
Decentralized Hacker News - gj0
Do we have a decentralized hacker news ?<p>Something like hacker news, where users can post only after they spend a hacker coin.<p>- For posting require a hacker coin.<p>- Challenge&#x2F;wrestle the validity of post by staking some amount of token.<p>- Whoever wins the argument takes the opponents token.<p>- There can be a karma component as well, where in the bad actors need to pay 1.5x amount of token if they did a bad karma last time.<p>PS : Not a fan of everything decentralization. This post was just a thought and so decided to post here.
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TheAlchemist
That's one of the problems I have with this crypto stuff.

There is no problem with HN - it's one of the best place on the net, but hey
let's imagine a solution with crypto. A solution to what exactly ? There is no
problem to begin with. Just like with 99.999% of stuff that crypto is supposed
to solve.

I know it's just a thought exercise as you posted, so no offense, but it
actually greatly illustrate the state of crypto applications (in my opinion)

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Accujack
A while back I did a design for a fully distributed discussion board, kinda
like Reddit but with no central host that can be controlled and must be funded
by a single entity or group.

It was heavily based on the principles developed for the old USENET news
network and designed to work around the problems discovered by users of that
system.

I found that cryptography was a necessary component of the distributed system
- it's the only clean way to solve a host of problems associated with
distributed discussion boards if you want to avoid things like censorship and
special interests controlling discussion.

For example allowing the moderators of a group to moderate and remove spam
posts and e.g. hate speech without making that mechanism vulnerable to spoofed
article cancellations is tricky. The simplest way to handle the issue was to
use a public key crypto system to package moderation commands. Moderation
commands to edit/delete articles are sent alongside an encrypted hash for the
command. The command is only valid if the public key for the moderator
decrypts the auth packet and the hash matches the command text.

Crypto is also great for things like non-repudiation and reputation systems,
both of which are important for a discussion system application.

By the way, there IS a problem with HN... several, actually, depending on your
view of what's desirable in a site like this. It's not terribly scalable, it's
rather biased toward a particular locality's view of the world, and like many
such sites everyone is effectively anonymous.

The problem with HN that a distributed system is required to address is that
HN belongs to a private company that has motivations based on its own
interests instead of the good of the public or promotion of free speech.

HN can be controlled, edited, is in a legal jurisdiction that allows a corrupt
government to obtain control of it or otherwise interfere with it, and in
general suffers from all the problems of a centralized discussion board.

~~~
kixiQu
This is totally valid; I think the complaint was really with modeling a
solution to a non-problem with a cryptocurrency, specifically.

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krapp
> \- Challenge/wrestle the validity of post by staking some amount of token.

> \- Whoever wins the argument takes the opponents token.

Hacker News isn't fight club, not all posts and comments are arguments seeking
refutation, and there isn't a single objective "winner" or "loser" in every
discussion, nor a means to judge which is which. The people who tend to see
every comment as an opportunity to "score points" tend to be the worst sort
for a community... attaching an economy and gamifying that would only
incentivize point scoring, gambling and rules lawyering over healthy or
insightful dialogue.

> \- There can be a karma component as well, where in the bad actors need to
> pay 1.5x amount of token if they did a bad karma last time.

So I can get some bot accounts and just mass downvote or flag anyone I
disagree with to make it all but impossible for them to participate in the
future? Good to know, I guess.

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gj0
1\. So lets say even if an actor is trying to bring down a 'normal/good' post
by staking token against it, it is eventually the one staking the token who
will loose. The jury members will be there to ensure that.

2\. Karma component will only kick in, once the user has been identified as a
bad actor by a jury. So you will never be able to bring bot accounts and just
mass downvote. Good to know, I guess :)

~~~
krapp
There's a "jury" too?

A decentralized system that depends on a central source of authority? Who are
the jury members? How are they selected, and by whom? How are they held
accountable for their actions? How are their biases accounted for? How do we
know they're not in collusion with the mods or other users?

>Karma component will only kick in, once the user has been identified as a bad
actor by a jury. So you will never be able to bring bot accounts and just mass
downvote.

So my downvotes don't count when the jury likes the person I'm voting against?

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seren
Much of the value of HN, apart from the community, derives also from the
subtle but firm moderation. I am not sure how that would work on a
decentralized system.

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gj0
Agree. Here is how I was thinking.

\- For posting require a hacker coin. \- Challenge/wrestle the validity of
post by staking some amount of token. \- Whoever wins the argument takes the
opponents token. \- There can be a karma component as well, where in the bad
actors need to pay 1.5x amount of token if they did a bad karma last time.

~~~
hazz99
Why would I use this over the original, iconic HN run by Ycombinator?

~~~
gj0
All iconic centralized systems have points of failure. Why do many people feel
insecure or powerless by facebook ? It was iconic in its time !

PS : I am not of any extreme opinion that everything should be decentralized.
This post was just a thought and so decided to post here.

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azdacha
This is getting crazy. First Google, now Hacker News, Wtf ??

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vtrips
this can easily be abused for monetary advantage.

Also, How do you determine who won the argument? How will the Jury decide the
winner? this is all subjective

Winner for traditional debates between two individuals can be decided on quite
simply. Whereas, for this scenario, the person staking the argument will have
to defend against the whole population trying to bring it down. It won't be a
"healthy" competition by any means.

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rkeene2
I think there are a few implicit assumptions in your post that could be
examined for a better proposal.

1\. Consensus of what is valid doesn't require a tradable and fungible token
so adding that game element is not required for decentralization (and I
suspect would decrease the value of the service to increase the value of the
game, something people are increasingly complaining about)

2\. Most posts on Hacker News are regarding trading information, which is a
not a zero sum game, unlike the game mechanics you are proposing. Both sides
can be right.

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duxup
Why would a place like HN where we exchange ideas and stories for free need to
be walled off behind some crypto type system?

I see no value in that.

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d0ugr0ck
You're describing stackoverflow answers

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viraptor
> Something like hacker news, where users can post only after they spend a
> hacker coin.

You don't need the service to be decentralised to achieve this. (Or the later
points) There are many hn clones - just add payment to one.

What's the actual motivation for the decentralised part?

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gj0
Just adding payments (centralized) will result in favoring of some
groups/content over other for monetary benefits for instance.

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ps101
I don't think that this is the problem that your solution is looking for.

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saxonslav
Experiments are nice, but the practical usually blows up for unknown reasons.
There's no point to change the whole site when it would mean most readers
getting lost or turned off.

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gj0
Just realised someone downvoted my comment without any argument. Proves the
point that we need a decentralized hacker news.

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Bjartr
Why couldn't such a system be implemented in a centralized manner?

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gj0
If a centralized token is added, then this central authority has incentives in
increasing the amount of tokens for staking because ultimately the amount
collected will be going into their pockets. Checkout what upwork is doing with
paid tokens/connects.

Additionally this can also favor certain thoughts/groups by the central
authority. ( The jury itself will be selected/hired by the central authority.
). Large number of posts get removed from social networks, because they
pertain to certain thought or are against some govt.

~~~
Bjartr
One of the things I value in HN today is the top-level moderation. Are you
saying that wouldn't work anymore and this new community would operate purely
on self-moderation instead?

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gj0
Yeah, but that's just a thought. Have a look at Kleros
[https://blog.kleros.io/become-a-juror-blockchain-dispute-
res...](https://blog.kleros.io/become-a-juror-blockchain-dispute-resolution-
on-ethereum/), they are building a "Dispute Resolution Layer". Something on
these lines should work, I think.

