Comment by dang
3 days ago
I was just writing about this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html last year: Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
You'll probably see more statements from us about this in 2026, and hopefully some changes to HN, as we try to do something about it.
dang, thanks for the thoughtful response. I’ve been following your recent comments on the "curmudgeonly" guideline, and it’s clear this is a priority for the health of the site in 2026.
My current analysis was a ~30 day snapshot, but I’d love to help get a clearer picture of the "macro trends" you’re worried about.
If you’re open to it, I’d be happy to collaborate on a deeper temporal analysis. Specifically, I could:
Map the "Sentiment vs. Performance" premium over a 10-year horizon to see if negativity is becoming more "rewarded" by the algorithm/community over time.
Segment "Substantive Critique" vs. "Generic Negativity" (venting) to see if the latter is actually the growth driver, as you suspect.
Run my workflow (DistilBERT, Llama 3.1, etc.) against any internal data you might have that isn't easily accessible via the public API (like flag rates or deleted comment correlations) to refine the "toxicity vs. critique" classifier.
The goal would be to provide a data-driven baseline for the changes you're planning this year. Happy to discuss further here or via email.
I’ve wondered about a temporal trend. My feeling is that it has gotten more negative over the last 10 years. Could the OP run the analysis for each year and see if there are trends?
I want to distinguish what I think are two distinct things, and also make a point about one of them.
* As dang and many know and appreciate, online communities themselves "age", and if you don't keep getting fresh new people in, they shrink. And, regardless, the focus tends to change over time, from original topic, more to meta and/or familiar/comfortable socializing. From what I've seen in some communities, I'm not so sure that aging of the participants is the main factor behind that.
* I think HN should be more conscientious about stereotypes around age, and making generalizations about that. Not only because much of HN is closely adjacent to hiring, and in the US, that's getting into illegal territory. Also, because ageism is often unfair, in general, and to individuals, yet is already widespread in the tech industry. We risk the new people that HN does acquire picking up messages about what ages, genders, ethnicities, etc. they should be hiring, and those messages right now are dim.
If you don't appreciate or care about this now, because you're not yet on the receiving end, I think you probably will within a few years, unless you help change the techbro culture now.
If you find it hard to believe that you'll be on the receiving end, because you are so highly-skilled, have a prestigious resume, have stellar recommendations, have always been a 10x rockstar ninja whatever, you keep updating your skills, you've memorized every LeetCode question, etc.: my experience is that it will be hard to believe when it happens, but it nevertheless will. You'll be in an interview, and the interviewer will make a snide remark that's ill-founded, but regardless, you're probably not getting an offer. And then it will happen many times. And your best "network" will FIRE and be out of the game, or be facing ageism themselves and not in a position to refer you. Then you'll jack in to the HN holographic VR AI cyberspace hivemind of a few years from now, and see people promoting the ideas that seem to match the snarky interviewer's thinking.
Fair enough, I've edited out my references to age in the GP. One can make the point better based on the "aging" of the community itself, as you say.