| HN: I think yes. I maybe check HN a couple times a day, have never added a new item, but have posted comments. Due to this after however many years (Edit: almost 8 years) I don't have enough points to down vote. Like SO was at the beginning I think graduated access like this can definitely help a community. However, like any other gated community it's easy for the ones with high rep to form a bubble. I think what's prevented HN from turning into SO, Twitter, etcetera is that a) there are no real profile pages. The reason for coming here is to see what tech news has been shared. Sort of like subreddits, the driving content is a shared interest, not a personality. b) there's no profit motives at work. We're not customers (or data to sell), we're people with a shared interest. This is a sort of hobby project, with the 'benevolent dictator' coming by as needed, fixing titles and links, and letting us know about technical issues with the platform. c) anyone can upvote and see buried comments. I have the option enabled to see people who have been downvoted to gray text. Rarely do I think it's undeserved. If for some reason someone is getting buried for a legit comment usually there's a comment reply questioning the votes, by someone else, and clarifications are worked out. d) (I assume) a lot of lurkers who can't downvote, but can, and do, upvote. And there's probably other reasons. Which I guess means it's a combination of things, one of which is how downvoted are handled. |