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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?

#91

Post by gunn »

Symbiote wrote: post #72
Jtsummers wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/.'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…

/. used to have a "friends and foes" feature, which is more or less as described. I think you could set +1 or -1 for friends foes friends-of-friends friends-of-foes foes-of-friends foes-of-foes I had a few "foes" set to -1, to attempt to filter out some frequent, crazy commenters. But I stopped reading the site when extreme opinions became the only opinions.

So I'm imagining a system like this, except who friends are and who foes are is decided dynamically based on the up/down voting we do currently. And also their voting on comments is weighted accordingly.

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

#92

Post by manish_gill »

chetangoti wrote: post #58
manish_gill wrote: post #19

I'm trying to create a private slack community for this actually. It's just a bunch of friends/trusted people who we know are smart, bring a new perspective etc and have good things to contribute. It's been slow going creating a community like that (high achieving, smart people who are usually too busy to participate - So far we're just 20 people with like 10 the most active) but I have hopes that some day it'll beco…

It is possible for me to join that community?

Sorry, it's just I'm trying to keep it among known people or people who are vetted by people we know and trust (that also includes IRL identity etc). Like I said, when I see momentum and people deriving tangible benefit from it, I'll take it public! :-)

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

#95

Post by cableshaft »

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 gave me an idea for a new type of meetup for my meetup group, thanks :)

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

#96

Post by okwhatthe2 »

dbg31415 wrote: post #66

I go to one of these sites: * https://www.meetup.com/ * https://creativemornings.com/ Then I find an event and then I go to that event. The internet just is not conducive to civil discussion because regardless of the site, OP is always a faggot. (=

+1 for "OP is always a faggot."

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

#98

Post by davidivadavid »

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 for months now why something like that doesn't exist.

Here are some comments I wrote on that topic (or a closely related one):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12139112

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12390514

As mentioned in some of the comments, there are probably some technical hurdles (keeping score of every edge in the network), but can't they be overcome?

People tend to come up with the same objection: echo chamber, filter bubble, etc. but I think they miss the point.

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

#99

Post by enraged_camel »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

I mostly stay here. The amount of political and economic discussion here is what I personally consider enough in my life; I don't think looking for more sources would improve SNR for me. I sometimes like to peruse Reddit for some well-defined topics - the trick is to find an appropriate subreddit for it. So, for instance, when I want to follow SpaceX news, I'll tune in to /r/spacex, because quite a lot of people ther…

>>My general observation is that the more specialized a community is, and the further it is from ego-involving topics (politics, economy, religion), the more civil the discussions are there.

Paul Graham wrote an excellent essay on this: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

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