Hacker News Attempts To Fix Its Comment Problems With Pending Comments

As it has grown, Y Combinator’s Hacker News has struggled to keep its comment threads relevant, thoughtful, and above all else, friendly. Like YouTube, Reddit, and other sites with a large community of commenters, popular threads on Hacker News can degrade into grandstanding, arguments for the sake of being argumentative, and ad hominem attacks with little or no actual substance.

This has been a known problem on Hacker News for some time, leading some members of the community to create parodies not just of the type of content that tends to rise to the top, but also the discussions that arise within discussion threads. (The resulting Hacker News thread about that last link is, in its own right, pretty epic.)

In an effort to improve the quality of discussions that crop up on Hacker News, Y Combinator founding partner Paul Graham yesterday announced some imminent changes to the way comments would be posted and appear on the site. In what could be one of Graham’s last big moves*, he’s implementing a new “pending comments” system at Hacker News.

The idea isn’t new, and is something that Graham had mentioned more than eight months ago. But it’s finally making its way onto Hacker News.

Under the new system, comments that are submitted will no longer be immediately posted to the site, but will instead be placed in a pending comments queue until seen and approved by multiple Hacker News users who have over time accumulated more than 1,000 karma points. Those users will be able to endorse pending comments, in addition to flagging them for removal.

The goal is to get users to post comments that are substantial without being mean-spirited. In his post, Graham cautions against “throwaway remarks” and those that include “gratuitous nastiness.” He also warns that people who regularly endorse comments that fail either of those tests will lose their ability to endorse comments in the future.

While implemented to improve the quality of comments, a fair amount of discussion that followed questioned whether the system would work actually work. And not everyone seems happy about it — in particular, how quickly the change is being implemented and without a whole lot of warning, and how it puts more responsibility into the hands of high-karma users.

In a Medium post on the change, Jonas Wisser (who admittedly is not a Hacker News user) warns that since moderation is being done by those who are most deeply invested in how Hacker News currently operates, it’s likely to remain more or less the same:

This new system is designed to improve the quality of comments on Hacker News. But to me, it seems like it will result in more of the same, but with less dissent. And more of the same, but with less dissent, is not something I’ve ever been able to trust.

Like many big changes of this type, we won’t know how the change will actually affect the quality of comments or engagement in the community until it’s actually implemented and adopted. Until then, however, it’s at least an interesting experiment in community and comment moderation.

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* PG notes in the blog post that he’s checking out of HN at the end of this YC cycle.

Hugo Barra’s three big problems at Xiaomi

Hugo Barra poses with Foxconn CEO Terry Gou

It was a busy week for Xiaomi’s head of international expansion, Hugo Barra. Late on Monday, the former Googler posted a picture of himself with Foxconn’s boss and then some 20 hours later, he was in Hong Kong launching Xiaomi’s flagship and announcing a retail partnership with Hutchison’s telecom arm, Three. What are the significance of these two events? Read on to find out.

After spending four weeks with Xiaomi’s $134 Redmi phone, a few thoughts crossed my mind. The phone is an example of corner cutting done right. Basically, the Redmi is a device that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Moto G, but for almost $100 less than what Motorola’s affordable wonder costs here in South East Asia.

It is the same story with their flagship smartphone, the Mi 3. For less than half of the off contract price of the Galaxy S4 you can get a device with a Snapdragon chipset that, on paper, is only bested by the chip found inside the Galaxy S5.

It seems that the only thing standing between Xiaomi and worldwide domination is availability, right?

Not so fast — there are three major obstacles for Xiaomi’s international expansion, three tricky problems that Hugo Barra needs to solve to find success.

The Xiaomi Redmi

HardwareZone

Locally relevant content

The reason Xiaomi is able to sell their devices at such low price points is their unique business model. Xiaomi does not expect to make the bulk of their revenue through the sales of their devices. Instead they rely on users purchasing stuff from a number of media stores preloaded on their devices.

The problem is, even after four weeks with the phone, I have yet to spend a dime in any of Xiaomi’s stores. It might be a different story if I was fluent in Chinese but currently I find it hard to find anything that is interesting enough to purchase.

If they want to make their devices available in many more countries, they need to provide more content that is locally relevant to their users.

No brick and mortar presence

The second problem is also related to their unique business model. They prefer to produce devices in discrete batches (usually in the tens of thousands) and sell them directly to users through their website and a number of different channels. This allows them to minimize costs usually associated with managing inventory and distribution channels.

This is not a problem in developed regions, but it could be challenging in less developed markets where credit card penetration is low. In large markets like India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, it is still rare for young people to have credit cards. There are millions of potential emerging market consumers that Xiaomi is in danger of alienating if they stuck to their direct sales approach.

Production capacity

The third major obstacle that Xiaomi needs to overcome is that even with their current approach, they are already having serious problems in meeting demand. In Singapore, their first batch of Redmi phones was sold out in eight minutes, while the Mi3 was out of stock in just two minutes. It took them more than two weeks to get the Redmi back in stock, whereas the Mi3 is still listed as out of stock.

Some analysts think that this is Xiaomi’s tactic to create the illusion of scarcity. However, their president, Lin Bin, admitted in an interview with the Wall Street Journal back in February, “When we began producing phones two and a half years ago we were making only tens of thousands a month, but now we’re at three million a month. This speed shows the limits of the supply chain… This is one thing people complain about. People say that [our limited sales of phones] is intentional, but actually it’s not.”

Potential solutions?

On Tuesday, during a launch event for the Mi3 in Hong Kong, Xiaomi’s Global Vice President and former Googler Hugo Barra announced through a Google Plus post that Xiaomi is now in partnership with Hutchison Wampoa Ltd.’s mobile carrier Three to distribute the phone in Hong Kong. Hutchison has transformed six of their flagship Three stores across Hong Kong into “Xiaomified retail experiences”.

Furthermore, Barra mentioned, “We would love to partner with Hutch in other markets, for example, Indonesia and Vietnam where Xiaomi is planning to roll out products in the coming months.”

One of the stores where Three will promote Xiaomi’s products

This is a departure from company’s usual approach and could be a clue as to how Xiaomi is planning to make their push in less matured (but rapidly growing) markets across Asia. Having brick and mortar presence should allow them to reach out to millions of emerging market consumers which are prime targets for their cost effective line up.

As for Xiaomi’s issues of catching up with demands for their phones, another Google Plus post from Hugo Barra offered an idea as to how they are going to solve it. In a post previous to the one mentioned earlier, Barra showed a picture of himself shaking hands with Foxconn’s chairman and CEO, billionaire Terry Gou. In the post, Barra thanked Gou and the Foxconn team for hosting Xiaomi in Shenzhen, and hinted at Xiaomi’s plan to expand to South America.

Lin Bin has said that Xiaomi wants to sell 40 million phones this year (up from 18.7 million in 2013), and it seems that Foxconn could be the key to reaching that goal.

Their problem with the lack of locally relevant content in the MiStore might not be solved yet, but at least we now know how they are going to tackle the other two obstacles standing in their path to global expansion.

What do you think about Xiaomi coming to your local market?

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How to fix Android 4.4.2 problems on the Galaxy S4

We recently wrote about some of the problems affecting Galaxy S4 owners since updating to Android 4.4.2 and we thought it was time to share the solution s we have for those issues. So if you're tearing your hair out since updating your Galaxy S4 to KitKat, read on and get some stress relief.

Sink your teeth into these KitKat solutions for the Galaxy S4. / © AndroidPIT

Lock screen of death

Turning your phone on to see a black lock screen is disconcerting at best and looks like the device hasn't turned on at all at worst. While you can still unlock a black lockscreen as you would normally, it's hardly a good thing. The quickest and easiest fix to get rid of this problem is to ditch the lock screen personal message.

Go to settings > lockscreen > lock screen widgets > clock or personal message > clock.

You don't actually need to have had personal message enabled in the first place for this problem to affect you. The solution still works though.

Phone lag

This is probably the most irritating issue with the Android 4.4.2 firmware on the Galaxy S4. As always, it hasn't affected every device, but if you've got the bug it'll drive you crazy. Basically, everything you do will result in extremely slow response time. From launching apps, bringing up the keyboard, switching apps, returning to the home screen or just getting the S4 to register touches, your life will become hell until it's fixed. The response is so bad it thinks you're long-pressing the home button, so you'll get your recent apps rather than your home screen. The only viable solution to this problem I know of is a factory reset while crossing your fingers. Make sure you've done a full backup before you reset though.

Poor battery life following a firmware update is fairly standard unfortunately. / © AndroidPIT/Martin Steers

Battery drain

Battery drain is pretty much de rigeur after a new firmware flash, so don't despair. As we've seen with plenty of previous firmware battery problems, the issue usually dies down a little after things settle in, but you can speed things along a bit with a few simple tricks. First things first, turn your S4 off and pull the battery for a good 30 seconds and reinsert it. If this doesn't work, you can take a leaf out of the solution for the S3 problems on Android 4.3 and install an app called Battery Calibration (which requires root). If you aren't rooted, try Battery Doctor or Juice Defender and if all else fails we're back to a factory reset.

Contact list sync

If your contact list won't load the first thing to do is go into your settings and turn off sync. Then remove your account your account and log in again before switching syncing back on. Trying out variations of this theme – just turning sync off and on, just removing account and logging back in – should result in a solution. As with the issues above, if all else fails you should also see a resolution after a factory reset.

Most update problems can be fixed by a reboot, battery pull or factory reset.  / © AndroidPIT

Moral of the story

You may have guessed by now that a basic reboot, battery pull and factory reset are pretty much the standard solution process for firmware problems. These may not seem like particularly technical solutions but when it aint broke don't fix it (or rather, when a fix works don't mess with it). If these approaches don't work though that's when you need more specific answers, and that's what we're here for. In future, when you flash new firmware or even just get an OTA update it is a good idea to do a backup (before you install it if possible) and then factory reset your device to start fresh on the new firmware. Clearing cache etc goes a long way towards avoiding the common teething problems new firmware usually brings.

You can also check our solutions to Note 3 problems on Android 4.4.2 for other possible issues and fixes.

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Top 5 News: get the S5 look on your S4, KitKat problems and solutions

Kris Carlon 2014-03-22T09:00:00Z2 hours ago

Kris Carlon

Putting down roots in Berlin after six years of traveling is a major step for Kris Carlon, who has spent more time living out of a tent lately than sitting at a desk. Kris comes to the AndroidPIT Editorial Team via a lengthy period spent writing on art and culture in Australia and other places he has lived. He joined the Android community while resurfacing in civilization back in 2010 and has never looked back, using technology to replace his actual presence in other people's lives ever since.

This is the week that will always be remembered as the week that Android Wear was announced, along with the Moto 360 smartwatch and LG G Watch. The Oppo Find 7 made its debut and looks set to be one of the devices of the year. Oh, and Flappy Bird's developer hinted that the frustrating smash hit may make a return to app marketplaces. But what else has been keeping you awake at night this week?

What's in the Top 5 News of the Week? / © AndroidPIT

While the Galaxy S5 hasn't really knocked the socks off anyone since it was announced, there's still quite a few features on board that a lot of Galaxy S4 owners obviously wouldn't mind getting their hands on. Check out our tutorial to get the S5's notification shade, icons and settings menu, wallpapers and new Samsung apps on your Galaxy S4. If you're not looking to upgrade this could be all you need.

With a little bit of work you can set your S4 up like an S5. / © AndroidPIT

Samsung has done it again with a swathe of bugs in the Android 4.4.2 firmware for the Galaxy Note 3. Fortunately you've got kindly types like us that are here to help you iron out those bugs as painlessly as possible. Here's how to fix the most common problems on the Note 3 running KitKat.

© AndroidPIT

Deja vu? Sadly, yes. Samsung's efforts at the KitKat code for the Galaxy S4 is just as problematic as that for the Note 3 and the Android 4.3 firmware for the S3 and S4 before that. Check out our list of the problems we've been hearing about and check the site for solutions to those problems.

Samsung Galaxy S4 update littered with bugs / © AndroidPIT

In a distant fourth place to the problems is the official Samsung firmware for the Galaxy S4. By this point in our Top 5 you're probably thinking twice about installing this bad boy if you haven't already done so, and we'd be prone to agree with you. It's always a good idea to check sites like ours to get feedback on firmware updates before committing yourself. Especially if you own a Samsung device.

© Google/AndroidPIT

Ina positive bit of news we decided to test for ourselves the stories that the Moto G can actually handle a bit of underwater action. And when I say a little I mean half an hour. We tested it and were so impressed by the results that we decided to give the Moto X the same treatment. Check out the video proof.

Going under the tap is a piece of cake for the Moto G. / © AndroidPIT

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