

Invite only Hacker News. - July2008

I think the quality of Hackers News posts has been changing for while now. This is very normal given that the site is growing, and the audience is more diversified. I remember when HN was still a few weeks old, and I can tell you my experience back then and now is completely different. I think they are key players here and people who are really interested in learning/sharing and not just ranting. Thus I proposed a closed for-ever-invite-only HN. The top leaders on this site would be automatically subscribed and given each permission to invite (with limits). I am frankly not sure I will be invited myself, but I would certainly love to and I would be appreciative that a group of smart individuals think I can add value to their "secret" community.<p>Disclosure: This is no attempt to start a New World Order or Some Tech Masons...but it is an attempt to gather like minded highly intelligent intellectuals who love to observe, analyze and resolve different problems using technology
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pg
Going invite-only is a retreat. I'd rather just make/keep the main site good.

It doesn't seem to me the stories are any worse now than they were at first.
The quality went down a bit a few weeks ago when we were mentioned on
Techcrunch and got a lot of new users, but it seems back up now. I suppose I
should write something to display the top stories from the past to make sure
this is true.

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mixmax
I think everything is just fine. I take away a lot of good stuff from this
board everyday, and get good intelligent responses from other users. And this
is probably the only place I have ever encountered where people willingly
admit their mistakes and change their views if they are intelligently
countered. This is a very good thing.

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Alex3917
People just need to use the down arrow more. Good writing should say something
worth saying about something worth saying something about. If you think there
is a signal:noise problem then just start downvoting every comment that you're
not a better person for having read. This goes more for root comments than for
replies deep in a thread, which I don't think need to be held to quite the
same standard for a variety of reasons.

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bigtoga
Most people don't have that option though, do they?

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breily
I believe everyone over 25 karma can downvote - I would guess that'd be most
people.

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noodle
i can't downvote articles. only comments. and i have well over 25 karma.

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breily
I believe the parent and parent's parent were talking about comments - I don't
know if anyone can downvote articles.

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bridgetroll
I'm new here. I don't know anyone. I found HN purely by accident on a google
search. I get a lot out of this site and am trying to contribute
constructively.

I apologize if I'm pointing out the obvious but a major risk of making HN a
gated community is blocking out new ideas and prospective startup hackers.

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prakash
Funny you say this, what made you come up with this idea?

Interestingly, a few members from the old Joel on Software forum started such
a closed community to share, interact and keep a much higher signal/noise
ratio, and people were usually more honest since it was a closed, invite only
forum.

This sure would be an interesting experiment.

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epi0Bauqu
All the statements about Hacker News quality going down hill I have seen have
been anecdotal. I would like to see actual evidence, or at least a list of
tens of stories that made the front page that people think are not worthy of
being there.

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babul
I have been rading HN for a while and finally decided to participate after
several friends got in YC (07, 08).

I don't agree with invite only but do think there should be greater seperation
of topics.

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noodle
/signed

