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The silent majority in software

vadimkravcenko.com

11–20 of 371 posts

Re: The silent majority in software

#11
post #6

> Usually, the comments on HN/Reddit are polarised by a single group of people who have the same opinion, Can't speak for Reddit, but that's not at all the case here. For example, I often speak of my hatred of microservices here. I'll get some upvotes and agreement, some people telling me it's a dumb opinion, and some people telling me we're doing it wrong and explain their right way. Believe it or not, I learn a lot…

The phrase "HN/Reddit" is weird by itself. This place feels so different from Reddit.

Re: The silent majority in software

#13
post #9

also known as the "one percent rule" - 90% of people passively view content, 9% comment on content, 1% create (i've written on it here and how it does favor creators https://www.swyx.io/puwtpd#why-does-this-work-on-them )

I don't think that 10% comments, the numbers I remember are 10% votes and 1% comments. And looking at some random topics it seems to be roughly there, 10% comments is way too high.

Re: The silent majority in software

#15
I may belong to that silent majority. I have learnt a lot from the discussions here in HN and other sites, but I rarely participate on them. This post made me think about being a little more active because, sincerely, most of the times it is just laziness what prevents me from commenting anything.

In fact, this is my first comment here in HN. Little by little.

Re: The silent majority in software

#16
post #6

> Usually, the comments on HN/Reddit are polarised by a single group of people who have the same opinion, Can't speak for Reddit, but that's not at all the case here. For example, I often speak of my hatred of microservices here. I'll get some upvotes and agreement, some people telling me it's a dumb opinion, and some people telling me we're doing it wrong and explain their right way. Believe it or not, I learn a lot…

The phrase "HN/Reddit" is weird by itself. This place feels so different from Reddit.

HN is like what Reddit used to be. Heavy emphasis on news, technology. Usually some interesting debate in the comments when they were added.

Found some screenshots from the early years:

https://www.reddit.com/r/historyofreddit/comments/q1zks/redd...

Re: The silent majority in software

#17
> There also seems to be an assumption on HN/Reddit that vocal activity on the internet, in any form — be that videos, blogging, podcasts, etc. — is proportional to activity behind the screen.

Personally, I dislike this attitude. I think the internet is a good signal for what will be in the streets in 2-4 years time unabated. The attitude OP reflects is one that was valid in the 90s and early 2000s, but not today.

Re: The silent majority in software

#19
Mh I've never seen a developer who is not passionate about a few topics. Eventually he's not participating in online discussions, but I think the silent-mayority thinking assumption is plain wrong.

Without a good bunch of enthusiasm you cannot do this job well. Moreover without some strong opinions that you are able to voice you just are a puppet of pull request comments and cannot profile yourself in your team.

Re: The silent majority in software

#20
Can we flag/correct/remove the article?

I am reading this as someone a little too young and too European to yet know much about Nixon, but would prefer if HN could avoid potentially making an idiot out of myself, when talking about recent history.

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