skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Add a "time-out" mechanism: If a comment is killed by the editors (and/or by being flagged many times) then for the next X minutes (I'd go with X=60) handle any GETs from that user by redirecting to a page saying:

The following comment has been judged to be unhelpful
and as a result you are now on time-out:
<comment quoted here>
You may return to Hacker News in Y minutes.
The fact that a building survives for 2000 years isn't necessarily a 'marvelous feat of engineering'.

It might just be that the architect accidentally designed something strong enough. For example, many Gothic cathedrals collapsed during construction, and the ones still standing often are way stronger than needed.
The video says that nobody has been injured on these wooden ladders - nobody has fallen off. It's implied that none of them have broken in action. Probably worth it to them.
I usually end up posting on old threads (since I only check once or twice a day), which means I rarely get more than 1-2 upvotes per comment (if any).

I've got .77, which seems a lot lower than I would expect. I rarely end up in negatives on my comments. But when I do, the negative is a high one.
Yes, many people appear to feel they are right quite a lot of the time, that may be why a lot of consumers feel happy to part with their hard earned money (voting for them with their wallets if you will).

Apple does what it wants, and if that strikes a cord with the consumers then they will pay up, if its not what they are looking for they an go somewhere else. This will dictate where the technology leads us.
That I think is one of the more odd user experiences on the site. The envelope indicator on Reddit is very tiny but extremely useful feature.

As of now, I have to re-read my threads in order to notice any updates.
Now, if we could only see other peoples average karma .

Total Karma of a user can be seen on his profile page. Afaik there is no way to see another users average karma, unless he is on the leaderboard, which uses total karma as the ranking metric.
The original edited version is great. You can't buy it new, just the bloated monstrosity of the "Director's Cut" or whatever it's called. Writers do not outgrow the need for editing but a very few of them get high enough sales that they can turn editing into proof-reading, like Tom Clancy.
Replace make with Rake
"Be Hated."

I always thought being liked by everyone should be my goal. After reading this, I realized that being hated is is even better.
Until a few days ago drop.io; but they're gone now. You could use the public folder of Dropbox. Make a subfolder and put the videos in there. The url should be obscure enough. You can't put a password on it though.
>> I don't really think this scheme is workable, but it provides the right economic incentives to everyone.

You're right, from an economics standpoint. However, there's a pretty hefty body of research talking about the effects of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation.

We've already seen merit pay fall flat in at least one instance ( http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2010/09/21/another-bl... ), which suggests that economic incentives don't translate to better instruction or learning.

Additionally, Alfie Kohn's research (see his book "Punished by Rewards") demonstrates fairly conclusively that the addition of extrinsic motivating factors (such as money) tends to decrease intrinsic motivation.

I'd much rather see all the time and money that administrating a system like this would take go to a comprehensive professional development system, reduction of class size, and/or providing more opportunities for genuine learning beyond rote memorization, but that's just me.

(Edit: added quotation at the beginning for clarity)
Agreed - people whose behaviour might be changed by the move from total to average are people who care about how they look, so if no-one else can see it they won't care, surely.
A lot of work, and it might even be impossible. If someone loads a page with 200 comments, how many of the comments do you judge that he has read?

That said, upvotes per page-load-including-the-comment is probably still better than the raw number of upvotes.
> ...but I don't think we've suffered from evaporative cooling yet...

If we assume that a user's total score is a good indicator of their value to the community, then the HN leaderboard would agree with you.

I'm not so sure, though. IIRC, pg has mentioned in the past that he spends less time here now, and I rarely see anything from Reddit's founding user group. Another HN user that I've been following for a while -- DaniFong -- who's doing some pretty interesting stuff and has a tendency to post fairly intelligent comments, has had a really obvious decline in activity here.

Although I've been a part of this problem as often as not, I've also found that the discourse here isn't worth participating in any more.

But, maybe there are alternative explanations for all of that.
ASIMO Humanoid Robot Celebrates 10th Anniversary
I am interested in how can MeeGo support multiply architectures without requiring the developer to build against all of them...
Last time I checked MeeGo apps were native code.

Also the in my opinion the fragmentation problem is due to the handset manufacturer's politics. I have a HTC Tattoo with Android 1.6 I could flash a 2.2 on it but then some hardware components wouldn't work, because it seems that it wasn't in HTC's interest to give back those drivers.

I am interested how will MeeGo tackle this.
Downvotes could be made precious by limiting the number one could make each day, ensuring that people will use them more carefully.

It could then be conceivable to give the downvotes more weight, perhaps putting users in a karma hole, with their posts starting out at 0 points, appearing at the bottom of the comments page, if they have accrued too many downvotes. They would then have to dig themselves out by posting more valuable comments.
Lets hide all karma.

Lets keep the up/down voting arrows, and let the karma operate in the background in the usual way (percolating good comments/submissions to the top, and letting bad comments fall through). But lets just not show karma. Anywhere. Thus keep the quality of submissions/comments the same, and keep the eyeballs focused on what really matters: good articles and good comments.
Intel doesn't support Firewire either, so Apple added a chip. They could add a USB3 controller (on the larger Macs where presumably there is room) if they want to; they just don't want to.
You mean like the (in)famous orange experiment? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467895 and the top thread in it (the one started by jacquesm) makes for a good summary as to why it failed.
Would it make sense to show average karma on profile page of a user too?

(This is question, NOT a feature request, as I presume that Karma at HN serves the purpose of moderating the quality of content, rather than being a redditesque user-stickiness game)
It's not for the money - any of the talented folks could go work at a hedge fund and make 10x. The secret sauce is that it's a fun culture, great product, and the company has huge potential to innovate into new areas. And you get fed.
The current version ("741, 2.41") is nicer. I'm not a karma-whore, but it's nice to know where I'm at.

One feature I'd love to see also, is the # of direct replies to my comments in the head bar. Also, while we're at it, a page listing them all too. That way, I'll know if somebody replies to a comment I made last week/month/year. For example, in 'My dalliance with smart drugs - and the lesson I learned' (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1850750), a few people have ordered some of the drugs mentioned, but the story will be dead soon, so in a few weeks, when the drugs arrive, nobody will be able to share their experiences.
I thought the same thing when I read this. However, I feel like they are not going to get very far with that strategy this time around. Most of the developers that I know are already suspicious of this kind of thing. The adoption of Firefox/Safari/Chrome (and near universal adoption among developers) has shown that Microsoft isn't really relevant in the browser market anymore and that open standards have won.

I feel as if the only people susceptible to this anymore are either Microsoft fanboys or offshore/corporate drones.
The people that want this technology don't want it that badly. If you develop chemical weapons, you've got to start worrying.
Cool. Might as well put it up somewhere, right? Of course, you'd face the big chicken and egg problem of getting users.
Dan Brown is successful because reading "The DaVinci Code" feels a lot like watching the History Channel, which is to say that it feels very educational and high-brow, but ultimately probably isn't. Fortunately for DB, not many people are discerning enough to play the "Fact or Crap" game well; either that, or not many people care.

Also: his use of cliff-hangers at the end of most chapters provides a decent amount of momentum.

I think Dan Brown is a hack, though less odious of one than Stephanie Meyer, whom I read in hopes of knowing what my freshmen were talking about. Never again.
Many supermarkets and shop offer their customers a loyalty scheme where they can accrue points through purchases and spend them either in store or on special deals the shop offers.

The catch? The shop collects data on your habits. They already know your name, address, date of birth so they can determine whether you're single/part of a family/old/young. But the real value is matching up that profile of your life with your shopping habits, every transaction you make is tracked and collated to form an evolving picture of your relationship with the shop you're shopping at. This allows the retailer to target their advertisements to your needs accordingly and even gives a customer profile for people in the area so the shop can tailor the layout of the store to suit meet the needs of their demographic.

In my personal opinion Facebook is the step up from the loyalty card. In exchange for 'free use' of the site, you're giving away crucial details about your life that can be packaged up and sold on to businesses. Data mining is essentially what facebook does, it's just they surround it with a wrapper that people find beneficial to their lives.
The MPEG LA said that it would assemble a patent pool against VP8, did they manage to do that, or they were just FUD-ing around?
I don't think that's really true. Microsoft only tends to push incompatibilities AFTER it achieves dominance. For example, Internet Explorer was by far more standards compliant than Netscape (at least through version 5).

Microsoft's problem, IMHO, is they compete in two different ways. The first is the "catch up to the competitor that's beating us" phase. In this phase they usually allow engineers more control of the process so they can iterate fast enough to over take a competitor. Think IE (Netscape), Office (Wordperfect), Windows NT (Novell/IBM), etc...

Once they overtake a competitor the big company aspect takes over with "managers" wanting to (a) take credit for the success and (b) create "strategic plans" to cement the success. That's when you start to see incompatibilities (and other stupid management tricks like pulling IE from every platform other than Windows).

So as someone who has watched Microsoft for a long time I feel confident in saying they'll produce fairly compliant tools right up to the point where they gain some success in the market.
Interesting. What about a moving average? One that ranks you based on the last ~30 days of activity?

How about the ability to shut off karma for certain posts? One exception if it's down-voted by more than ~10pts. Then the user gets that subtracted from their score, preventing abuse when posting mean/hateful comments.
I'm not keen on the total karma display. I take your point that it's useful as a vague reply indicator, but it would be more useful still if there was an actual indicator of new replies, in the style of Reddit's red envelope. I don't know whether such a thing would be feasible for HN.

I would like to see total karma disappear altogether, because I don't think it measures anything helpful and may well be counterproductive. Looking down the HN karma leaderboard[1] you can see a number of users with very high total karma but very low average karma. I'm sure that some of these users make a valuable contribution, but some seem to post a vast number of very low-value comments that are rarely replied to and receive only occasional upvotes. I'm not sure that we want to encourage that style of participation.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
Well in the case of a Ponzi scheme everyone thinks there's profits being reaped. It's possible that investors just think that one day Facebook will figure out how to make money from their massive install-base, and then the cash will flow like crazy. Or alternatively, their costs for hosting and bandwidth will fall massively over time (the central combo is pictures + text messages), increasing profit margins.

I could imagine Facebook doing a lot. For instance some sort of premium dating service whereby they match you with other people who like the same things (they have all the data already), and then you see their pic, and then if you both accept you view each others' pages to learn more about the person and build trust (also Facebook can censor/randomize real names and addresses at this stage to make it more safe), then you add each other as friends, and from there possibly start dating. They key thing is that people are comfortable with Facebook, but most people are probably UNcomfortable with online dating. What they need is it to be seamlessly merged into their life, so that there's no 'putting yourself out there,' no stigma, and minimum possibility of a poor match.

Or what about setting up a rival to Paypal. Anyone else trying that needs to start from scratch, Facebook already has the users, and to some extent the trust. Plus they don't need to rely on email and deal with all the scams that PayPal had to fend off.

At the moment FB are a bit suspicious in terms of profit but there's still lots of potential for the future.
This is a logical, well-thought out argument that I largely agree with. The one thing I wonder is if, as brand advertising is increasingly transferred to the internet and those dollars are spent on sites like Facebook, we see overall spending drop and an increase in spender (and consumer) surplus to the detriment of the middlemen. The analogous example is Craigslist -- a site that destroyed millions (billions?) of advertising revenue and that will likely never be recovered but was overall a net gain for consumers and advertisers both in a way that is hard to quantify.
Even so, my perception of HN was intelligent developers/business owners who care more about the quality of the product than the hype surrounding it.
I hate looking at people when I have crazy eyes...I get incredibly self conscious, because I'm sure that they think I look completely nuts. Squinting and claiming I'm really tired helps.
Yeah, I didn't want to have to actually work on it, just trying out an idea. The code itself has since been lost in a backup mishap.
They already do that on both Facebook and Twitter. Connecting your account is optional though.

http://twitter.com/#search?q=flattred
Yes. Being hated is so much better. And, so is "falling in love," which I thought made for a good balance.
First of all, congratulations, you have admitted you have a problem, that is a huge step, and I'm not just saying that for effect, many people I know, with one problem or another, either do not realise they have a problem or are in denial about it. As to what to do next, well it depends on whether you need the help of a therapist, if your university has a student councillor you might start there, if not you can go to your regular doctor and have him recommend someone. What I would say is that you can change, and that you might need to try a bunch of different things to find out what works for you, from just talking to SSRIs to behavioral therapy to hypnosis / Neurolinguistic programming etc. if you are diagnosed with a disorder, if that is the case I would recommend you read "Living With Schizoaffective Disorder" by Micheal Crawford, while probably not the same condition it might help you undestand what is happening and help you through treatment.

http://www.geometricvisions.com/schizoaffective-disorder/

If on the other hand it turns out you're just a normal shy introvert you might want to watch others changing themselves in TV shows like Beauty and the Geek and The Pickup Artist, or read Yes Man by Danny Wallace, once you see other people change it might help you realise that plenty of other people have faced similar challenges and that there is hope for you. Who knows, in a few years you might be writing a post to someone who is where you were when you posted here. I'll leave you with a little Zen.

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.
If "consistently good" is what you want, then why not use something similar to a Sharpe ratio? For example, average / stdev.
I think this is the best approach, too, and is one of the tactics I'd decided to use when building a forum one day.

If we assume that any displayed score is going to trigger some amount of gaming motivation in most people, then displaying scores of any kind contributes to a rise in game behavior versus social behavior.
I'm not crazy about average points per comment. If you make a good comment very early on a popular post, you get a lot more karma for your comment than if you make the exact same comment late in the posts's life or worse still on an unpopular post. That's fine, exposing good things to fewer eyeballs is less valuable, and that's why you get less karma for it. But if it gets a few upvotes it's still helping someone, somewhere.

However, average karma per post gently nudges us towards avoiding circumstances where a comment might get low karma, such as on a post that is less popular.

Whereas, total karma encourages users to let a thousand flowers bloom. There's a disincentive to post anything that might get downvoted, and that's fine, but otherwise there's no harm in making a comment anywhere and not worrying about whether your seed has fallen on fertile ground.

You could "fix' things by weighting karma per post by eyeballs, or disregard average karma per post. I choose the latter course as I'm not a moderator and even if I were I'm unsure how the number relates to behaviour HN is trying to encourage.
Aah, but the accomplishment. It's accomplishment is all the bigger because other people took the risk, and died.
I would be highly surprised if the majority of your suggestions are not already in HN, in some way except for the anonymous postings. As for the trust factor, that applies to MF just the same, unless you go out of your way to hide your traces you are always going to be identifiable to the site admins. Fortunately.

Disallowing noob posting articles would be a good thing, a very low karma cap on posting articles would help (5 or 10 or so).

That would be just enough to increase the cost of spam to the point where it would no longer be worth it.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844979
Ok, now everyone's comment avg is visible in their profile.
Story-telling, statistics, and other grave insults
It doesn't work at all on FF3.6.11/WinXP
There is now, on the profile page.
Sounds like a very difficult wall to get over. I imagine most people will hear about Flattr through a blog or some service accepting payments with it. Only if they're curious enough about it will they go find out what it is, and then once they understand that they work of registering is so that other people can have their money, they have to still be compelled to signup and use it.

Unless each blog/service using it makes it explicit that they're accepting flattr donations, but nobody wants to be that site sounding like they're begging for handouts.
I wish I could show Flattr button only to Flattr users.
I quite like the total karma display. It gives me something to aim for. In the past few weeks I've made an effort to post in threads rather than my usual lurking and I'm using my overall score as a crude means of whether or not I should be posting more. I'm trying to go up by about 100 a week, which focuses me more on commenting early in the life of a thread and engaging in conversation instead of posting at the end of a thread's life or adding me too posts.

I would definitely love an equivalent of the reddit envelope, along with a view of replies.
>>it seems that it wasn't in HTC's interest to give back those drivers

You're probably wrong, last time I checked HTC had all their Android firmware sources available for download.
7 Best Features Of Windows Phone 7 | beingPC
If that happened to me, I would be thoroughly confused. (see my handle)
Weird, mine is at 3.1. Got me thinking that it'd be interesting to know what the mean or median karma rating is, and if by some weird coincidence we are close to it. This information is of no value whatsoever, mind, but I'm curious nonetheless!
Ubuntu Software Center For Beginners
The thing where you can suggest something and find that pg, slaving over a hot REPL, has implemented it by the time you reload the front page is definitely a feature of HN.
An excellent point.

Though the more I work with Kohana, I find it ends up being an unexpected side-benefit: I'm forced to go through the actual code of the subsystem in question when I want to learn something tricky about how it works, which means that I thoroughly understand it, as opposed to just dox-level familiarity.

They are working on better dox, though.
"to become verified requires a simple step: add a link to your facebook, linkedin or xing profile ... Non-verified users then have a very minor voting hit"

Why use some third-party proprietary system? It's almost as easy to make a fake Facebook account as an HN account. As far as "verifying" users goes, just look at their About page and previous comments.
Welcome to Reddit 2 years ago.
That would be an interesting idea. It might be tricky to make sure that everyone understood that "Liking" now meant "donating", but maybe only if a user has added money to his "Like account" would it really change anyways. Then Facebook would have the onus of introducing "like payments", instead of each site implementing Flattr, like I described here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1853825
Great point! If that were possible, I'd put them back online.

It wouldn't "spread the word", but hey - right now I'd be doing advertisement without benefits.
Bringing Simplicity to Philantropy - Or - How to make giving simple
CI's documentation is a huge part of its appeal.
Is this a resignation letter? Are AOL listening?
Don't worry, it's just an experiment.

Since this may cause people to care about comment averages, here's how they're calculated:

; Ignore the most recent 5 comments since they may still be gaining votes.
; Also ignore the highest-scoring comment, since possibly a fluff outlier.

(def comment-score (user)
(aif (check (nthcdr 5 (comments user 50)) [len> _ 10])
(avg (cdr (sort > (map !score (rem !deleted it)))))
nil))

Comment averages are updated asynchronously.