Why people complain about the quality of Hacker News

After yesterday's _why backlash and the return of the Erlang outbreak, I thought I'd point out why I think people complain about Hacker News.

PG has basically said that he thinks the degradation of a site into crapville can be delayed or prevented by constant careful tweaking of the rules. Somewhere behind the scenes, he's pulling the levers guiding his creation away from the obvious potholes that he thinks Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, etc... have hit.

Generally, we all feel some ownership of Hacker News. We are submitting links, commenting and voting on submissions and other's comments. This is basically the only influence we have on the site. We each have a different idea of what an ideal HN would look like but in the end have relatively little control over it.

We use the few tools we have to register our disapproval. We down-vote people we disagree with. We cheer on and up-vote others who attack people we disagree with. We mass-submit stories to try to drown out the ones we don't like. We flame. While somewhat amusing, these are absolutely anti-social behaviors. They come about because we don't have other options.

One common response is "let me filter HN in x way" so that I can make it mine. There are a few custom views (i.e. classic) that have been played around with. If I were pg, I would resist this solution. I think part of what makes a good community is having a set of rules to deal with opposing views rather than tools to let them coexist like oil and water. A social common ground where ideas can mix. Once you allow your community to fragment like that, the news stories submitted become defined by the boundary layer. If you allow people to filter, then you risk creating flamewars when the filters fail. The tone of the site becomes a contest to 'win' a point for your side; to break through other people's filters and taunt them.

In the end, I'm not sure what the right answer is here. One group of people thinks that articles about _why and zed are valid; one doesn't. If it keeps going, I think at some point pg will have to tell one group "this is not the site for you" by pulling a lever. Until he does, people are left trying to fight to make this into the site they want with the few tools I have: bitching, retribution votes, flames, crap-flooding, etc...