The problems facing HN today are not due to a few bad apples, to the contrary I think it's pretty clearly a function of size and there may be nothing to do about that short of pulling a Metafilter and charging for new accounts (something which brings its own form of elitism, but may be better than the alternatives).
HN has been often been likened to a mob, but that's not a good analogy either, because I believe 95% of HN is always in full-on critical thinking mode which is the opposite of mob mentality. It just feels like a mob because of the number of criticisms that you can be pelted with based purely on volume, each individual post tends not to be all that harsh, but the wall of text is overwhelming.
Too easy to lose track, too hard to mantain a proper, nice conversation.
It's an amazing community, and we could be exchanging a lot of knowledge and experience, but usually we're just feeling hopelessly lost looking at the 70-something comments, most of them nested in all kinds of crazy levels.
However, i wish to register the fact that i chuckled on seeing that the response to a comment arguing that shooting down someone's argument is not the HN way was a comment shooting it down!
I'm mostly a lurker. I check HN maybe once a day to see what people are thinking about in web tech / entrepreneurship circles. I comment maybe once a month, which is to say I have to think someone's really missing something important, or feel really strongly that something needs to be considered.
The emergent behavior of this is polarized: either strong arguments or technical corrections. Imagine you're having a loud discussion at a conference, with a stream of developers walking by. Who's going to stop and talk to you? I think it'll mostly be:
1. Someone who hears a rare misconception they've figured out the answer to
2. Someone who hears you're talking about a fringe technology they are also passionate about
3. Someone who wants to sell you something
(depending on who you are: 4. someone who recognizes you, and is excited to meet you in person)
If you're commenting on every article, I can maybe see how it would feel like it's "a few bad apples"... but I encourage you to count the number of people you consider "bad apples" -- they probably outnumber the regular commenters 10:1 or more. I think the "bad apples" are just people who don't usually comment, deciding their perspective on whatever is sufficiently valuable to the community that it's worth their time.
("feels important" is of course != "important" -- #include stories about airbnb screwing up)
Which is to say, when you put something on the HN homepage you're going to learn about: a ton of rare misconceptions you accidentally relied on, and a bunch of fringe technologies you should have been using / should have known exist. I think I can see why that might feel like being under Sauron's gaze... I just don't think it's malicious, and don't think those commenters are doing it wrong.
Removing all contrary points of view from a discussion makes it one-sided and turns it into smalltalk.
As hackers we should have an open mind and accept that there are opinions contrary to ours. We should embrace this fact and not stamp everyone who doesn't agree with our views as an 'intruder'.
It's all about tone. Disagreement is central to conversation. Sadly, it's also central to being a dick, so you have to take care with how you come across. If you think of yourself standing with a beer in your hand looking a group of people in the eye, you'll probably do a lot better here than if you imagine you're on the Official Internet Review Board for Startup Execution pronouncing your verdict.
At no point does the parent advocate for smalltalk on HN or stamping out contrary opinion en bloc. The point is purely about behaviour, respect and being considerate of others.
"I only claimed that 5 = 2 + 2, I never said anything about it being 4!"
Isn't that the conclusion to draw from HN being described as a cocktail party?
"But we don't behave that way" – who is "we"?
There's only so long you can dismiss these people as mere "intruders" and declare that No True HNer would behave that way.
This is not a cocktail party. There is no guest list. In sufficient numbers, the "intruders" become the community.
This makes me feel so fancy online at 8AM in my pajamas.
You just described IRC perfectly.
These places will always be "noisy" but the noise ratio here is rather small. I don't know how HN managed this but I hope it is here to stay.
Lots of new users here don't understand that.
If you spend any time on the internet, you're quickly trained that discussion forums are places for combat. The goal is to look as smart as possible while tearing everybody else down. To have an unrefuted comment is to win, and nobody is going to let you do that so they'll tear your comment apart line by line. Naturally, that person is a moron and needs to be told so, preferably by turning his own trick against him and tearing his comment apart. Stop me if this sounds familiar.
That explains why the hardened slashdot veteran gets such a strange reception here. Have you ever been at a party where there was a guy who just didn't belong there? The belligerent know-it-all butting into conversations? The drunk guy in a room full of sober people? The uninvited casual racist? We've all seen what happens. People drift away from him wherever he goes, sometimes stranding some poor soul talking to him, but generally trying as best as possible to continue the party as normal and hoping he doesn't disrupt it further. Nobody wants to confront him and ask him to leave directly, but they all sure hope he'd get the hint on his own.
That's where we are here today. Except it's a big room and there are quite a few uninvited intruders behaving badly. You'll notice that that guy at the party often doesn't realize that he's out of place. Look through this very thread and you'll spot a few of him, justifying their belligerent behavior and complaining that the rest of us don't get it because this is The Internet and that's how we're supposed to behave.
But we don't behave that way. That's why it's so good here.