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Ask PG: Can't you turn off new account signups to increase HN quality?

3 points by eriktrans ↗ HN
There's always been the talk of HN's comment quality deteriorating.

Why not turn off new account signups for a while to combat this problem?

Or even have more friction in the signup process. (Maybe I'm looking at the wrong part of the problem.)

14 comments

[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 49.6 ms ] thread
staunch
$5 to register, proceeds to the EFF would work. We'd want a "Post anonymously" function first though.
Millennium
Less than that: whatever the minimum amount is that payment providers will accept. It's easy to forget that there are parts of the world where even $5 is too much.

Besides, most trolls aren't going to be deterred by any particular amount of money: the simple act of paying is the real deterrent. You'll repel more trolls with a $100 "cover charge" than a $1 charge, but not very many more: not enough to really be worth the trouble.

ScottWhigham
It's easy to forget that there are parts of the world where even $5 is too much.

Where in the world, specifically, are (a) people that we, the other members, think would be valuable additions to this community, yet (b) $5 is "too much"? Sorry - I don't know all the economies of the world but your statement just seems a bit hyperbolic.

tptacek
I do not think a good solution to HN's quality problem is to make its participants feel more entitled to post.
staunch
I don't actually think it's a good idea at this point either. Just throwing it out there. A few years ago it might have helped to throttle the influx of new users to a level that would have been more easily absorbed.
minimaxir
Turning off new account signups won't reduce low-quality comments, unless in the rare case that HN is being raided. (i.e. during the Adria Richards incident)
krapp
Indeed. If the assumption is that the bulk of current accounts are also low-quality, and that (for whatever reason) account age is a good indicator of quality, you would have to follow up the cutoff of new account signups with a mass deletion of accounts (including OP's) until you got to the 'quality' line.
tokenadult
What kind of friction are you looking for? A coding test? An IQ test? A general knowledge test? (Each barrier to participation would select a different group of participants.) Or should cash money be the sign-up criterion? If so, should high-karma participants get a share of the proceeds?
tubbzor
I'd opt for a 'post anonymously' button as staunch suggested.

The only reason is not everyone that uses throw away accounts are doing so to troll others. I've seen several submissions where a person posts something extremely personal (ie. problems with their current job to dealing with depression or contemplating suicide) and they would not post under their real account for obvious reasons but still seek the support of this community. It could be a bad idea to hinder the ability of these people to post situations like this anonymously and promptly.

brudgers
The account which posted the question is 33 days old. Alas, I have pledged myself to avoid gratuitously beginning my comments with "ironically."

HN is a gateway to and a tool of Ycombinator. The gateway function means that there will always be some degree of endless September by virtue of its purpose.

DanBC
My only suggestion is to add a "save to local" button. That would mean that I would save most of my comments to a local store, instead of posting them to HN.
adamconroy
It is worth contemplating that 'quality' doesn't exist without a 'subject' and an 'object'. There is no such thing as universal quality. In other words, what you might class as poor quality might be good quality to someone else (some other 'subject').

So, given I don't think you can actually say that the quality is deteriorating, the question is flawed.

xauronx
If you turn off new accounts, how do you know you're not pushing away 10 high quality new users to avoid one negative user signing up?

The only thing I could suggest would be to lower the bar for downvote capability. Or is that not an option at all? I thought I was told at some point that once you reach 200 "karma" you get that ability, but I don't have it.

caw
I thought it was 500 karma, and gets periodically karma inflation adjusted.