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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?

#191

Post by ldjb »

niftich wrote: post #185

It's funny, because 4chan, especially it's topic-focused sub-boards, isn't nearly as unfit for this as it might seem. Yes, the signal-to-noise ratio will be low and it'd be generous to pretend the conversation will always be civil , but there are some pluses: - No downvotes, so opposing viewpoints don't get suppressed - (Multi-)Reply support, so you can address your response to a specific post or posts - Everyone alr…

There is a common misconception that all of 4chan is like /b/, but you can find some rather good quality discussions on some of the other boards. 4chan covers a lot of niches, and for some of them it is one of the best places to go to discuss them.

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

#192

Post by achariam »

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I've partially given up on finding a community. Instead I've decided to try and build it myself. There are some really great ideas around community that I'd like to experiment with.

It's not quite ready yet (www.elyxel.com) but if anyone is interested feel free to reach out.

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

#193

Post by optimuspaul »

basseq wrote: post #28

HN - Discussion is generally civil, and snarky or underhanded commends are generally downvoted swiftly. Not much in the way of political and economic commentary, and the discussion tools (e.g., the platform, notification, etc.) are just OK. Quora - There are pockets of intelligent thought, but discussion is limited to an answer and maybe a couple comments. And there's a ton of noise and not nearly enough moderation.…

Oh man, I had thought that Quora was a decent place but quickly found that it's full of the worst of the internet. I had answered some things and made some comments on answers and was quickly attacked for expressing constructive criticism. I think that it wasn't so much that people are negative but that they have come to expect vitriol from everyone on the internet that they were very defensive and in some cases offensive. I found it impossible to have reasoned discussion with people there. I really liked the format and the idea behind it, but unfortunately the internet seems to be broken. I do enjoy the weekly emails from Quora though, I just can't participate.

I also can't do reddit, partially because of it's negative reputation, but also I just don't have the energy to deal with it's terrible UX and having the wade through the crap to find the gold.

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

#195

Post by ballooney »

mywittyname wrote: post #115
cheriot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reddit.com/r/askhistorians is a goldmine. I love sitting in the cheap seats for some of the discussions there.

On the flip-side, their high standards make it difficult to contribute to the conversation.

That's a good thing. Too much of the internet is people with nothing to say, saying too much.

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

#196

Post by jackcosgrove »

CompelTechnic wrote: post #75

bogleheads.org is a forum for the discussion of conservative investing approaches, but it ends up tying into proactive and insightful discussions about all sorts of lifestyle issues. I enjoy it a lot!

Bogleheads is self-contradictory in some ways. The Boglehead philosophy is to buy and hold assets without frequent trading. And yet the discussions are filled with financial noise. For a group of simple buy-and-holders, they like to micromanage (at least with words on the web) minute financial decisions.

A Boglehead thread should be something like this:

9/2/2016 Username said: I began regularly buying XYZ index fund.

9/2/2056 Username said: I began regularly drawing down XYZ index fund.

That's it. Instead they chinwag about tiny personal expenditures. I think a forum is not the best medium for such a community, given that a forum consisting of my model thread would be moribund.

There are some nuggets of financial wisdom, but for a lot of people there being a Boglehead is just a slogan.

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

#197

Post by OldSchoolJohnny »

eevilspock wrote: post #89
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…

The problem with HN for politics and economics is its decidedly Silicon Valley, libertarian and white male slant, often self-servingly pedantically amoral. The civility here is often arrived at by burying comments that challenge this self-serving slant. Or by an algorithm that systematically buries articles and users (whose accounts accrue ranking penalties) that generate any heated debate by challenging the slant. W…

"The problem with HN for politics and economics is its decidedly Silicon Valley, libertarian and white male slant, often self-servingly pedantically amoral." Yes a thousand times yes and also lacking in the kind of perspective you would normally hear from people who have struggled in life and learned some valuable life lessons.

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

#198

Post by snerbles »

ldjb wrote: post #191
niftich wrote: post #185

It's funny, because 4chan, especially it's topic-focused sub-boards, isn't nearly as unfit for this as it might seem. Yes, the signal-to-noise ratio will be low and it'd be generous to pretend the conversation will always be civil , but there are some pluses: - No downvotes, so opposing viewpoints don't get suppressed - (Multi-)Reply support, so you can address your response to a specific post or posts - Everyone alr…

There is a common misconception that all of 4chan is like /b/, but you can find some rather good quality discussions on some of the other boards. 4chan covers a lot of niches, and for some of them it is one of the best places to go to discuss them.

/b/ also has some utility as a containment board - it's nowhere near perfect at keeping shitposters away from other boards, but it is a decent magnet for those that want to go crazy.

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

#199

Post by sctb »

eevilspock wrote: post #170
someone7x wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The civility here is often arrived at by burying comments that challenge this self-serving slant. This is where I have to disagree. I feel the civility comes from swift and brutal downvotes of low effort contributions. If there's a pattern that I see amongst grey/flagged/dead comments is that they are most often off-topic and/or low effort. Not to say that groupthink doesn't exist or come into play, just that it's…

By "bury" I mean more than "grey/flagged/dead". I also mean in terms of order on the page. When looking at rank order, groupthink is a large if not prevailing determinant, especially since HN applies a penalty for contentiousness (defined as lots of upvotes AND downvotes) to both articles, comments and users.

> ...HN applies a penalty for contentiousness (defined as lots of upvotes AND downvotes) to both articles, comments and users.

Unless I've misunderstood what you're saying, this simply isn't true.

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

#200

Post by cookiecaper »

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…

I agree. A great deal of social communicative data that is crucial to make meaningful connections is lost online. Even people who are good at reading and writing, and that's not very many, are deprived of a lot of real-time information that is automatically communicated in person, like tone, eye contact, facial positioning, and other signals. Humans are heavily dependent on those cues for successful interaction.

Further, the Greater Internet Fuckwad theory [0] applies -- taking away the complex risk calculations involved in face-to-face conversations causes people to discard social inhibitors like civility rather quickly.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/RkSu1kn.jpg

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