Even if it's just a test, it seems a reasonable scenario that just the test will cause permanent damage. I understand trying to promote better discussion, but this system is downright unwelcoming to any newcomers. When I registered to comment I thought the downvote restrictions were odd and I was willing to try it out, but if this was in place I'd have closed the tab and never come back. Maybe subject-matter experts wouldn't be so put off, but novices and students like myself would feel shunned. That's not saying I'm the most valuable poster, but I am far from a troll and I contribute real opinions and questions. I think lesser experienced posters like myself are important.
I also fear that this may fail silently with an echo chamber as a result. I think this is a real concern here. Unless there is a great amount of monitoring on those posts that don't make it through, none of the automatic posters may even miss the ones who never get a voice. That doesn't make it a positive change though.
As a (mostly) lurker who's quite wary of this change, I agree that stifling newcomers and longtime but quiet users could deprive the HN community of something real.
That said, Hacker News is a high enough quality forum that it could fare quite well for some time even if it completely cut off registrations. I don't think the experiment will be catastrophic by any means; though it'll undoubtedly result in at least some useful content never reaching daylight.
Of course, the fact that the HN comment sections are right now orders of magnitude higher quality than the internet at large is precisely why this change seems unnecessary. HN has long been- and still very much remains- a secluded mini-Reddit for startups and hackers. Doesn't that ethos almost demand the welcoming of newcomers?
EDIT: I wonder if everyone realizes the feeling of being excluded arbitrarily by karma count. Sure felt weirder than I anticipated while this comment was pending.
The worst aspect of this change for me is the knowledge that because of my sub-500 status I am not even allowed to see pending comments. I am cut off from the full discourse.
PG indicated that he might add show pending/dead comment buttons so maybe that concern will be alleviated.
HN is like EMACS not WordPad. It has a learning curve.To some extent, HN is unwelcoming to new comers by design. It filters out people who want to behave to the same standards as the rest of the internet.
To put it in perspective, your post would several standard deviations above the mean both in length and content on most sites. Would have written so thoughtfully and carefully a year ago?
Supposing that I was writing about something I cared about, yes I would have. Maybe that just means I already went through the learning curve on other communities though (vim -> emacs).
MetaFilter does that, and doesn't seem to have problems with quality of discourse. Of course, HN as it stands doesn't seem to have significant problems with quality of discourse, either, so I'm not sure that HN needs either solution; discussion here is already far superior to what you find on the vast majority of sites.
> MetaFilter does that, and doesn't seem to have problems with quality of discourse.
What also helps the level of discourse at Metafilter is moderation to the tune of showing up in threads, deleting comments, and saying "knock it off" when things get particularly bad.
Sure, but that's done on a case-by-case basis, when things actually do get out of hand; it's not a universal, preemptive moderation system that's built right into the structure of the site.
There's no reason the fee can't vary depending on the location of the person signing up.
I also think this is a far better solution than "pending comments". I'm not convinced that either solution is ideal, but I fear "pending comments" has the potential to silently strangle HN.
Can you elaborate on how a test might cause permanent damage? Keep in mind that it should be clear whether significant damage is occurring quite soon after it rolls out. (Eg. Whether comments are getting approved, rate of comments, etc.)
That's certainly a possibility. It would show up in HN's metrics. (perhaps not visible to you and I, though)
On the other hand, you might also see more people coming in the door. What if this makes conversation on HN so much better that more people want to get involved?
The one thing that is certain with the new system is that if your comments are abusive, they will probably not get endorsed. Perhaps at first they will (protesting 1k+ karma users) but eventually anyone who is endorsing poor quality comments would likely lose the ability to endorse.
At a minimum, I think this a really interesting experiment.
Eg, if this policy precludes 1-on-1 dialogue between sub 1k users, that would (arguably) be a dis-service. It would be "permanent" in the sense that the rules# logically don't allow a two party conversation (ie, absent a 3rd party "endorsement"). So this meets the test of "damage" and "permanence" at some threshold.
The thing is, this is a kind of change which makes it difficult to know the real impact since the users who would have a problem with it are the ones losing their voice (until a karma elite user intervenes, of course). That's one of the reasons most people are opposed to this.
I come to HN to learn new things and to get the opinions of people who are well-trained in their fields. In that respect, I don't really care what a new user's, student's, or novice's opinion on something is unless they've had valuable firsthand experience, in which case the comment would definitely add to the discussion. IMO any change to this site that encourages listening over speaking is quite welcome.
That sounds reasonable and yet isn't always good advice; you don't throw yourself out the window and "wait to see what it's like".
I fail to see the problem with the current system / current comments; bad comments usually drown at the bottom of the page and that's that.
What would be the point of preventing noobs from commenting? What's with this love of aristocracy? "We were here first!!" So what? (I have 4k+ "karma" and my account is more than 2k days old but that does not make me special in any way, shape or form. If anything, it probably means I have already said all I ever had to say and should be shot in the head to make room for the young!! ;-)
But in this supposedly "democratic" system we're not given any choice so I guess we simply have to take it...
That being said, I think people are especially worried that if it's a bad change, it won't be reverted or tinkered with in a timely manner. HN has a (deserved, I think...) reputation for being unresponsive to user feedback.
Some people might be worried that, if it's a bad change, it won't be reverted because nobody will be able to read their complaints.
This is one of the few cases where the worse a change is, the less of a voice you will have after it happens. I'm not saying it will be bad, but you can see why that would be frightening.
The "karma elite" will be able to read their complaints. Usefully, the people with the ability to revert the change are a strict subset of the karma elite.
Is there any information on how spread out geographically the "karma elite" is. If it's very US centric then users in other time zones may suffer most in terms of pending delays.
While that is true, I think most of the time people think they know what they want, and then when they get what they asked for, it can be fairly shitty.
As I see it, trying something, even for an extended period while it totally fails, means that pg et all want to improve the level of commentary as they have seen it decline, and are taking steps to do what they can to improve it.
I don't think any community has gotten it right so far, and I am willing to surf it out, even if it means my ability to comment is curtailed a bit.
I was first attracted to HN not for the stories, though they are good, but for the extremely good commentary from people who know what they are talking about.
Sir, I certainly hope this will not be taken as being overly critical. However the change as I understand it will mean that if a new user writes a single comment that is unpopular or simply gets missed, he will forever be banned from commenting again. This is unworkable because it will mean many people will be banned just by virtue of their comment being missed, or by making a mistake and saying something that isn't appreciated by whatever senior members happen upon it.
The previous thread said that pending comments will expire after 24 hours of non-acceptance (releasing their lock), and can also be deleted at any time while in the pending state (which also releases the lock.)
While I don't speak for others who will moderate, there is a difference between being unpopular and being a poor comment. I have no issue encouraging good content that I disagree with. However, all too often people confuse having an unpopular opinion and being rude. They'll get down voted because they are not being civil, and they also happen to have an unpopular opinion. They will then point to that comment and claim they are being silenced by the majority (they will do this in another comment, which will also get down voted for good reason).
I guess I'm just worried that I will go to the front page and see two or more interesting stories I want to comment on and know I will only be able to pick one. I comment in bursts during breaks. I will also probably not comment on stories on the new page because it will be iffy on them getting the attention needed to not block me for a long time.
Of course. We'd be pretty stupid not to revert something that wasn't working. Plus in any case if you tweak parameters like the number of endorsements a comment needs and how much karma you need to endorse, you can approach current HN as closely as you want.
I'd venture to guess that the difference between a requirement of just 1 endorsement from users with karma >= 1 and the current HN is fairly significant (a downvote differs conceptually from a nonexistent endorsement), so you may not be able to approach it too closely. I suppose only time will tell though.
This is an excellent observation. It takes effort to downvote someone; it takes zero effort to ignore a pending post that doesn't meet whatever your standard is for endorsement.
Basically, it turns the system on its head; it's no longer "Bad posts will be removed," it's "Your posts will automatically be removed unless someone decides that they are good."
I'm actually really optimistic about this change; it will force people to be more civil if they actually want to participate. However, it will only work if lots of people are willing to put in the effort of endorsing quality posts.
This reminds me of the 'penny gap problem': that the steep drop-off in users from raising the price from zero to a penny is much larger than the (much smoother) drop from further price increases.
I think the community is just nervous, but I'm willing to give it a shot (as a sub 1000 karma-er). I do feel the heaviness of the new comment system though; and I understand the uneasiness of those commenting--kind of like swapping files in production.
I think it would be great to have some sort of "Beta HN" where whoever is taking over HN could try out all sorts of new features before they become adopted into the main HN site.
