"They watched what happened to HN and they're scared of killing quality."
What did happen to HN, exactly? Maybe the bloom just hasn't worn off for me yet, but discussion here is about a million times more high-quality and productive than, say, Slashdot.
I have been around HN for about 4 years now (I lurked before I created my account) -- there used to be all sorts of interesting articles on the front page (not just about programming, but genuinely interesting things like music, biology, psychology etc). Now, every third story is about NSA/Snowden, Openness, or someone's blog about how XYZ is bad and we should all do ABC instead. The front page typically has maybe one post that I care about these days.
Comments similarly started lacking in quality, or maybe the really vocal minority are just louder than everyone else. You're right that slashdot comments are way worse (jokes aren't frowned-upon as they on HN, so a lot of discussions degrade to cheap jokes), but the articles are moderated by a handful of people and are typically more interesting.
It's simply a function of a user-run moderation system that reaches a critical point, after which is it logistically impossible for the "good few" to moderate out all the bad ones because their votes count the same. We saw it in Slashdot comments, Digg and Reddit, and now we are seeing it here.
Comments similarly started lacking in quality, or maybe the really vocal minority are just louder than everyone else. You're right that slashdot comments are way worse (jokes aren't frowned-upon as they on HN, so a lot of discussions degrade to cheap jokes), but the articles are moderated by a handful of people and are typically more interesting.
It'd be interesting to see some statistics on who comments on what articles. (And who doesn't.)
As it stands I sort of feel like I'm crashing a party, and would serve you all best by leaving.
I've found that articles with a bunch of comments have inevitably devolved into trolls shrieking at each other. But historically I've gotten as much or more out of the comments as the articles.
Could this be because the crowd is getting older and becoming more aware of this ever increasing political and social issues that affect the industry? You could have confirmation bias. I don't see too many political/social posts, maybe that's because I have confirmation bias the other way - I look for the interesting articles you talk about. Maybe the site needs to go full Lisp articles once a month to flush out the jokers (can't remember the language, haven't seen one in a while sorry)
I think it's more to do with the largest tech-based scandal since stuxnet, except with a vast litany of content of trickling leaks is going on right now. People may have topic fatigue, but it's not like some manufactured sideshow - things are really being shaken up, and it's paramount that folk in the industry follow it to know the state of play. Perhaps it's easier for non-US readers to maintain an interest and opinion on the topic, both due to being overtly targetted and being immune to the defensiveness we can all feel when our institutions are taking a hammering (even if we essentially agree in the fact they have made mistakes).
Aside from political posts, I think there is still a broad range of content on here that spans far more than myopic coding/entrepreneurial blogs etc.
The core problem with HN seems to be the tendency for people to lambast ideas before we've given them a chance to germinate. PG gets fiery mad at this behavior. Scoffing at ideas adds nothing, in fact it reduces the value of the conversation to the point that it has less-than-zero value.
To use a (poorly constructed) analogy: if I want to laugh at nerds and their nerdy ideas, I should go join the ranks of nerd-scoffers at any local high-school, where I'd be a better fit. If you want to be part of the conversion here, you should bring a positive or constructive voice and try to improve on ideas, rather than tear them down.
The S/N ratio and discussion here is better, but I think Slashdot is very competitive in peak comment quality. In the midst of a crap Slashdot discussion there will often be one to three very good comments from knowledgeable people. And the moderation is not too bad at highlighting these, if you browse at +3 or +4.
Great comments happen here too, but I feel (possibly incorrectly, haven't done a survey or anything) that they come on a smaller range of subjects. You can count on tptacek for very good crypto comments, grellas for law, there are some old-school Lisp hackers around, and on a lot of web-related stuff you have the people who wrote the system in question around to comment. But we don't seem to have as many non-computer technologists around: pilots, nuclear engineers, chemists, etc. I think Slashdot has a userbase that averages somewhat older, somewhat less Silicon Valley, and somewhat less startuppy, which has its pros and cons.
Personally I still haven't found any comment section better than pre-2003 or so Slashdot. Lots of people who knew what they were talking about, trolls were quickly hidden, not much in the way of stupid politics, some humor without going overboard, etc.
Or maybe it's just rose-colored glasses to some extent; certainly there was the "imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!" type stuff.
Comments
"They watched what happened to HN and they're scared of killing quality."
What did happen to HN, exactly? Maybe the bloom just hasn't worn off for me yet, but discussion here is about a million times more high-quality and productive than, say, Slashdot.
I have been around HN for about 4 years now (I lurked before I created my account) -- there used to be all sorts of interesting articles on the front page (not just about programming, but genuinely interesting things like music, biology, psychology etc). Now, every third story is about NSA/Snowden, Openness, or someone's blog about how XYZ is bad and we should all do ABC instead. The front page typically has maybe one post that I care about these days.
Comments similarly started lacking in quality, or maybe the really vocal minority are just louder than everyone else. You're right that slashdot comments are way worse (jokes aren't frowned-upon as they on HN, so a lot of discussions degrade to cheap jokes), but the articles are moderated by a handful of people and are typically more interesting.
It's simply a function of a user-run moderation system that reaches a critical point, after which is it logistically impossible for the "good few" to moderate out all the bad ones because their votes count the same. We saw it in Slashdot comments, Digg and Reddit, and now we are seeing it here.
It'd be interesting to see some statistics on who comments on what articles. (And who doesn't.)
As it stands I sort of feel like I'm crashing a party, and would serve you all best by leaving.
I've found that articles with a bunch of comments have inevitably devolved into trolls shrieking at each other. But historically I've gotten as much or more out of the comments as the articles.
Could this be because the crowd is getting older and becoming more aware of this ever increasing political and social issues that affect the industry? You could have confirmation bias. I don't see too many political/social posts, maybe that's because I have confirmation bias the other way - I look for the interesting articles you talk about. Maybe the site needs to go full Lisp articles once a month to flush out the jokers (can't remember the language, haven't seen one in a while sorry)
I think it's more to do with the largest tech-based scandal since stuxnet, except with a vast litany of content of trickling leaks is going on right now. People may have topic fatigue, but it's not like some manufactured sideshow - things are really being shaken up, and it's paramount that folk in the industry follow it to know the state of play. Perhaps it's easier for non-US readers to maintain an interest and opinion on the topic, both due to being overtly targetted and being immune to the defensiveness we can all feel when our institutions are taking a hammering (even if we essentially agree in the fact they have made mistakes).
Aside from political posts, I think there is still a broad range of content on here that spans far more than myopic coding/entrepreneurial blogs etc.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6220632
The core problem with HN seems to be the tendency for people to lambast ideas before we've given them a chance to germinate. PG gets fiery mad at this behavior. Scoffing at ideas adds nothing, in fact it reduces the value of the conversation to the point that it has less-than-zero value.
To use a (poorly constructed) analogy: if I want to laugh at nerds and their nerdy ideas, I should go join the ranks of nerd-scoffers at any local high-school, where I'd be a better fit. If you want to be part of the conversion here, you should bring a positive or constructive voice and try to improve on ideas, rather than tear them down.
The S/N ratio and discussion here is better, but I think Slashdot is very competitive in peak comment quality. In the midst of a crap Slashdot discussion there will often be one to three very good comments from knowledgeable people. And the moderation is not too bad at highlighting these, if you browse at +3 or +4.
Great comments happen here too, but I feel (possibly incorrectly, haven't done a survey or anything) that they come on a smaller range of subjects. You can count on tptacek for very good crypto comments, grellas for law, there are some old-school Lisp hackers around, and on a lot of web-related stuff you have the people who wrote the system in question around to comment. But we don't seem to have as many non-computer technologists around: pilots, nuclear engineers, chemists, etc. I think Slashdot has a userbase that averages somewhat older, somewhat less Silicon Valley, and somewhat less startuppy, which has its pros and cons.
Personally I still haven't found any comment section better than pre-2003 or so Slashdot. Lots of people who knew what they were talking about, trolls were quickly hidden, not much in the way of stupid politics, some humor without going overboard, etc.
Or maybe it's just rose-colored glasses to some extent; certainly there was the "imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!" type stuff.