This has been proven time and time again to be a recipe for disaster. Consider what would happen if HN was “raided” by some group. Say, people who like to discuss mountain biking.
If their numbers were such that they could force all the technology posts off the front page and flood the site with mountain biking posts and pictures, should Hacker News morph in MTB News?
Most sites suffer from an Eternal September sooner or later. If new people start making very low-quality insult comments, and other new people flood those comments with upvotes, should discussions turn into toxic flame wars, because that’s what garners votes? Should the Hacker News discussion become YouTube comment threads?
The idea that votes should triumph over moderation presumes a certain critical mass of people who consistently vote in favour of quality. But given enough time, and enough success, exceptions to this take place. And when they do, if left unchecked, the site can degrade very rapidly, as the original core people get outvoted and give up.
Hacker News exists in part because this happened to Reddit. If left to become an absolute, unmoderated “democracy,” it will happen to Hacker News was well.
I will close with a reference to the word “democracy.” Countries have a lot of friction associated with citizenship. Most people don’t leave when things stink, they try to make it better for generations before fleeing and becoming refugees somewhere else. Most countries don’t allow absolutely everyone to show up and vote on everything.
The lack of friction associated with joining and leaving social media sites makes the business of “democracy” on social media very different than the business of democracy in the US or Canada.
If their numbers were such that they could force all the technology posts off the front page and flood the site with mountain biking posts and pictures, should Hacker News morph in MTB News?
Most sites suffer from an Eternal September sooner or later. If new people start making very low-quality insult comments, and other new people flood those comments with upvotes, should discussions turn into toxic flame wars, because that’s what garners votes? Should the Hacker News discussion become YouTube comment threads?
The idea that votes should triumph over moderation presumes a certain critical mass of people who consistently vote in favour of quality. But given enough time, and enough success, exceptions to this take place. And when they do, if left unchecked, the site can degrade very rapidly, as the original core people get outvoted and give up.
Hacker News exists in part because this happened to Reddit. If left to become an absolute, unmoderated “democracy,” it will happen to Hacker News was well.
I will close with a reference to the word “democracy.” Countries have a lot of friction associated with citizenship. Most people don’t leave when things stink, they try to make it better for generations before fleeing and becoming refugees somewhere else. Most countries don’t allow absolutely everyone to show up and vote on everything.
The lack of friction associated with joining and leaving social media sites makes the business of “democracy” on social media very different than the business of democracy in the US or Canada.