Ask PG: Quick tips on creating a successful online forum?

pg · on Sept 6, 2009

Stay under the radar. Kill the kind of fluff stories that attract stupid people. Ban trolls and spam. Have explicit policies and tell new users about them when they sign up.

byoung2 · on Sept 6, 2009

I suspect the biggest factor is karma being relevant for applying to YC.

That has a lot to do with it I bet. HN members know that they might be applying to YC someday, and they don't want the YC founders to see a year's worth of 4chan-worthy drivel. In effect, your HN body of submissions and comments make up an additional application component.

jacquesm · on Sept 6, 2009

I disagree with that strongly.

I'm estimating the size of HN's 'real' userbase (not counting spammers) at around 23000 accounts, there is absolutely no way those are all thinking of applying to YC one day, maybe 10% of them do. Even if the churn is 50% and there are only 10000 accounts left that would still not explain the phenomenon. I think that it has more to do with local culture and indoctrinating newbies through the votes than anything else.

I'm fairly sure that Karma does not enter in to it in the mind of the posters once they reach that stage.

And I'm not sure if it would be a factor in applying to YC even though I read that 'making thoughtful comments' would make a difference (as opposed to making inane ones I guess).

I know for a fact I'll never apply to YC, and with me probably many others. On any other forum I would not behave much different than from how I behave here, as long as the culture stays the way it is there will be a lot of 'happy hackers' hanging out here, the majority of them will probably never apply to YC.

byoung2 · on Sept 6, 2009

there is absolutely no way those are all thinking of applying to YC one day

I said might apply. If each of those 23000 members thought that there was even a 1% chance they would apply to YC someday, I'm sure they would think twice about posting that Admiral Akbar ascii and a funny quote in a comment on HN when they probably do it all the time on Digg and Reddit.

staunch · on Sept 6, 2009

I don't think that's it. I have no intention of ever applying to YC. There are other communities like HN online. My favorite example is Perlmonks.org. It has a remarkably similar atmosphere. No one is applying to anything there.

IsaacL · on Sept 6, 2009

I am interested in starting a web business, and so could potentially apply to YC some day. However, I didn't know about this policy (used HN for ~4 months). I've read the rules for the site and most of pg's essays, so it's possible that I'm not the only one who didn't know this policy existed.

It's good to know though, I've just been reading my old comments, must try harder in future...