31–40 of 190 posts
"Hackers can be abrupt even in person. Put them on an anonymous forum, and the problem gets worse." I am sure everyone on this forum is on some kind of social network. If we can get every user's handle to link to their flavor-du-jour social network's public profile, verify via email -- that should at least cut down on some of the noise. PG: What do you think?
I do have my email and website (with real name) in my profile, though.
I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it. I have been down modded a number of times not for saying something rude or stupid just something that others don't agree with. I tend to down mod rude and aggressive people on here and I also up mod people who I think have been down modded unfairly. I am not sure if I am alone with my way of thinking.
@PG, I've always wondered, are you able to see all the comments that I've posted and then deleted two minutes later? And if so, is this an acceptable way to send you semi-private messages?
I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it. I have been down modded a number of times not for saying something rude or stupid just something that others don't agree with. I tend to down mod rude and aggressive people on here and I also up mod people who I think have been down modded unfairly. I am not sure if I am alone with my way of thinking.
That's not a troll behavior ("troll" comes from the fishing term), and it's much less common here than on reddit or digg or (god help you) dailykos, where intelligent but unfashionable opinions get sunk hard.
There are only a few fashionable subjects around here (the importance of lisp, for example), whereas on other sites almost every question has a boilerplate answer, against which all opposition is "trolling". At any rate, no amount of actual "trolling" is as bad as groupthink. I'd rather a whole parliament of disagreeable colicky horseradish farmers than one unipartisan politburo.
ADDENDUM: Just thought I'd tack this on. Near the top of digg right now is this:
http://digg.com/business_finance/What_1_Million_Buys_In_Home...
That's sort of an interesting subject, but look at the comments. At the top with 9 diggs:
I dugg the story, but I refuse to click on anything with Forbes magazine. They force a full-screen ad (that you can skip) but in my efforts to help stop obnoxious advertising, I boycott Forbes.
Okay, there you have a 15-year-old combining 1) his irrational dislike of full-page ads (perhaps he thinks Forbes survives on government grants), with 2) his irrational proclivity to upmod things without looking at them, with 3) his belief that Forbes cares whether a 15-year-old looks at its slideshows. This sort of sad lameness is actually what kills online discussions, not "trolling".
About what size was reddit (in uniques) before it jumped the shark?
The fascinating thing is, all the data is still there. You can go and look at the old comments and stories and see what the site used to be like. If you could find a good proxy for stupidity, like comment length or spelling mistakes, you could graph the change as the site grew.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's not the case that "no one is really right or wrong" in debates about computer languages, politics, or religion. There is a truth of the matter. Well, yes and no. There's only a truth to the matter if you can get people to agree on a premise. Two libertarians who adopt the same premises can have a meaningful debate with each other. They'll agree that there can only be one consistent position -- so if they disagre…
There's only a truth to the matter if you can get people to agree on a premise. Two libertarians who adopt the same premises can have a meaningful debate This is the myth of the framework. See Popper's book by that name: http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Framework-Defence-Science-Rationa... Besides the issue of whether productive debate is possible across frameworks, there is also your (possibly accidental) assertion that w…
None of the statements in question have to do with reality, only with abstract ideas. Libertarians believe that property ownership is a right; communists believe that it is an offense. Neither of these assertions is empirically testable.
If the debate is about what policies will make us wealthier rather than what policies are ethical, then that's a different matter. But in that case, both sides are sharing the common framework of utilitarianism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it's a matter of pertinence. Comments supporting a constructive conversation should be uppmodded (which does not mean it's comments you agree with). Or comments you want others to pay attention to (diluting uninteresting ones by extension). Like in this thread, we can note the irony (and worshiping) of the community, with the top comment (11 points so far) done by anewaccountname, deliberately taking a piss o…
Actually, there's no way a comment like anewaccountname's would get upmodded to that extent were it not a verbatim reference to pg's previous article. The fact that people here upmod/downmod based on whether they agree rather than whether it's insightful really bothers me. I think it's the wrong incentive structure.
Likewise, it was funny that the "Funny..." comment was modded to -1. At least, I found it funny. Point being, I don't think these were rewards for groupthink, so much as rewards for geeks being clever.
"Often users have second thoughts and delete such comments." @PG, I've always wondered, are you able to see all the comments that I've posted and then deleted two minutes later? And if so, is this an acceptable way to send you semi-private messages?
My experience on forums is that -size matters-. A pond with ten fish gets far less trollers than a pond with ten thousand. As for solutions: there have to be consequences. Either losing the ability to post or losing the ability to have your posts seen. Certainly banning accounts is an option, but then you have to fight with the crapflood, if and when it comes.