Hacker News is a social echo chamber • Hacker News Board

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#51

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:32 PM UTC

tehwalrus wrote: post #23

makerops wrote: post #16

I tend to agree with the premise of the article, but found this line from a self described "big government" type, funny: We have always been at war with Eastasia.

big government != mind control. EDIT: to add, I thought that Orwell actually wrote an essay called "I am on the left" although I can't now find it. He was definitely not right wing - he was just very critical of communism as a supposedly left wing system.

Orwell participated in the Spanish Civil War, which had two "left" sides (anarchist-syndicalist versus communist) versus the "right" (monarchist-fascist).

Within the Communist side, there were further factions (NKVD:Stalinist, POUM:other Marxist). Orwell joined POUM. As a result, he was condemned by Stalinists and had to flee back to England. He spent much of his career warning against Stalinism, from a position on what might be called the social democrat left.

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#52

Post by elp1stolero » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

A wise man once said,

"Seeking clarity is more valuable than agreement."

That changed the way I think about writing, and sharing my opinions or discussing other people's ideas. If you go into a disagreement looking to better understand what led the other party to their beliefs, you typically have a more mature and interesting discussion. Plus, why someone believes something I completely disagree with is more interesting than the what, anyway. It is likely in the end that you both may agree to disagree, (a lost art in this age), but at least you can converse respectfully about complex ideas like adults.

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#53

Post by angersock » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

DougWebb wrote: post #37

I'm curious how many people who have the ability to upvote or flag stories actually do so. For my part, I'm very conservative: - I never flag stories; I may not find a story interesting, but I don't feel it's appropriate to impose my interests on others or 'police' their discussions. - I rarely upvote stories, mostly because I'm usually browsing stories that are already on the front-page. Occasionally I skim through…

My heuristics go as follows:

- I flag stories only if they're poorly-written and completely unrelated to tech, or if they are opinion pieces that fail to back up their assertions (two or three short paragraphs)--in those cases I'll try to comment on why I flagged it.

- I upvote stories if they're technically interesting or socially relevant; I try to make a pass through the new section at least once every day.

- I upvote comments that are thoughtful or witty but on-topic, and downvote comments that are poorly written, severely off-topic, or mean in a non-clever way (dumb trolls).

The practice of downvoting because you don't agree with something is tricky--it makes sense (I can more easily pick out comments that probably run counter to the community and thus have better entropy) but also is kind of detrimental, because it conflates "This is a bad, poorly-worded off-topic comment" with "This is a comment I find disagreeable".

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#54

Post by danielweber » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

mjg59 wrote: post #10

the_watcher wrote: post #4

Flamewars != disagreements. Discouraging flamewars (namecalling, counterproductive arguing that devolves into ad hominem and unrelated attacks) doesn't mean it kills stories that generate disagreement and discussion. I've had many a disagreement in HN threads, been convinced that my original stance was wrong, and (I believe) convinced others that their original stance was wrong (or incomplete, or to change something…

Reasoned disagreement is obviously easier to deal with than emotional attacks, but topics that incite emotional responses are arguably the most important ones to keep visible - they expose the most contentious points of disagreement in a community. It's certainly true that these angry discussions contain little of value in themselves, but the fact that they exist is valuable. A better compromise would be to limit fur…

You can debate about emotional topics, but you need a really active group of moderators. HN's moderators, for good or for ill, seem completely invisible, except when someone is quietly struck by lightning and is hellbanned.

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#55

Post by VLM » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

llamataboot wrote: post #42

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #5

Stories that discuss the difficulties faced by minorities in our field are summarily disappeared. Really? I've tended to notice the opposite: new ones are constantly appearing, they get lots of comments, inspire heated debates and most sentiments are sympathetic, sometimes to an almost unhealthy and postmodern degree.

These stories regularly appear, get upvoted, inspire lots of discussion, then get flagged and disappeared within the hour. It's almost as if the people /visiting/ this site want to talk about these things but the people /running/ the site don't. Also, many of us have no problems with postmodernity and consider ourselves part of the political left. Which is fine, programming and god forbid "startup culture" should not…

"inspire lots of discussion"

inspire lots of repeated, rehashed discussion.

Hey you probably don't know this, but some guys working in sausagefest industry segments, like IT, exhibit uncivilized behavior around women, and I theorize acting like apes doesn't exactly encourage ladies to help us fix the sausagefest problem, bet you never heard about that story before! However, story 234243 on that topic adds nothing so it gets flagged. Aside from adding nothing new, its often of the anecdote - generalization anti-pattern which also adds little to the conversation. "Once, postgresql didn't work, therefore it always universally sucks for everyone and all applications". Eh, flush it.

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#56

Post by jiggy2011 » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:35 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #12

jiggy2011 wrote: post #3

Is there any online discussion place that isn't to some degree an echo chamber?

Communities with good moderation, yes. Something Awful and certain subreddits for example.

Which subreddits in particular?

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#57

Post by danielweber » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:35 PM UTC

DougWebb wrote: post #37

I'm curious how many people who have the ability to upvote or flag stories actually do so. For my part, I'm very conservative: - I never flag stories; I may not find a story interesting, but I don't feel it's appropriate to impose my interests on others or 'police' their discussions. - I rarely upvote stories, mostly because I'm usually browsing stories that are already on the front-page. Occasionally I skim through…

I heard about a guy getting hellbanned for flagging all but one of the "Steve Jobs is dead" stories on the day Steve Jobs died. Each time my finger hovers over the "flag" button I wonder ". . . is this really worth the hassle?" Then I close the tab and go off somewhere else.

(I've flagged probably 10 things total.)

EDIT: jlgreco corrects me. The guy I was thinking of was flag-banned, not hell-banned.

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#58

Post by tehwalrus » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:37 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #51

tehwalrus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

big government != mind control. EDIT: to add, I thought that Orwell actually wrote an essay called "I am on the left" although I can't now find it. He was definitely not right wing - he was just very critical of communism as a supposedly left wing system.

Orwell participated in the Spanish Civil War, which had two "left" sides (anarchist-syndicalist versus communist) versus the "right" (monarchist-fascist). Within the Communist side, there were further factions (NKVD:Stalinist, POUM:other Marxist). Orwell joined POUM. As a result, he was condemned by Stalinists and had to flee back to England. He spent much of his career warning against Stalinism, from a position on w…

I knew that the British communists (funded by Moscow) refused to give him a journalist visa for Spain, because he wouldn't promise to write whatever they told him to. His writing on Barcelona 1936 is very good, and I visited "Orwell Street"[1] there recently.

[1] It's obviously not called that, and it may be a square not a street, but I remember the street sign. :)

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#59

Post by MichaelAza » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:37 PM UTC

"There are no social problems in the technology industry. We have always been at war with Eastasia."

Boy oh boy, I sure love me some Orwell references.

Referencing 1984 should be on par with referencing Hitler. It's just a lazy debate tactic. If you have a good point you can make it without resorting to these much-too-often used references.

Orwell himself went against it his essay "Politics and the English Language". Read it. It'll do you good.

Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber

#60

Post by mattmaroon » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 3:37 PM UTC

Hacker News was a social echo chamber long before there was flagging or flamewar detection. I think it's just an inherent law in any small, passionate community.