

Little Known Hacker News (2008) - solipsist
http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/10/little-known-hacker-news-is-my-first-read-every-morning/

======
solipsist
As I was not there when all this happened, I decided to investigate and find
out more about what it was like back then. I was surprised to find that the
group of people who truly affected HN the most after this article was the old-
timers and not the new "digg-like users"[1]. Users reacted as if this was the
end of HN and immediately grouped all new users into one that many despised.
If you want, you can look for yourself:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133440>

The new users probably did not create as much trouble as people had thought
they would. Rather, the older users created the high tensions between the two
groups. This all led to excessive discussions that has been prolonged for
years. Unfortunately, this article has inspired many people to continue doing
so (my bad!). All of this small-talk is what's really been hurting HN.

For those that want to compare HN before and after TechCrunch's article, here
is what the homepage looked like:

Before:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080308054301/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080308054301/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

After:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080312014516/http://news.ycombi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080312014516/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

A lot of people here on HN (pg included) agree that the site quality has gone
down a little over the past few years. As this is probably the result of the
number of users and we know that TechCrunch has contributed to that number, we
can safely say that the two are somewhat correlated. However, the heated
discussions and behavior that has come as a result are probably more worrisome
than the new users themselves. Just something to think about.

[1] - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133446>

~~~
Locke1689
I'm not sure the trouble is that new users would create "trouble" as
originally foreseen, but that new users represent a wider area of the
population. For a site which aims to a high standard of discussion, regression
to the mean is just as dangerous as "trolling."

------
bobds
... and a thousand geeks cry "Noooo!" in unison.

Why do so many people think that HN will be ruined if a few more people join?
I've been reading HN a lot longer than my account's age implies and I don't
think the quality has changed.

The only real problem if you ask me, is that with more people submitting
stories, things will not stay long on the /newest page.

In my opinion it's better to have 100 stories with 20 comments each, rather
than 10 stories with 200 comments and the usual huge thread under the top
comment.

~~~
lionhearted
I think I've noticed three things. It's hard to say for sure, but I think
these three are true -

1\. Raw nastyness has gone up. Profanity, insults, and sarcasm in
disagreement. HN was _super_ civil 2-3 years ago. Now it's still far more
civil than anywhere else, but gently declining.

2\. Stupid arguments that agreed with the dominant view of a thread used to be
left alone or even get downvoted. Now I see sometimes where a reasoned
critique is at 1 point, but a response going, "How could you even think that?
Everyone knows that isn't true" - proof by assertion type stuff - get voted
up.

3\. Also, very lately there's been a marked increase in the class
warfare/social justice/inequality vibe filtering in. Whether you think that's
a good thing or a bad thing depends on your views, but it was less like that a
few years ago.

~~~
ThomPete
Also more people seem to vote based on whether they agree with something
rather than whether it adds to the conversation.

~~~
tokenadult
Voting based on agreement has been going on since at least 1078 days ago
(which is before when I registered as a user, after about a year of lurking
beforehand).

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171>

------
davidhollander
An important question for a retrospective posts is why has HN not degraded as
quickly over time as other sites?

I think the key game mechanic increasing the longevity of Hacker News is the
minimum karma threshold necessary to downvote comments. In effect, it requires
new users to undergo a period of socialization to community norms. During this
period they train in recognizing what the schema for comments containing
negative informational value looks like. First out of fear, then out of
mandate as an acquired power.

If you ever want to keep a community alive, implement similar withheld powers
of negative punishment and adjust the level of input work required to earn
them.

~~~
stanleydrew
Ironically, solipsist, the user who posted this, has an account less than a
month old with 2120 karma. Based on my casual observation of the new stories
page over the last month this user submits a lot of stuff. There's not
necessarily anything wrong with that. But submitting a lot of stories is a
good way to get lots of karma quickly, since stories are voted up more highly
and it takes almost no time to do.

I agree that the downvote karma threshold has been instrumental in maintaining
the quality of discussion here on HN, but it seems like it's too easy to get
around by submitting lots of stories. And that drastically reduces the
socialization period.

~~~
davidhollander
You're definitely right, solipsist has submitted 26 articles so far today!

The obvious solution is to limit the number of articles you can submit a day
to, say, 1. Increase the scarcity of the resource to increase value of what
it's used for and limit the power of karma farmers and spammers.

~~~
biot
Another option is to have story submissions not count towards karma.
Presumably one should submit a story because they think the community will
benefit and they want to share it. If you give people cookies every time they
submit something, you'll end up with people who only want the cookies.

See this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2066572>

------
iuguy
Was this the time that everyone posted Erlang stuff to make the site look more
boring? I never learned so much about an obscure programming language in a
single weekend.

------
ryanwaggoner
This article back in 2008 is how I found HN in the first place :)

~~~
btipling
Same here. And this is my second account, my first was banned. :/

------
yan
Ahh I remember people discussing on whether or not that post will degrade the
quality of discussion.. :)

Also, feeling a bit nostalgic seeing nickb post in that screenshot..

------
sant0sk1
Funny, that was the post that originally brought me to HN and I've been here
ever since. :)

I think Gruber must have linked to the TC post or something, because I don't
read TC myself.

------
steveklabnik
One thing that's interesting to me: check out those point totals: 26 points,
30 points, 35 points. Compare that to the homepage right now: 23, 181, 74,
etc.

~~~
sukuriant
Possibly a consequence of there being more people. I don't generally think to
myself "this needs exactly 5 karma points", I think "I'm going to upvote
this."

A more accurate comparison would be the percentage of people that read the
article that upvoted it, and even that wouldn't be a perfect comparison.

~~~
steveklabnik
I'm sure it's a consequence of having more people. That's what's interesting:
it's a visible indicator of the increased population around here.

------
gohat
I think Hacker News is a gem then as it is now. Simple idea, great topics, and
a wonderful community. Just works very nicely.

------
abraham
I must say. The design has improved significantly.

------
TimothyBurgess
As long as immaturity and disrespect are weeded out, I think we'll be fine.
Just remember the "flag" option to report such comments.

