I like the output of the cheaper/older models better, surprisingly, say Gemini 3.1 or DeepSeek V4. They're mostly no frills and just text, and ironically look less AI-generated to me because of the lack of hip slogans and graphics.
Definitely closer to what I'd want for my own site, but I don't claim to know what people want from a website for a coffeeshop.
They are mostly rehashing old arguments against HN (still valid, just not particularly insightful): Apple fanaticism, the fact that there are less code-related news as time passes, the hellbanning system, etc.
I think the real story is that as usual anything that involves 4chan gets upvoted to the top here, indicating there might be some significant overlap between the two userbases, as much as they might both dislike it.
If that's the case, then HN has had a problem since nearly the beginning! You can find posts from its very first year (2007) worrying about whether it's overlapping too much with reddit, how to avoid redditization, etc. (Example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60767)
I gotta say, the stuff you can get hellbanned for here is petty beyond belief. Last time I got hellbanned for saying "heh." in response to a comment bashing Noam Chomsky in the most knee-jerk and ironic way; I was genuinely left speechless. Sure, "heh" is not a valid response, I didn't expect anything but downvotes -- but hellbanning, for that? Really? And don't even get me started on the whole "pg is the father I never had" stuff, it's nauseating. Sometimes this site feels more like a cult than anything.
Well, if this comment even shows up, I guess that's it for this account, too. Oh well. To each their own.
Did you have a low-karma account when you made that useless comment before? If so, I don't see a problem with the algorithm. Lots of downvotes on a low-karma account is indicative of a spammer, a troll, or someone who hasn't taken the time to figure out the communication style of the site (it's not that hard) and probably won't ever. Hellbanning itself is a great idea; have you moderated a forum before and dealt with abusive trolls who keep coming back?
Nope, actually, I didn't even get a downvote for that comment -- I noticed the site slowed down not long after posting it, so I looked at the thread with another browser, it was fast as ever and my comment didn't show up = slow+hellbanned. The comment was still at 1 though, no downvote. Not even one. Plus, the account is still at 12 karma: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=hopefully
The comment in question, the "Heh.", is gone -- and so is the comment it was a response to, something about Chomsky being about politics, not science, even more flamebaity than my "heh."
Not that it matters. It's their site: they can do what they want, I can try to get around it until I get bored of that. No hard feelings, but also not a whole lot respect.
> "have you moderated a forum before and dealt with abusive trolls who keep coming back?"
Have you ever been censored for disagreeing? Did that make you a.) more or b.) less of a pain in the ass? But actually, I just make a new account when I want to speak my mind on something, more often than not it's offering a correction or a link. So yeah, I keep coming back. And why not.
You can't just define anyone who gets banned as troll, spammer, or otherwise malicious. That's not what those words mean.
But fair enough. I can imagine a moderator seeing your comment show up at http://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments then either reflexively banning or seeing your karma is sub-100 before doing so.
> Have you ever been censored for disagreeing?
Are you saying your "heh" was disagreement? In any case, yes, and it makes me shrug--it doesn't affect my pain-in-the-ass attribute. If I want my opinion online and google-able, I have places to put it where it won't be censored. If I want to debate, I've found HN is useful for quite a lot of subjects but still shies from those which pretty much everywhere with a karma system shies from (so that includes academia)--HN is nevertheless fairly tolerant if you have a coherent point to make, at least for a while. Even moldbug (http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=moldbug) lasted for quite a while with all his controversy before he got hellbanned. His case of banning is one of several I strongly disagree with, but that's not enough to discount the entire concept of hellbanning. Of course it's not a perfect system--e.g. it'd be nice if HN users with >10k karma could reverse one.
That account hasn't been hellbanned. If it were, ALL of the comments for that account would be invisible, and would only show up if someone turned on "showdead" in their profile page. The site slows down all the time. Once again, that doesn't automatically mean hellban.
Most likely the system just lost that part of the thread. On a big site like this, performance is usually more important than data integrity, so the odd loss of comments is considered acceptable.
I'm very sure hellbanning doesn't affect comments prior to the ban--do you know something I don't?--but when new comments by that user are posted they are instantly marked dead. The slowdown is part of the hellban, the whole point is to make the site unpleasant so that the user leaves instead of coming back to harass. With the user believing the site is slow as tar and no one responding to them, it's quite effective. The downside is that it loses its effectiveness as it becomes public knowledge.
It's a problem from the point of view of a writer wishing to ensure that his writings will be read.
From the point of view of a reader, however, having information about what will likely get moderated be scattered rather than gathered in one place decreases a reader's exposure to text written by people who have not read a lot of comment sections.
Perhaps your poor experience here is because of the tone of your posts? From your own description, your posts seem to involve (a willful?) mental blind spot around the whole concept of politeness. The implication of your comment is that cleverness trumps all, and that insightful snark is entitled to some sort of social leeway. That's not how things work around here.
Mental blind spot? You're making stuff up, it's called strawman -- and then you accuse me of having a blind spot for your strawman? And that's not snarky? Irony duly noted and appreciated.
But you're right, it's for example this passive-aggressive condescension by people who don't even know what they're talking about, but want to give their 2 cents anyway, I don't play very nice with.
> Mental blind spot? You're making stuff up, it's called strawman -- and then you accuse me of having a blind spot for your strawman? And that's not snarky? Irony duly noted and appreciated.
Note I did say "(willful?)" Thanks for clearing that question up.
Also, the irony of the functional similarity of your post and its parent is left as an exercise. (Though you're probably feeling too righteous to get it and would be furious if you did.)
To recap: I said "heh" in response to an all out attack on Chomsky's character and motivations, I don't get notified of having done anything wrong, but instead I get slow- and hellbanned. And I'm being impolite? Hellbanning isn't some kind of cowardly BS, saying "heh" is the real horror here.
indicating there might be some significant overlap between the two userbases
I am more than willing to out myself. The discussion is exactly proving the point why 4chan is such a fascinating place. Sure it has lots of "distortion" but in the end it is one of the few places that does not sugar coat reality and the absence of any "punishments" produce raw insights. That is why the only "communities" I am somewhat active on are hn and 4chan. One because it provides a more supportive environment, the other because it isn't afraid to go there where it hurts. I never could find a reason to join those in-betweeners ala Reddit.
Some people are almost certainly not your revenue-generating customer for your ad-supported social app. People who avoid advertising and social networking are those people.
Mathematica offers a non-Facebook sign in. So does Safeway.
You mean like /b/ was, by the end, supposed to act as a buffer on 4chan to keep out the new posters from the other boards while they were still adjusting to the local "etiquette"?
That worked for a while, and then when that board became so bad that even new users wouldn't find any enjoyment in posting in it, they simply stopped lurking and carried over their bad habits to other boards. It spread through the whole site at an alarming rate. You can't try to separate the good content from the bad, or at least not for a long time because the bad always finds ways to spread, and I doubt the separation into "sub-reddits" instead of boards has any meaning in this case.
Wikipedia was created and is hosted in the US, the Wikimedia Foundation is based in the US, Jimbo Wales is American, and I'd wager a large part of en.wp visitors and editors are American. Like it or not, Wikipedia itself is US-centric.
And though it may be besides the point, you know as well as I do that if SOPA happened to pass in the US it wouldn't be long before most Western countries had their own version too.
While I agree with most of the points the author makes, I can't see why he would concentrate on video games. It's not much harder to be addicted to the internet, or to anime or visual novels (see the Japanese hikkikomori), or to anything else that we can play/watch/do alone in the comfort of our own rooms. And these other addictions have much the same effect as those the author describes. In fact, I'd wager that most people who have played a game like Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft for a long time don't continue to do so because of the game itself, which has lost its immersive quality for a long time, but rather because of the friends they made, and the alternate society they are a part of. The greatest danger of MMORPGs is in my opinion that they are social games.
"9. Accepting Warranty or Additional Liability. While redistributing the Work or Derivative Works thereof, You may choose to offer, and charge a fee for, acceptance of support, warranty, indemnity, or other liability obligations and/or rights consistent with this License. However, in accepting such obligations, You may act only on Your own behalf and on Your sole responsibility, not on behalf of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability."
So someone please help explain how this is possible:
From Reuters Nov 9, 2011:
"Google Inc will continue to offer support to firms using its Android system that are involved in legal disputes, its executive chairman Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday, as the Internet giant looks to cement alliances in the face of toughening competition."
The way I am reading the Apache license says that Google should not be giving support to OEMs? Am I reading this part wrong? "However, in accepting such obligations, You may act only on Your own behalf and on Your sole responsibility, not on behalf of any other Contributor" I'm not the best at reading law, so I would love some insight.
First off, you are reading it wrong. But it doesn't matter.
Google owns the copyright on Android, so the Apache License has no relevance to their activities. Licenses are a way of limiting the restrictions levied by copyright law; they give you more freedom than you would otherwise have. If you otherwise have more freedom than a license grants because you are not bound by copyright law, you ignore the license. It's meaningless.
I haven't contributed any code to the Apache-licensed parts of Android, but I assume that you assign copyright to Google when you push your code. That means that Google continues to own the copyright on the whole codebase, and you have copyright on your contributions.
The license says Google is not obligated to offer support, accept liability, etc. to anyone who uses the code. Google is, of course, free to do more than that for certain users (like Android OEMs) if they want to.
