undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdang5y ago0 comments

That's not a concrete suggestion, but rather a meta-strategy for getting those. Alas, I think it would run up against hard economics super quickly. Forums like HN aren't big businesses, and efforts to make them into big businesses exert pressures under which they turn into something else. This is probably the most important thing for understanding HN, actually: it ended up in a sweet spot where it makes sense for YC to fund it without needing to pressure it. Previous thoughts about that: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Re "please make it possible to block specific users" - this has been on the list for a long time but I have a feeling that it may go against the community in the long run. The more I get to know HN, the more I realize how important the non-siloed property is—i.e. everyone's in one big room together and can't self-select to get away from each other [1]. Of course, that makes HN a place where we all run up against things that are not only unpleasant, but actually shocking [2]. But I think that learning collectively to deal with that—learning to tolerate what that does to our nervous systems—is core work we have to do together, to keep this place vital.

Each internet community begins with different initial conditions, and if it goes on for long enough, those initial conditions get a chance to unfold into something unique. Trying to change the initial conditions after the fact feels to me like a bad idea. It's better to find ways to live with them, and maybe to steer their consequences, like sweepers in curling.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098

0 comments

InitialLastName5y ago

Relatedly (since we've got you here), rather than blocking bad users it would be nice to be able to tag specific users in a way that shows up on the comment feed. For example, there are a few users whose comments consistently impress me with their depth, and whose commentary in a thread often flags a deeper conversation on a topic.

It might just be because I have a terrible memory for usernames, but it would be nice to be able to immediately see "Founder/CEO of Initech" or "Expert Bananacurist" next to the name.

dangOP5y ago

Do you mean a private list of your own tags that the UI would then display to you? Interesting idea.

tptacek5y ago

It's a great idea that will probably damage the community. I do something like this privately, or did until earlier this year, when I stopped because it (a) was making it hard for me to read people's comments rather than surveil threads for specific tags and (b) really drove me to invest time in tagging people, which is unproductive since I know so little about the people commenting here and really have no business bucketing them.

saagarjha5y ago

I bucket people in my head, without actual tags on the page. Any ideas on getting myself to stop doing this?

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lazyasciiart5y ago

Sounds a lot like this user script for metafilter http://mefiwiki.com/wiki/UserNotes

DoreenMichele5y ago

I will agree with tptacek that this is likely a harmful idea and will undermine some of the current strengths of the community.

Tossrock5y ago

Since you're soliciting them, here's a few concrete suggestions:

- Avatars. A consistent, recognizable image can go a long way from transforming a faceless internet post into something closer to a person you recognize and would hesitate to harm. With enough time and exposure, usernames can work for this (everyone recognizes when tptacek, or moxie, or you post), but avatars supercharge it. People hate changes to the site UX, so maybe put it behind a profile option that's defaulted to 'off' - then, only people who care about seeing them do. Of course, this would increase the moderation burden - people using offensive avatars, etc, but I think it could help.

- Heads on pikes. A weekly/monthly/ongoing/whatever roundup of notable bad actions which people have been moderated for. This should be limited to interesting and informative cases - not spam, piracy, CSAM, etc, but legitimate humans engaging in bad-faith actions, flame wars, etc. Having negative examples to avoid can help a community understand what is and isn't appropriate in a more concrete way than a dry set of rules. And seeing people be punished for violating those rules in a public way can have a deterrent effect. Making these public works better than just downvotes, because downvotes ultimately end up hiding content.

- Exemplars on pedestals. The obvious counterpart to negative examples is positive examples. In a way, the upvote system already does something like this, but it's not the same as officially-sanctioned recognition from the staff. A very simple approach might be to give you / other staff members (maybe even high karma users/yc founders) a button on each comment that highlights it as a positive example worth emulating - maybe changing the text color in css of the username/time stamp to show that it's been recognized.

dangOP5y ago

I don't think we'd go for #1 because it's core to HN that it's a text-only site. And #2 is too shaming. We've found over the years that underpunishing people (relative to what they expect) is more effective. There's a nice user report about that somewhere in the current thread. (edit: actually several now, which is pretty cool)

#3 I think is a good suggestion though. We should have some means whereby users can exalt something good, not just flag something bad. The challenge is to make it different enough from the upvoting system so it didn't just turn into a variation of the same mechanism.

anonAndOn5y ago

Hall of Fame, perhaps? [0]

[0]https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all

easton5y ago

Maybe you should only be able to exalt someone once every three months, so you’d use it wisely. Otherwise it’d devolve into an annoyance like reddit’s new awards system.

krapp5y ago

Can I do one?

The UX for paginated threads is awful. I know you want to get rid of it, but I really hope you don't, because reading through something like the 4000 comment Biden thread as a single page would be incredibly taxing, and having to go through 'more' links to get to recent content is annoying.

Long threads do need to be paginated, but I think you should consider what other forums do and add a set of page links at the top and bottom of each page. It would be slightly more clutter but you wouldn't have to remind people that paginated threads are a thing every time it happens.

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mdpm5y ago

Agreed on not creating silos.

Adding User 'flair' is perhaps a viable option, where users can simply tag other users with a short description. That enables both properties - avoiding discourse you find troubling, and allowing users to highlight those that they find enlightening.

Freedom of speech works well when paired with freedom to listen. Removing content (even if only from a user's view) only deepens the filter bubbles we're being shaped by.

rectang5y ago

> Agreed on not creating silos.

There's one big silo, with the people who have stayed within it, and the people who have left outside it.

There aren't very many women here, which I assume is because of how the HN conversations about issues important to women tend to play out. This isn't an HN-specific problem, it's industry-wide. But I didn't go into software until my 30s, so the gender skew of the industry feels alien and alienating to me.

I would ditch HN if I discovered another tech community which was more inviting to women. I don't care if I start to miss out on the HN-resident perspectives on gender which shock me, because there are other perspectives which are more important to me which I'm already missing out on.

DoreenMichele5y ago

There aren't very many women here

There is a great deal more female participation than there used to be. It's just not obvious for various reasons, but it's something I have paid attention to over the years and used to keep private data on to some degree.

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dangOP5y ago

I hear this from time to time about people who have left, and obviously that matters, but it's hard to get any reliable information (let alone data) about it. Can you say more about this part though?

> there are other perspectives which are more important to me which I'm already missing out on

What perspectives are you thinking of?

rectang5y ago

Thanks for taking an interest. Using women as an example again:

Women are by and large outside of the HN uni-silo, and I feel their absence keenly. The thousandth go-round on James Damore is going to play out very differently in a majority female community or a community with gender parity than it will in a mostly-male community like HN.

I don't imagine that the "powers that be" at HN wish for the community's gender skew. However, I don't think that you can counter the powerful forces at play in the wider tech industry without imposing controls on debate which you would find philosophically incompatible with HN's mission.

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InitialLastName5y ago

It might just be because I have a terrible memory for usernames, but it would be nice to be able to immediately see "Founder/CEO of Initech" or "Expert Bananacurist" next to the name.

dangOP5y ago

Do you mean a private list of your own tags that the UI would then display to you? Interesting idea.

tptacek5y ago

saagarjha5y ago

I bucket people in my head, without actual tags on the page. Any ideas on getting myself to stop doing this?

1 more reply

lazyasciiart5y ago

Sounds a lot like this user script for metafilter http://mefiwiki.com/wiki/UserNotes

DoreenMichele5y ago

I will agree with tptacek that this is likely a harmful idea and will undermine some of the current strengths of the community.

Tossrock5y ago

Since you're soliciting them, here's a few concrete suggestions:

dangOP5y ago

anonAndOn5y ago

Hall of Fame, perhaps? [0]

[0]https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all

easton5y ago

Maybe you should only be able to exalt someone once every three months, so you’d use it wisely. Otherwise it’d devolve into an annoyance like reddit’s new awards system.

krapp5y ago

Can I do one?

1 more reply

mdpm5y ago

Agreed on not creating silos.

Freedom of speech works well when paired with freedom to listen. Removing content (even if only from a user's view) only deepens the filter bubbles we're being shaped by.

rectang5y ago

> Agreed on not creating silos.

There's one big silo, with the people who have stayed within it, and the people who have left outside it.

DoreenMichele5y ago

There aren't very many women here

1 more reply

dangOP5y ago

I hear this from time to time about people who have left, and obviously that matters, but it's hard to get any reliable information (let alone data) about it. Can you say more about this part though?

> there are other perspectives which are more important to me which I'm already missing out on

What perspectives are you thinking of?

rectang5y ago

Thanks for taking an interest. Using women as an example again:

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse