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Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

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Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#81

Post by z3c0 »

testmasterflex wrote: post #63
CSMastermind wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This year one of my resolutions was to finally give up Reddit because I kept recognizing the site frustrating, annoying, or disappointing me. Whether intentional or not that seems to be the type of content generated there.

Download Apollo and unsubscribe from all mainstream subreddits + remove all and popular, is the key.

I did this myself, but it only kicked the can on my eventual leaving. Sure, niche subreddits are generally better in their content and discussions, but I still noticed that the same behaviors end up being rewarded. It's the format that's the problem, not the content, and that's the one thing shared by all subreddits.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#82

Post by college_physics »

This points to a more general problem with all online discussion forums: The signal to noise varies (and may on occasionally be zero) but in the end all the signal is lost / buried deep into some archive (like tears in rain if you want to be melodramatic about it).

Think about those millions of people, interacting for billions of hours online over almost two decades now. What is there to show for it at the end of the day? If even 1% of that exchange its somehow "valuable", it means there is a lost opportunity. And it will be kept thrown away in the future.

Wouldn't it be useful if we somehow could use technology to persist the "better" bits across this ever growing digital ocean? Something like wikipedia but autogenerated from diverse sources, with no claim to "truth", but rather a concise, searchable repository of whatever people are interested and are discussing online.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#83

Post by meken »

I find communities on discord and slack are good for this. I’m in a slack group where we have threads that last days. Occasionally I think of a related thing to a thread and post a new message there

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#84

Post by suddenclarity »

avemg wrote: post #67
1983054105 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rant: I was banned from Reddit once again yesterday (for the 100th time) because of my harassing behavior. The comment that caused this was about "daily Scrum meetings that were way too long in most companies." I'm dumbfounded about who would have reported this, and who confirmed that this was harassment. Reddit may be fine for very specific subs, but overall it's a real mess where power hungry mods have fun without…

As Raylan Givens once said: If you ran into an asshole in the morning, well, you ran into an asshole. Keep running into assholes all day, you're the asshole. I've been on reddit since before subreddits existed and I've never been banned. Now I'm sure you've had your run-ins with some unhinged mods now and then but to be banned 100 times, you should probably take an honest look at your own behavior.

The "100 times" aside, some subs actually have rules about posting facts and will bann you for it. For example antiwork will bann anyone talking slightly positive about companies, which includes correcting false information. If you're into politics (90% of /r/all nowadays), it doesn't require a lot in some subs.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#85

Post by mancerayder »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #73
mancerayder wrote: post #53

When I read some of the suggestions here in these comments, some of them exist already in Reddit. Now at the risk of getting downvoted, my experience is that Reddit is awful: spiteful posts, tons of short sentence replies that litter the eyes, circular meme-like self-referential wink-wink behavior (i.e. repeating the same joke with slight modification). There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex) but overal…

> There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex) I had to unsubscribe from that sub. In the past you could find some potentially interesting conversations with knowledgeable responses if you sifted through the noise. Lately, the general vibe has become uncomfortably welcoming of incel-adjacent topics or exploring weird alternative medicine ideas. The general vibe is that "normie" stuff is bad, contrarian takes…

>Everything is written in pseudo-intellectual style that makes it feel extra truthy, despite being recycled content from other domains.

I think I know what you mean about that sub and some slightly oddball 'aggrieved men' sort of pile-on conversations.

To your point here - that's one of the points I was making above, that I'm coming to realize (and perhaps there's a bit of looking in the mirror here) that good writing can cover up shoddy thinking. I've made a concerted effort to sometimes pause when I'm replying to something, and look things up to make sure what what I just said is true is actually true. Probably because I ran into smart people who questioned things here on HN.

One time I was replying to some sort of big article/thread in a real estate sub which touched upon housing affordability, the number of unregulated versus unregulated units in my city. I replied with a pretty neutral tone and linked the city's yearly datasheet in a PDF format which backed up what I said in terms of the breakdown of housing types in the city. There was a pie graph in the PDF document.

Well, I got downvoted to grey/invisible and there were a ton of replies in the style of "How arrogant that you think you're going to make us read THAT." I thought it was incredible how the people reacted.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#86

Post by digitallyfree »

This is a Reddit problem as well, even with notifications. In a regular forum posts that are replied to are automatically "bumped" to the top, thus a thread can go on for years. Whereas here even a popular discussion gets buried to the bottom after a day or two - for better or for worse.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#87

Post by MikeTheRocker »

mancerayder wrote: post #53

When I read some of the suggestions here in these comments, some of them exist already in Reddit. Now at the risk of getting downvoted, my experience is that Reddit is awful: spiteful posts, tons of short sentence replies that litter the eyes, circular meme-like self-referential wink-wink behavior (i.e. repeating the same joke with slight modification). There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex) but overal…

This perfectly captures my frustration with Reddit. I can't stand it these days. It's been eye opening to read about technical subjects on Reddit that I personally know a lot about only to see heaps of confidently spewed misinformation in the comments. Makes me question the validity of everything I read where I'm not very knowledgeable. I'm very grateful HN is a lot more thoughtful and open to questioning.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#88

Post by beckingz »

college_physics wrote: post #82

This points to a more general problem with all online discussion forums: The signal to noise varies (and may on occasionally be zero) but in the end all the signal is lost / buried deep into some archive (like tears in rain if you want to be melodramatic about it). Think about those millions of people, interacting for billions of hours online over almost two decades now. What is there to show for it at the end of the…

People use technology to manually curate the better bits into things called books, and sometimes implement them on physical biodegradable materials to serve as offline backup and as a low bandwidth distribution method.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#89

Post by Negitivefrags »

suddenclarity wrote: post #84
avemg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Raylan Givens once said: If you ran into an asshole in the morning, well, you ran into an asshole. Keep running into assholes all day, you're the asshole. I've been on reddit since before subreddits existed and I've never been banned. Now I'm sure you've had your run-ins with some unhinged mods now and then but to be banned 100 times, you should probably take an honest look at your own behavior.

The "100 times" aside, some subs actually have rules about posting facts and will bann you for it. For example antiwork will bann anyone talking slightly positive about companies, which includes correcting false information. If you're into politics (90% of /r/all nowadays), it doesn't require a lot in some subs.

One really has to wonder about the mindset of people who would enforce such a rule.

Do they really think they are a force for positive change?

Isn’t every other fictional story some parable about how the means don’t justify the ends? It feels weird to me that people don’t absorb that idea at some point.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#90

Post by sampo »

MatthiasPortzel wrote: post #70
mancerayder wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped at having to decide on a server and the specific content of them. Is there a recommendation for HN-like people? i.e. mixes of tech, economics, small doses of politics, etc. in response to articles?

The server you join only effects what website you go to interact with Mastodon, who stores your data, and what you're allowed to say. But from any mastodon instance, you can read content which is hosted on any other mastodon instance.

> The server you join only effects

The server you join effects who are the people who can ban you. Lately, mstdn.science has been banning scientists who have discussed the coronavirus lab leak theory.

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