tim2

Indeed, indeed.

If this is the case for hackers then I can at least see a very good reason for it. The _only_ reason I learned to program was for the power it gives me to create new things and explore whatever I want.

Take that away from me? Forget it, I'll do any number of occupations where I can earn more.

I just thought that, all else being equal, people on both sides are equally stubborn about sticking to their own ideas. Do you find this not to be the case?

Nonsense, everyone wants to work on their own ideas.

Because typically the programmer will end up spending 1000x longer to complete his part. This is no exaggeration.

My strategy has always entertained me because the guys I've known were so thrilled about their rediculous "world changing" idea that they were crushed to find that hardly any outsourcers were even interested:)

Yours will work well enough, but I also like to test to see if anyone is actually determined enough to go through all this trouble and carry out their plan anyway. Serious entrepreneurs are very few in this part of the country...

Two things: 1) It would be great to have more reasonably good people here. 2) But I just don't want the scoring to be screwed up. If the voting keeps stuff that's only of interest to people who are into hacking and startups on the front page then other people will simply not stick around.

PG, please consider action for #2. Don't go with the "show everyone different rankings" approach of reddit though.

In theory, but we're talking about guys who think that you love programming so much that you'll just work for some of their worthless equity.

Send them to an outsourcing site. Tell them you'll offer a competitive rate. Most of these guys won't think of spending a dollar.

Even the least skillful trolls mask their ill intent by blending in and maintaining a non-descript tone. This is done in order to get past the "human spam filter." If you run stupidity detection based purely on the contents of their comments then you run the risk of simply banning controversial topics or people with bad spelling instead of controversial (trolling, roughly) behavior.

To better detect trolling behavior, I'd focus on responses:

- Content of the responses. Lots of shouting? Length.

- Number of responders. 50x more replies than you would otherwise expect from the thread?

- Depth of thread. Conversation still dragging on after all sane people have left?

- Timing of responses. Heated arguments leave no time for cooling off.

So measure effect of the troll, and your system won't have to try to understand what he's saying.

+ But you were referring to "stupid" measuring based on the submitters data may work just fine.

Thankyou for the clarification.

[nevermind] ---Untrue. Unless your product has already shown considerable traction or you're a startup legend, it is 100% percent certain that they will not accept you as a single founder.

Not making a judgement on this policy, it just seems fair for people to know before they take the time to apply as a single founder.

You do realize that this is the antithesis of the core reason of why startups work, yes?

What's fundamental is that it is those few abnormal people who change the world 1000x more than the regular person. When you have near infinite money like Google, I'd be very afraid of missing out on those few people who are going to carry the company.