| I would like to see some evidence of this decline. Here is my alternate theory: It isn't obvious that 'the decline' is really anything other than selective memory. The good posts are memorable because they are good. The crappy posts are uninteresting and forgotten. So if you look at HN and you see a bunch of stuff that you are not interested in on any given day, you compare it to the good stuff (that you actually remember), and you say 'what is all of this crap.' This is exacerbated in older users, as they have seen more really great posts that they can compare everyday crap to. It is like comparing a single random day of your life to the combined highlights of the last 4 years of your life. With that comparison and no perspective about what you are actually comparing. (So its kind of like being in a committed relationship). ---- So I can't honestly say that I have hard evidence of a decline in HN. There are a few things that annoy me about internet discussions in general, on sites like this, which I would like to eliminate. These are on the level of pet peeves, however.
I'll give a few: 1.) Rapid back and forth of 1 liners and memes. 2.) I spend 1/2 hour or so composing and editing a rather in-depth post, and no one sees it. This happens either because that thread has been pushed off of the front page, or the thread is already filled with comments which are only a couple lines, and while they may be reasonable and appropriately toned, seem to me to be a superficial analysis... 3.) Multiple articles on the same topic, all making it to the front page, even they don't really add anything to each other. It would be cool to merge articles/threads on the same topic. 4.) Blog links that do nothing but redirect to another blog or article. i.e. "x y has posted on y z; here's a link"... 5.) edit: Here's another: Karma is directly proportional to how early you post in the thread (by virtue of time being linear and people only visiting a thread a certain number of times). There are more, but I can't think of them at the moment. |
Though not perfect, an incomplete solution to the timing issue you mentioned is already in place. A new comment can show up at the top for a while, but the karma and age of the account may be weighting factors to prevent trolls from getting the top spot. The position of the comment degrades over time, and of course, how fast it degrades depends on points it receives. This doesn't work perfectly, but it's better than nothing.