul for
Hacker News and everything you and YC have always done for startups. You'll
always be loved and respected by me... but for the disenchanted tech and
startup link absorbers like me and so many of our close (and not so close)
friends there is something new.

Welcome to Geeklist Links. Tech news, startup releases and developer links and
resources, organized into your own categories, shared in tagged communities,
saved, ^5'd, upvoting and down voting, with complete transparency.
<http://geekli.st/#link> \- built by developers for developers and the tech
world. - Enjoy. Reuben Katz - these views I own.

------
EToS
i wonder if karma should be used in a more constructive way, say to make sure
people earn the right to comment on the popular stories..

I guess this assumes the community as a whole still contains more positive
rather than negative people, But i like to think it does still

------
arrowgunz
>I joined Hacker News around 5 years ago. Your profile says account created
555 days ago.

------
dburks
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded" -Yogi Berra

------
Tycho
In other words it's become more left wing.

------
raganwald
Dear Steve:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4398353>

Hello.

I read your post today.

Thank you for being so honest. I agree, HN can be a lot less supportive and
honest these days. When you share something you've created, the feedback can
be brutal. Things have changed, you're right about that. The causes have been
well-documented, whether in Paul Graham’s comment, Giles Bowkett’s rant, or
Joel Spolsky’s observations on building online communities with software.

I can’t tell Hacker News what to do about its growth. I’m not an expert by any
means. And I can’t really heal the hurt you must feel when you pour your heart
and soul into creating something only to have people you care about say “meh,”
or worse. I’ve been there, and although I put a brave face on it, I hurt when
people criticize things I take personally.

It’s all very well and good to say, “Don’t take it personally.” I don’t take
it personally when a client doesn’t like a feature I suggest for them. It’s a
business, I’m trying things for them, it isn’t personal. But when I write
essays or stories or share a little library of code, I am doing something very
personal, and truth be told I crave some positive feedback, some signal that
people are glad I tried even if it isn’t for them.

What I wouldn’t give for a few more “Hey, great effort, it would have been
even better if you’d considered adding Foo” comments and a lot fewer “What
good is it without Foo?” questions.

So here I am sharing something about me, and this is very personal. I hope I
am resonating with you, because if it helps you in any way, I can live with
1,000,000 downvotes from grumpy people. And for me, that is one of the keys to
being happy in a public forum. Seize on any bit of progress, no matter how
small. If you like this letter, I can focus on that, I made you nod, or smile,
or maybe feel a little better for a little while. That isn’t a billion dollars
from a startup, but it is damn satisfying to find out that someone, somewhere
is a little bit happier for a time, and to think you helped.

And maybe you can find that from the things you are trying. Is there one
person out there who is a little happier, who learned a little something, who
is grateful for your work? That matters, and it matters more than ten or a
hundred or a thousand nay-sayers. I can tell you flat out, I am grateful you
wrote your message to Hacker News. It struck something in me. It is striking
something in other people. It is making people think. It is making the world a
teeny bit better. That’s something positive you did, some important measure of
your worth. Thank you.

Maybe Hacker News will find a way back to where it came from. I don’t know.
But I can tell you, I decided a while back that I want to try to stick around
even if it doesn’t. I don’t want to “bail” to the next little place the way I
bailed from Reddit to HN. Time changes, and we must change with it. Unless it
becomes actively poisonous, I want to try to grow and learn to be happy in
spite of how it is not the way it was. There are still many wonderful things
happening there, many wonderful people posting there, many excellent posts
appearing there.

The trick for me at least is to learn how to filter out the crud without being
upset. It is not easy, I think I have had trouble with negative feedback my
whole life. But if there is one positive idea in a thread, isn’t it worth
sorting through and ignoring the dreck? And this is not a passive experiment,
We can contribute the good ideas, we can lead by example. I’m trying to be
less argumentative. I’m trying to be more thoughtful. There’s some value in
that for myself. You may already be where I’m trying to go, I don’t know. But
it seems worth trying. It seems worth sticking around and making a positive
contribution. Who knows, you might make one person somewhere nod their head
and think and be happy for a moment in time.

That’s a good thing, and I hope that whatever you do and wherever you go, you
keep making things and saying things and trying to make the world a better
place.

Sincerely,

Reginald Braithwaite.

------
guscost
Cancer is cancer.

------
bpatrianakos
I can totally relate (though I've had far less balls than you so far). I
mostly relate to the the commute but I did post a project about a year ago and
though I did see sniping like you speak of the responses i got were actually
pretty helpful but I do know what you mean as I've seen it like we all have on
other posts.

The things I admire about you posting this most are:

1\. You had the balls to not only criticize this place but actually criticize
it despite the fact I'm sure you know a ton of people will say your criticism
is only your experience or a common newbie mistake (I've seen that said to
newbies and veterans alike) or some other sort of response full of denial and
meant to shut you up.

2\. You criticized despite, I'm sure, knowing many will think you had your
feelings hurt due to the response on your projects and are now coming back to
whine

For the record, I don't think either of those things are true of you. I
totally hear you. I'd also add that this has become a place where group think
is acceptable and encourage. HN is now a hive mind. On HN, if you believe...
that file sharing sites really are just a place used mostly to download
copyrighted media and that's wrong then you are an enemy of freedom around
here. If you believe that people who are pirating (as in downloading via
channel unauthorized by creator without paying) is wrong and hurts the
developer you're an enemy of freedom, free software, and HN. If you use PHP
you're not a real developer and you should be mocked. If you like anything
about PHP you are dumb and should be mocked. Then we have the classic flame
wars that anyone who knows HN would expect to never see here but they do.
Often. Like Jobs v. Stallman, Windows v. Mac, Vi v. Emacs, and so on. Really?

And everyone is the smartest person here. Everyone. You could cure AIDS and
some guy will come along and talk about how it should've been done faster by
doing XYZ. The titles on submissions from many regulars have also gone
downhill. We used to get things like "Why technique X helps Y in use case Z".
Now we get a lot of arrogant "If you don't do X the way I describe in this
post then you don't deserve to live". Okay, it's actually more like "If you do
X then you're doing it wrong" or some such.

I wonder why. Maybe we've grown to the point where the sense of community is a
little strained, people want to feel smart like all the other smart people,
and so now colleagues have become competitors. When that happens what you get
is jealousy and instead of helpful suggestions you get sniping because the
person is thinking "shit, I have nothing a,axing to contribute so how do I
save face and still look smart?". The answer is by bringing everyone else
down.

Maybe we've gone from a community of mostly doers to a community of a minority
of doers and a majority of spectators. It's just like sports in that case.
When you're out in a social setting and a game is on everyone knows better
than the coach and players how to play the game. It even becomes acceptable
because by nature spectators and players both have roles to play. The players
are the "anointed ones", the "professionals", who do things mere mortals
cannot (or maybe even should not?) and their job is to play for the benefit
(maybe a bad choice of words but along the lines of "benefit") of the
spectators. The spectators then, since they have to leave the playing to the
professionals, are left to either be delighted when things are going good or
criticize when things go bad. The more the spectator longs to be a player but
doesn't (either through a false belief that they can't or shouldn't because
they weren't "chosen", or because they just don't have the balls to), the
harsher their criticism becomes and the more vocal they become.

Maybe that's what has happened around here. I know I for one have been quite
intimidated and jealous of others. I often feel what I can contribute cannot
match what others are building so I keep it to myself. And when I see a few
harsh critiques of something it becomes easy for me to pile on. I'm not above
it but I am self aware enough to spot it in myself.

I speak as ive been here a while because I have (relatively speaking of
course). I had a 400-something day old account hell banned a couple months ago
because of what's happened to HN. I had the wrong opinion and was punished.
Even before I created an account I lurked for a year and back then HN was
still very intimidating but also far more welcoming and constructive. I really
think anyone who is going to trot out the old "oh, this opinion comes around
every now and then" or the "that's a common fallacy" argument is in denial.
I'd like to see HN redeem itself or go out on top like Jordan (the first time
he retired).

One last thing: for what it's worth, yeah HN has gotten a little sucky, but
it's still awesome and very redeemable.

------
rprasad
Wow, it's a good thing you're not a writer...

Criticism is one of the best ways to learn to be better at what you do. "Hate
this, hate that" may be negative but it is _useful_ feedback from
actual/potential users of your site/service/app/whatever.

HN is a far better site with useful comments than it is a site with solely
positive comments.

~~~
sw007
Ironically I am a writer - I've written a sitcom and had it made and have had
my fair share of 'this is awful' comments - I get people won't like my stuff,
I don't have a problem with that. I am making the point that the old HN crowd
would give constructive feedback rather than just rip in to you...

~~~
duaneb
I think the line between "ripping in" to someone and "constructive" criticism
is a fine line, probably something to do with tone. Personally, I don't view
(let alone comment) on product launches, I'm more of a code kind of guy, but
from my position I see excellent discussion. I suspect that the negativity on
product launches is because everyone can contribute - there's no skill
barrier.

------
ucee054
Why is there this myth that there is a "community" or "family" of
entrepreneurs?

Startup founders are actually _competitors_ \- for funding, for sales, for
attention etc etc etc

The scale that should be _expected_ between entrepreneurs goes from "Open
Hostility" on one end to "Cold War" on the other.

You should _expect_ any "positivity" you get to be fake, stupid or both. If
you receive better, you should take it as a _bonus_.

It's the same way Corporate HR is not the employee's friend.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urGVKx3H_Rk>

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ0BQUufUpE&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ0BQUufUpE&feature=related)

------
paulhauggis
How long have you been using the Internet? sniping and negativity is the norm
and I just ignore it. You should too.

If your app truly is good, your users/customers will be the only thing that
matters.

~~~
nicholassmith
He's saying that sniping and negativity wasn't the norm for HN, but it's
become that way.

~~~
k3n
That's either rose-tinted glasses or selective recall, or both.

~~~
cjbos
Its neither, feedback supplied to the "Show HN" type posts would generally be
positive, or at least constructive and polite. Even if there was no feedback
to offer, people would still leave a congratulatory comment about launching.

4-5 years ago it felt like the only people who understood what you went
through to launch were people on this site, everyone else including family and
fellow co-workers at big corp were negative about the idea of leaving a "safe
job" to pursue a dream.

But now with everyone having an idea about the next big app, and blockbuster
movies coming out about the geeky kid who did follow his dream, everyone else
is starting to "get" us, they can relate. So the feedback you get from outside
of HN has become positive, and so the feedback from HN has become more of a
"reality check".

I don't see why it just can't be polite but constructive though.

------
goggles99
If you want hand holding and kudos? Then any public forum on the internet is
the wrong place to come (go to your mommy for things like that - not the cruel
world in which we live). Stop whining. Either use the criticism of your
projects to improve them, moving you toward success or GTFO.

The internet is not a PC or hand-holding place. Most people are not really PC
on the inside. They ace PC outwardly face to face because they fear physical
confrontation or are afraid of social repercussions (in the real world)

Buck up

------
EliRivers
Hate this, it's pointless. :p

~~~
EliRivers
Brilliant. Everything about this just emphasises his point :)

------
tantalor
> points scoring

Why else have moderation points if not for scoring? :p

