Why is it so bad on Habré?

We all know very well that the last year for the Habrahabr project was difficult. Something goes wrong and it is very worried about the Haboo community.
This topic was written by me as opposed to the previous two ( one and two ). In the topic an alternative view on the situation prevailing in Habré.

Course of events

Somewhere about a year ago, the number of new posts per day began to decrease. The exact causes of this phenomenon are difficult to explain. Just articles became less. I wonder why?

The first reaction of the administration was quite expected - to increase the distribution of invites, i.e. attract new authors. This move restored the flow of articles. On Habré there were beginners, one of which was me.
After 3 months, the UFO stopped distributing invites in the sandbox. Also the expected move - a lot of newbies are also bad. But then the administration was wrong. It was assumed that the newcomers will join the active life on the project and join the other authors, but it turned out that almost all of them were merged. I wonder why?

The number of articles per day began to fall. The administration correctly assessed the situation and made a bet on "experienced" authors - the PPA program was introduced. April 1st, as you remember. It was a good move, but its effect ended after a couple of months. I wonder why?
')
The next move of the administration was differentiation by direction, i.e. separation of user interests. Also theoretically a good move. Habr received the "Events" section, a new tape and much more. But the administration here also miscalculated - innovations reinforced the "emptiness" on Habré. I wonder why?

The number of new articles began to fall sharply and, worst of all, the quality of articles began to fall. The project began to lose interest of visitors. The administration has closed this “hole” with articles from the sandbox - daily supporting the number of 50 new articles. The move is bad, but you can't do otherwise. There was no choice. I wonder why?

The latest innovation is an increase in the level of karma needed for voting. The move is relatively good, but met with a lack of understanding on the part of the habrosoobschestva. I wonder why?

I wonder why?

There are many questions, so let's start looking for answers to them.

Why did the number of articles per day start decreasing a year ago?
Reason: Habr "matured." The project survived the heyday, survived the raids of the shkoloty and the “black lord”. He left more or less serious people who had a lot of things to write. The lull period began.
Many people know that such a “lull” is a normal phenomenon for long-playing social projects.

Why is the fate of newbies on Habré so sad? Why do they end up in the span?
There are two reasons - the inability to write, as is customary in Habré and karma.
Not everyone can write on a level with old-timers, and improvisations in most cases are perceived negatively. At the same time, there are too many forbidden topics on this project, which novices do not know about.
There is no need to talk much about karma. It is difficult to score 5 points to write an article, and it is almost impossible to get out of the minus. He checked himself.

Why didn't the PPA last long?
The answer is very simple: good authors who are ready to write turned out to be little on Habré. These authors could not provide the required number of articles per day.

Why did separation of interests have no effect?
As a result, it turned out that there are practically no specialists in certain areas. It turned out the opposite effect - some blogs have become extinct.

Why did the HF community negatively perceive the change in the required level of karma for voting?
Now it became much more difficult to gain positive votes and a lot of people lost the opportunity to vote, i.e. influence the course of events.

And if you think ...

Above, I gave a good explanation of what is happening on Habré, but something is still wrong. I have been looking for this “something” for a very long time.

On an intuitive level, I suspected that it was not karma, since there are many projects with karma / rating / reviews in one form or another, but it is on Habré that such disgrace is created. It is created, it is created, but why?
In addition, it is not clear why the authors are few, because they have to have better karma than all.

While I was looking for the truth, I was leaked (I hate paranoid wikileaks). I stopped writing comments and began to communicate more with people through private messages and answer q / a questions. The people with whom I had to communicate were different. I wrote someone a letter of thanks, someone criticized, and someone a letter of support.
Over time, I noticed that many authors, to whom I wrote letters of support, leave Habr. They called the reason simple: “they don’t like my articles there”, “I got tired of pouring shit”, “they leaked karma, it means they don’t need my articles”, etc.
* By “leaving Habr,” I mean stopping the activity - no comments, rare visits, no new articles for a very long period.

Again, as the reason, the notorious karma emerges.

The insight came by chance. There was one incident that suggested why all these troubles are happening.

One day I read a very good PHP injection article. Wrote an article newbie. I wrote a letter of thanks to the author (I could not vote at the time) and saved the article with peace of mind.
It took several hours. I look through new articles and I see that the article about injections from the abdomen, the author is merged. I start to understand why this happened.
In one of the first comments I read (approximate content, since we no longer see the original):
“A worthless article. PHP in the majority put on Unix systems, and in Unix PHP injections do not work. ”
The comment has almost a hundred advantages ...
As a result, the author removed the article in drafts and did not appear for a week on Habré. Next, I lost his contact.

A small digression: in PHP injection, it works on Unix systems.

Now imagine what the author - to know that you are 100% right, but to be "mixed with shit" for this knowledge.

Then much has been revealed to me. I began to pay attention to such “holes in knowledge” in habrovchan. And they turned out to be very many, incredibly many. I realized that the problem is not karma, not a UFO, not innovations ...
The problem in the Hub community is dull ... Yes, yes, it was dull. Habr for 90% (and maybe more) consists of bydlokoderov with high self-esteem. They have a little power in the form of anonymity and karma. And they use this power - they "crush" all those who are smarter than them.

In this light, everything looks different.
Good authors do not want to write articles for a society that does not understand them. They leave and will leave until the situation on Habré changes.

War with the Mills

Many see that something is wrong with Habr and they do not want to put up with it.

Today comrades Begetan and shaida have attempted such a struggle. One is against changing the required level of karma for voting, the other for increasing the number of invites distribution. In my opinion, this is an empty struggle with illusory problems. I will not give full criticism (readers are probably already tired).
My counterarguments are simple:

• Changing the required level of voting karma is a good measure. Active users sooner or later will gain +15 karma and everything will come to their own places. But to write an article you need +5 karma as before. Think about it. It is as if they were allowed to write articles at -5 karma. In the future, this measure will lower the threshold of the necessary karma for writing an article.
• Increased distribution of invites is a bad measure. Betting is better to do on good authors, and new people for the most part are not. The influx of "new blood" sprays the potential of Habr, worsening the quality of articles.

And these are just today's "appeals." But I think everyone remembers the double habrosucid, the bent Dilesoft project, and many others.

Does shuffling karma and changing the rules of the “game” change the thinking of a community that does not understand the essence of the problem? No, it will not change. This is the "war with the mills."

What to do?

We all want Habra the best for him to be filled with interesting people, topics, ambiguous solutions. But how to achieve this?

First, stop "fighting the mills." We spray our strength on evidence, on disputes in initially empty protests. We are constantly moving away from the essence of the problem, hiding our incompetence. We must stop doing so.
Secondly, treat the authors well. Yes, there are bad articles, bad questions. We can all be wrong. But even worse, when guided by inner self-righteousness, you distort the true facts. Remember that you can make mistakes and do not be afraid to admit it.

What else?
From myself I recommend to forget about the button "-". Put only pluses.
And administrations recommend concentrating on authors' interest in writing articles. There are many more ways of motivation, in addition to money - additional individual opportunities, awards, contests, etc.

And finally - All with the coming!