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Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

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11–20 of 241 posts

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#12

Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative. http://gab.ai recently launched as a pro free-speech twitter alternative, I would also check them out.

> You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative

IMO, it doesn't matter if the platform leans left as long as it fosters constructive and open discussion. You're correct that a lot of the heavy handed moderation (censorship?) is on popular communities that trend left, but that's just a money related trend imo. Companies want to make their product a "safe" platform for investors

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#13
I'd say Reddit. There are some heavy moderated subreddits for insightful discussions, like reddit.com/r/truereddit. Because Reddit has a voting system like HN, quality content is being upvoted and shown as first.

If you search you can probably find some more subreddits with less general content. And HN is of course a really great website for such discussions, with a lot of highly intelligent people that post quite lenghty comments. HN is probably my favorite website when it comes to discussions.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#14

Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative. http://gab.ai recently launched as a pro free-speech twitter alternative, I would also check them out.

Maybe the world in general has a different definition of "center" than the US.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#16

Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative. http://gab.ai recently launched as a pro free-speech twitter alternative, I would also check them out.

> Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick.

Funny, I'd have considered them to lean right, since I'm left, and don't see myself represented in them either.

I'm sure there's a name for this sort of cognitive bias.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#17
I've been wondering: would it be practical to build a reddit/HN like system where the comments you see are by authors you've upvoted before, or authors they've upvoted before?

This way everyone can comment, and the low effort jokes etc. can still exist but you personally only see them if that's what you enjoy.

Currently we give every comment a single universal score. It's hard to come up with a simple set of rules that encourage useful participation long-term, but this system would highlight the insightful stuff through the noise.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#18

Almost all of the popular communities online lean left, take your pick. You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative. http://gab.ai recently launched as a pro free-speech twitter alternative, I would also check them out.

> You have much slimmer pickings if you're a conservative IMO, it doesn't matter if the platform leans left as long as it fosters constructive and open discussion. You're correct that a lot of the heavy handed moderation (censorship?) is on popular communities that trend left, but that's just a money related trend imo. Companies want to make their product a "safe" platform for investors

Throwing rights under the bus in the pursuit of money is now leftist?

I hope we have Karl Marx' corpse wired up to a generator.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you go for civil discussion on the Internet?

#19
I'm trying to create a private slack community for this actually. It's just a bunch of friends/trusted people who we know are smart, bring a new perspective etc and have good things to contribute. It's been slow going creating a community like that (high achieving, smart people who are usually too busy to participate - So far we're just 20 people with like 10 the most active) but I have hopes that some day it'll become good enough that I can open it up to the public.

Things we usually discuss (and we have at least 1 person who is more knowledgable/an insider so they can teach others and give context) - Tech, Economics, Geopolitics, Culture, Cinema, Photography, BioTech/Energy etc. The goal is _in depth_ discussions, not just water cooler commentary. But since it's friends, it also becomes your usual facebook chat replacement occasionally.

I know it's not the answer you're looking for (since it's actually private/friends and their friends etc for now) but just thought I'd mention this in the context. Trying to create and maintain a community has been an interesting experience so far. :)

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