Common sentiment is now comments are declining in quality. Wherever that came from, that's now parroted fairly often and is undoubtedly planted in the back of everybody's head as they go about their business. That cannibalizes some comments, because people now think "am I contributing to a decline?". That makes people more inclined to snark, to discourage others from adding to the decline. This is the exact sort of thing I watch happen all day long in the comments now.
Take one recent example. Someone quoted a highlight from a linked article because it was humorous, and you could have missed it[1]. They presented no original thought on it themselves, they simply quoted it verbatim. Some asshole came along and berated him for it, as if he'd committed some kind of grievous sin. The fact is, I enjoyed the quote in question, and I upvoted him because I'm glad somebody else noticed. Worse comments have happened, but now there's such a fixation with "quality" that people are starting to up the snark. Which adds to the very problem we're trying to fix. Look at that entire thread.
The rub is that rather than focus on opportunities for improving going forward, this community has an inane fascination with returning to the way things were. Your thread was too late, I'm afraid, as the negativity has accelerated any decline that exists.
You're dead-on; HN is reverting to the mean. This navelgazing lament about the times that were is setting the pace for the future evolution of HN, though. The high-karma users have spent so much time wondering how to get back to the past -- a now completely unattainable goal due to growth, I'm sorry -- that there has been immeasurable lost opportunity on focusing on where to go from here.
I'm not sure that technological improvements are going to fix it, either. Even if the negative trend is as pronounced as believed (and I don't think it is), acknowledging it and spending countless comments focusing on it has cost precious time in reversing it.
Rather than embracing the inevitable evolution, understanding it, and finding ways to make the evolution more positive, we've established blood-curdling fear at the mere prospect of evolution. Now, that glacial evolution is sliding along on a trail of fear instead of a trail of positive outlook.
> Someone quoted a highlight from a linked article because it was humorous, and you could have missed it....
I may well the guy you're talking about who was berated and then downvoted -- even though two others besides you had posted that they liked my comment. And when I replied to the post that berated me, I was once again downvoted. At least one comment has been deleted but it's still a pretty interesting snapshot of what the mood is on HN these days http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2437225
Your comment is ironic given the comment that you started with.
I am speaking from the perspective of improving HN, so I'm startled (should I be?) to find that the first reply is an admitting that the community will eventually split apart.
From my experience (which was as a developer of a browser game) this is not true. People who complain are people who care. And people who care will stay. People who really want to go will not complain. They will stop contributing and go without much fanfare.
In the end you stay with all the complainers, but none of the non-complainers. This is a real risk for a community. (In the case of the game it was 'simple' to fix this: change the game. It is far harder for something like HN)
Common sentiment is now comments are declining in quality. Wherever that came from, that's now parroted fairly often and is undoubtedly planted in the back of everybody's head as they go about their business. That cannibalizes some comments, because people now think "am I contributing to a decline?". That makes people more inclined to snark, to discourage others from adding to the decline. This is the exact sort of thing I watch happen all day long in the comments now.
Take one recent example. Someone quoted a highlight from a linked article because it was humorous, and you could have missed it[1]. They presented no original thought on it themselves, they simply quoted it verbatim. Some asshole came along and berated him for it, as if he'd committed some kind of grievous sin. The fact is, I enjoyed the quote in question, and I upvoted him because I'm glad somebody else noticed. Worse comments have happened, but now there's such a fixation with "quality" that people are starting to up the snark. Which adds to the very problem we're trying to fix. Look at that entire thread.
The rub is that rather than focus on opportunities for improving going forward, this community has an inane fascination with returning to the way things were. Your thread was too late, I'm afraid, as the negativity has accelerated any decline that exists.
You're dead-on; HN is reverting to the mean. This navelgazing lament about the times that were is setting the pace for the future evolution of HN, though. The high-karma users have spent so much time wondering how to get back to the past -- a now completely unattainable goal due to growth, I'm sorry -- that there has been immeasurable lost opportunity on focusing on where to go from here.
I'm not sure that technological improvements are going to fix it, either. Even if the negative trend is as pronounced as believed (and I don't think it is), acknowledging it and spending countless comments focusing on it has cost precious time in reversing it.
Rather than embracing the inevitable evolution, understanding it, and finding ways to make the evolution more positive, we've established blood-curdling fear at the mere prospect of evolution. Now, that glacial evolution is sliding along on a trail of fear instead of a trail of positive outlook.
[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2437486