If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#21

Post by jakevoytko » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 2:50 PM UTC

psyc wrote: post #17

tjr225 wrote: post #6

I look around at every. single. internet community on the planet and I struggle to find a single one that isn't full of assholes. Including the very space I am on right now. And yet - when I step outside and go talk to people and hang out with my friends they suddenly recede into the shadows. Sure, here and there somebody will be an asshole but for the most part everyone is nice, helpful, and (especially in my friend…

AKA Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboa...

Google's Real Names experiment helped simplify this equation. They proved that people don't even need anonymity to be fuckwads; all they need is an audience. I remember a lot of low-level bemusement and high-level consternation when the quality of discussion in YouTube comments didn't get any better after they tied everything to an identity.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#22

Post by nobleach » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

Real humans viewing comments is probably one of the most important things. HN has good moderation when things get personal. (I am admittedly the recipient of one of these moderations) HN tends to keep things professional - but can dip into the "you have no idea what you're talking about" territory at times. The problem is, we're all know-it-alls on the internet. We have a wealth of information at our fingertips. We often pretend like we were on the teams that made some sort of scientific discovery.

What I see happening in other communities (I'll take Reddit and Townhall.com as examples) is that people get into like-minded echo chambers where they feel comfortable. Anyone appealing to reason in either of those communities is downvoted if they make a suggestion, ask a question, or simply refuse to tow the "party line". (I say that without politics in mind, but politics DEFINITELY factor into it) People as a general species, WANT to be liked. Because of this desire, we'll often adopt the viewpoints of our surrounding community. We'll pick on those who are different because we perceive that they're "morons" for not agreeing with the "party line". It's very hard for any sort of algorithm to solve that problem. The best we can hope for, is an even-handed moderator to say, "this person may not agree with my own personal feelings on a matter, but their voice is just as valuable to the conversation".

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#23

Post by gloryless » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

Anil dash is one of those tech bros that just says shit to create content and it has no basis in experience or research, just a weak amalgamation of thoughts. This article vaguely describes moderating. Thanks for your wisdom, Anil.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#24

Post by LocalH » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #19

LocalH wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core values would be the entire benefit to the form of communication. The massive decline in classic forums has been a net negative for the Internet. The 2000s forum culture was a lot different from the current state of things, and better in many ways. You didn't have the level of de facto censorship that you see now with the massive centralized communication platforms.

>You didn't have the level of de facto censorship that you see now with the massive centralized communication platforms. I disagree. Not every forum was SA or 4chan, plenty were aggressively moderated. The primary difference between then and now that I see is that, back then, moderation wasn't always considered censorship.

I'm talking about the upper level of modern content moderation, imposed by the platforms themselves. It's the autonomy that is missing nowadays.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#25

Post by caracustard » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #15

asdfsafwea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "absence of monetization" a value? Do we expect this with any other business other than the ones on the internet - news papers, magazines, local community events etc. Absence of monetization, to me means its a hobby project funded by you and not a business, that also perhaps means it has not kept up with the competition - think servers, performance, websites, mobile apps etc. Maybe avoiding ad based monetization c…

It is a value. It means that the incentives of the user and the producer are aligned: to enjoy the time in a community, rather than have one try to extract money. Aside from that, not everything needs to be a business, and even then, not everything needs to be profitable.

By that logic lets stop paying street sweepers and sanitation workers. See, their incenitives are mutually aligned with the interests of those who walk the streets, so there is no reason to "extract money".

Sure thing, but the article in question EXPLICITLY mentions "You should make a budget that supports having a good community, or you should find another line of work.", which means that one way or another funding is needed, unless you're comfortable with making someone read through kilobytes of drivel and spam in their free (or perhaps not so free) time.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#26

Post by rtpg » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #6

I look around at every. single. internet community on the planet and I struggle to find a single one that isn't full of assholes. Including the very space I am on right now. And yet - when I step outside and go talk to people and hang out with my friends they suddenly recede into the shadows. Sure, here and there somebody will be an asshole but for the most part everyone is nice, helpful, and (especially in my friend…

I don’t really understand the link between your post and the article, but I might have a context free theory:

In the real world annoying people can only annoy so many people at once. On the internet everyone has to read when an annoying person is posting constantly into the group chat. Annoying people simply can take up more oxygen.

Now for the contextful thing: there are loads of communities that aren’t filled with assholes! Check out subreddits for some of your hobbies, maybe a discord/irc channel for something you like, a relatively small community… there are nice places on the web!

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#27

Post by caracustard » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #16

asdfsafwea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "absence of monetization" a value? Do we expect this with any other business other than the ones on the internet - news papers, magazines, local community events etc. Absence of monetization, to me means its a hobby project funded by you and not a business, that also perhaps means it has not kept up with the competition - think servers, performance, websites, mobile apps etc. Maybe avoiding ad based monetization c…

>Is "absence of monetization" a value? If capitalism is a value, then anti-capitalism is also a value. A lot of people believe the presence of capitalism on the web is fundamentally antithetical to what they see as its fundamentally anarchist/anti-establishment ethos. Besides, the cost per month of running a small forum nowadays is less than what many people here spend on a single lunch. Not everyone is running a bus…

Ah, the fundamentally anarchist/anti-establishment ethos of millions of computers connected to each other (making a coordinated and organized establishment of their own with hierarchical substructures).

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#28

Post by snowwrestler » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #6

I look around at every. single. internet community on the planet and I struggle to find a single one that isn't full of assholes. Including the very space I am on right now. And yet - when I step outside and go talk to people and hang out with my friends they suddenly recede into the shadows. Sure, here and there somebody will be an asshole but for the most part everyone is nice, helpful, and (especially in my friend…

I definitely do not think HN is full of assholes.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#29

Post by danieldevries » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #6

I look around at every. single. internet community on the planet and I struggle to find a single one that isn't full of assholes. Including the very space I am on right now. And yet - when I step outside and go talk to people and hang out with my friends they suddenly recede into the shadows. Sure, here and there somebody will be an asshole but for the most part everyone is nice, helpful, and (especially in my friend…

I personally love the neovim community. The subreddit is full of helpful people and the core developers / contributors are absolutely wonderful people. Everytime neovim has a major release, there is a presentation and plenty of interviews with said wonderful people.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#30

Post by mountainb » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 3:39 PM UTC

Bluecobra wrote: post #20

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #3

It's easy to shut off assholes if you are an even bigger asshole yourself. I shall not point fingers but the the demise of online forums and the meteoric rise of Facebook is a proof. There were certain values that websites in 00-ies had and that were eroded by the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and yes, even Reddit. I am still operating an old-style online forum that shrank from tens of thousands of users to a dozen occ…

I always thought that Something Awful’s $10 paywall was pretty effective. If you’re an asshole and break the the rules, you’re out $10 and have to pay again. If you’re a big enough asshole, then you get permabanned. You’ll hear a lot of people complain about it and never register over the $10. I paid my $10 once almost 20 years ago and never got banned. That was the best $10 I have ever spent.

You're deeply confused if you think SA is/was not essentially defined by some of the most capriciously cruel people online. The founder just shot himself after leaving behind a wrecked family with multiple ex-wives, abandoned children, and DV convictions. FYAD, Helldump, etc. really define the spirit of SA, and it's also a precise counterexample to your argument about paywalls being a good thing.