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Ask HN: How does HN do this community?

5 points by TigerTeamX ↗ HN
I am puzzled by how good the HN community. HN consists of mostly wholesome articles and comments of people just trying to discuss and find the truth. When I compare it to the other Social media sites I have setup for my company I cannot understand how HN did this with almost no "community guidelines". How do you guys do it? How do HN moderate, or do they moderate?

9 comments

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RGamma
My take: Any community is shaped by the intentions and attitudes of the members it attracts (and the ones it doesn't kick out).

This sort of social orderliness (encoded in "netiquette") was much more common pre-mass social media and has since widely regressed.

Welcome to this corner where net culture sort of survived. Nurture it, and see the guidelines/FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

TigerTeamX
The guidelines for ycombinator seems very open for abuse but yet it isn't. Or maybe people get downvoted into oblivion.
LinuxBender
I cannot understand how HN did this with almost no "community guidelines"

I would probably word it as simple to follow guidelines and adding to that is a remarkable moderator that is mostly hands-off. There are also many people that have been here long enough to flag the topics they know will descend into chaos most of the time. But that is just my take, there is probably more to it.

TigerTeamX
Yeah makes a lot of sense - but I assume it is hard to find some moderator that can be both hands-off at the right time. You know more about how the moderators work? Maybe some blog articles or some sort like that?
elkos
It helps having Dan G. as moderator.
TigerTeamX
Do you by any chance know if he wrote something online? Or what his "writing name" is so I can search if have written anything?
_zzaw
I think it helps that the HN userbase is primarily smart people who don't take kindly to gratuitous obnoxiousness and trolling. Most of the moderation is done by the community itself: cause trouble, and you get downvoted. The really egregious ones might get a response from mods.

I've noticed something similar on Ars Technica: again, you have a userbase of intelligent professionals, many of whom are long-term regulars. It's a culture that's naturally troll-resistant.

I think building this sort of culture on social media is a lot harder, because social media sites are typically focused on the exact opposite qualities: reflexive, drive-by responses; transient users who have no real investment in the community; and, overall, a userbase that's steeped in pervasive, unchecked toxicity and has started to enjoy it.

TigerTeamX
The userbase of smart people definitely help, but I think the point you make with social media is even more to the point. I guess you can choose to become a large SoMe platform and have the advantages of this or choose to be smaller (but still quite big) and have a certain culture.