241–250 of 347 posts
No one is asking my opinion, but here it is: Trifurcate Twitter into three distinct parts: * The social--what users actually use it for. * The ad platform. * The realtime gestalt/search platform. The latter is what is inadequately funded and considered. Twitter has a latency advantage on the pulse of thought across the user base. The user base is already high-value for this relative to the morass of Facebook users. T…
Looking at IG/Snapchat and I feel like I'm viewing the future world of interactive social media being born. It's not that text based media is incorrect, it just feels like the communication form of the past.
I want to be shown experience, not just read about them.
Is it just me or do people feel that images/video are the future of digital interaction? Looking at IG/Snapchat and I feel like I'm viewing the future world of interactive social media being born. It's not that text based media is incorrect, it just feels like the communication form of the past. I want to be shown experience, not just read about them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since the election I've been spending time on HN and to a lesser extent Twitter. Every time I visit Twitter I find myself instinctively reaching for the downvote button, but there isn't one. About the only thing you can do when someone says (or retweets) something totally idiotic on Twitter is either unfollow, or, of course, reply. In other words, there is no way to register disapproval without simultaneously calling…
Downvotes are stronger than upvotes, and the downvoted content gets buried. I haven't seen this mentioned before, nor does it match with my observations of behavior on the site, though I admit the calculations of how down/up votes contribute to dimming is not transparent. Do you have a reference of where the relative weighting of up vs down votes is discussed?
Totally anecdotal, it's just my perception that a few downvotes are enough to grey something out, a few more and it gets killed and people stop seeing it. The first-order effect is that the worst content just disappears. This is the best possible outcome for things that you just don't want to see. Of course there are community norms about what gets downvoted and so it works as well as it does partly because we have a pretty good crowd here that values rational, constructive discussion.
The second-order effect is that people don't post things that are going to get downvoted, and even delete or edit posts in response to downvoting. This is the dominant effect and the main reason why the system works so well, because really toxic stuff just doesn't get posted very often. The users that don't care about downvotes can still get banned.
The best thing about downvotes is they represent the community policing itself, so they don't generate the resentment that admin activity tends to. They are inherently democratic. They also scale, which direct moderation obviously does not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before someone comments noting that the 1st amendment only restricts government and is not binding on twitter: please note that free speech is a valuable community principle for the same reasons it is a valuable legal principle. The "marketplace of ideas" is very real and very valuable and ought not be censored. Moreover, it is very hard to consider social networks in this day and age to be acting as anything other t…
Replying to myself because parent was flagged: why was it flagged? It didn't say anything outright offensive or disturbing, and even though its tone was bordering on rude, it certainly raised a valid point (just look at the civil discussion below it). It is particularly troubling that a comment against suppressing speech on forums like this would be censored. I understand that HN is not Times Square but it is a publi…
I think this is likely it. The HN guidelines specifically state:
Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In my experience, members will down-vote if a comment is uncivil, even if the content contains a valid point. The mods have mentioned numerous times (and rightly in my opinion) that civility is even more important when commenting on divisive topics.
It feels like Twitter the company should be imploding, but it must be a secure business if its the next president's primary communication channel.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind if we saw an end to Trump's tweets. Not because of their content, but because of their impulsiveness, which is a behavior that Twitter's design encourages. Which is cool when it comes to celebrities and such in which it's fun to see what they think about sans filter. But the president of the United States speaks with the executive authority for an entire nation. It's questionable enough when…
The share prices of the companies Trump has bashed have rebounded within the same day, so this is incredibly misleading to say.
Not that I disagree with the core point of your post.
Is it just me or do people feel that images/video are the future of digital interaction? Looking at IG/Snapchat and I feel like I'm viewing the future world of interactive social media being born. It's not that text based media is incorrect, it just feels like the communication form of the past. I want to be shown experience, not just read about them.
I feel images/video are the future of digital interaction in the same way that candy is the future of food. It is nice to have in moderation, but try to replace the basics completely and you'll have cavities and bad health.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Downvotes are stronger than upvotes, and the downvoted content gets buried. I haven't seen this mentioned before, nor does it match with my observations of behavior on the site, though I admit the calculations of how down/up votes contribute to dimming is not transparent. Do you have a reference of where the relative weighting of up vs down votes is discussed?
Sorry, I don't. And I imagine that discussing the details in public would just create more work for the admins and limit their options for tweaking it; probably more trouble than it would be worth to make it transparent. Totally anecdotal, it's just my perception that a few downvotes are enough to grey something out, a few more and it gets killed and people stop seeing it. The first-order effect is that the worst con…
The best thing about downvotes is they represent the community policing itself, so they don't generate the resentment that admin activity tends to.
Agreed!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since the election I've been spending time on HN and to a lesser extent Twitter. Every time I visit Twitter I find myself instinctively reaching for the downvote button, but there isn't one. About the only thing you can do when someone says (or retweets) something totally idiotic on Twitter is either unfollow, or, of course, reply. In other words, there is no way to register disapproval without simultaneously calling…
+1. I spent a considerable amount of time on Twitter between August and November of this year. I quit cold turkey primarily because of the widespread negativity. Plus, its endless stream of tweets had a certain cheap novelty factor that coaxes you to spend more time on it than is warranted or necessary. HN and Reddit, to some extent, mitigate this in just the way I want. I'd be interested to hear about what are the r…
The thing I like about Twitter is who you can follow. Where else can you engage with Obama, Trump, etc. in a public forum? Without the big name political users, the press, the public intellectuals, Twitter would have nothing. The way the big shots are effectively equal to ordinary users is very democratic. I can @ the POTUS and at least in theory get a reply. There's nothing else out there that enables that kind of communication.
It's a shame that Twitter has done so little with so much. Think of the great newspapers of the past and how seriously many of them took their civic responsibility, and how they crowed about it in their editorial pages. They understood their role in society and the responsibility that came with the power they had. Yet here Twitter finds itself in possession of an unprecendented opportunity and they totally squander it. Completely oblivious to their social responsibility, they chase after ad dollars, and even there they fail.
I think its valid to ask if Jack Dorsey is the next executive to leave. The moment Anthony Noto went to Twitter, all wall street could talk about was that he was brought in to sell the company. Who ever the next CTO is, they're going to have some tough decisions to make. Twitter already has to pay out an extreme amount of compensation in stock options just to get and retain talent. I don't want this to seem inflammat…
Twitter's problem isn't just that they have to fix harassment, it's that they have to do it without touching social justice activism that sure looks similar to it from the outside, right down to the doxing, threats, and smears. Oh, and they'll get no sympathy for getting this wrong as the difference is apparently obvious... except that everyone defines it differently (usually based on who their friends are) and simpl…
Yes, they could have the courage to not allow neo-Nazis to use their site as a platform.