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Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

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Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#41

Post by gunn »

creshal wrote: post #25
gunn wrote: post #17

I've been wondering: would it be practical to build a reddit/HN like system where the comments you see are by authors you've upvoted before, or authors they've upvoted before? This way everyone can comment, and the low effort jokes etc. can still exist but you personally only see them if that's what you enjoy. Currently we give every comment a single universal score. It's hard to come up with a simple set of rules th…

> I've been wondering: would it be practical to build a reddit/HN like system where the comments you see are by authors you've upvoted before, or authors they've upvoted before? Only showing upvoted authors would only reinforce your personal echo chamber, see also: Tumblr. Only showing downvoted authors would, going by my Reddit voting statistic, expose me to 95% dick jokes and 5% authors that have valid points I dis…

> Only showing upvoted authors would only reinforce your personal echo chamber, see also: Tumblr.

Certainly, if you just upvote left-wing and downvote right-wing or vice versa. But if you want to see something better you can get it by upvoting those authors that have valid points you disagree with too.

I think currently some amount of upvoting happens because people want to amplify views they agree with even if they don't provide new insight. In the system I'm proposing, this incentive is gone because your votes affect what you see more of in the future, not what other people do.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#43

Post by ultramancool »

just_observing wrote: post #2

http://metafilter.com

I've found a lot of the discussion on metafilter is extremely slanted politically to the level of a complete circlejerk, just a circlejerk that values long and intellectual-sounding posts rather than short ones like competing sites.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#44

Post by pjc50 »

gunn wrote: post #17

I've been wondering: would it be practical to build a reddit/HN like system where the comments you see are by authors you've upvoted before, or authors they've upvoted before? This way everyone can comment, and the low effort jokes etc. can still exist but you personally only see them if that's what you enjoy. Currently we give every comment a single universal score. It's hard to come up with a simple set of rules th…

Possible but potentially hard on your database as you have to poll thousands of edges per post. Doesn't scale too well.

I think advogato tried something similar with its trust metric: http://www.advogato.org/trust-metric.html but advogato is effectively dead - on the front page is still a poem about the death of k5.

Really the nearest thing is to get on twitter and curate who you follow.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#46

Post by Bjartr »

gunn wrote: post #17

I've been wondering: would it be practical to build a reddit/HN like system where the comments you see are by authors you've upvoted before, or authors they've upvoted before? This way everyone can comment, and the low effort jokes etc. can still exist but you personally only see them if that's what you enjoy. Currently we give every comment a single universal score. It's hard to come up with a simple set of rules th…

No idea how viable this would be, but as a user up/down votes, incorporate that into some kind of learning system that will, over time, be able to better select posts that that specific user wants to see. Maybe weight structure over content to avoid the echo chamber effects to some degree?

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#47

Post by DeathArrow »

rubidium wrote: post #21

Let me answer a different question: where do you go for civil, insightful commentary? I recommend gathering a group of "morning cup of coffee" people with an intellectual bent. This works particularly well among more academic neighborhoods, but can be done elsewhere. Get 3-10 people you know (or get to know these people) that are generally aware of the world, from different walks of life/professions, and start meetin…

You mean he should get out of his house? Isn't it dangerous?

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#49

Post by pjc50 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #35
gunn wrote: post #17

I've been wondering: would it be practical to build a reddit/HN like system where the comments you see are by authors you've upvoted before, or authors they've upvoted before? This way everyone can comment, and the low effort jokes etc. can still exist but you personally only see them if that's what you enjoy. Currently we give every comment a single universal score. It's hard to come up with a simple set of rules th…

/.'s moderation system sort of gives you this, but not the connection to the authors of the posts. You set a score threshold for visibility. The discussion system hides things below the threshold, but doesn't hide the thread itself (like reddit does, IIRC). * (Score: 5) Some stuff * (Score: 0) *Hidden* * (Score: 4) Actually, if you read ... * (Score: -1) *Hidden* * (Score: 3) Blah blah blah Posts are also moderated b…

At one point you could adjust your weightings for things, so you could make "funny" or "insightful" count for -1 for an entertainingly different view of the site.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#50

Post by barrkel »

pjc50 wrote: post #34

Metafilter is great, partly due to the $5 posting account cost. I've lurked there for years and not posted. CrookedTimber is the last of the oldschool blogs-with-comment-sections that I follow for this purpose, although it has some serious problem posters. HN isn't really politically or economically focused so you kind of have to slip under the radar.

Metafilter is a borderline groupthink echo chamber, so heavy is the moderation. It's best for purely factual stuff. Stray into opinion stuff, and it's really narrow and slanted.
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