Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study • Hacker News Board

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#171

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 6:03 AM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #124

eternalban wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" There is absolutely no social cost for downvoting without commenting. Adding costs and accountability: - force comment box on downvotes - deduct from karma - flagging only Is it important for HN's community to have a "psychologically safe" [1] at this point in time? I can not think of a more critical time for the "STEM" crowd to have a viable…

The idea of forcing a comment on downvote is an excellent one, and I for one would like to try that for a little while. (I say this as someone who tries to only downvotes for tone and trolling, never for disagreement.)

[deleted]

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#172

Post by _puk » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 6:04 AM UTC

elementalest wrote: post #163

eternalban wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" There is absolutely no social cost for downvoting without commenting. Adding costs and accountability: - force comment box on downvotes - deduct from karma - flagging only Is it important for HN's community to have a "psychologically safe" [1] at this point in time? I can not think of a more critical time for the "STEM" crowd to have a viable…

I like the idea of deducting karma for a downvote. However, forcing a comment on downvote, while perhaps leading to less downvotes, might also just lead to many more comments that are not thought out and simply put there in order to downvote. Maybe we need more nuanced voting options? While this could get a bit complex, such a system may function better. People could upvote a post as it is well written/thought out an…

Or simply force a comment if none already exist from a previous down voter. That way first one in has to give a reason for the downvote, which others can then +1 (or is it -1..)

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#173

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 6:06 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #154

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd encourage you to stop 'self-censoring'. What matters a few karma points, if you have something important to say? You'll find that often an initial knee-jerk downvoting can turn around half a day later, as more considerate users join the conversation.

I comment a lot less on HN than I used to, and a lot of that I think has to do with the change in the community, the tone, something like that. For me I don't care about internet points, but upvotes and downvotes affect how visible your comments end up being in a thread. It seems as though there's a lot less substantive discussion on HN than there used to be. The front page moves faster and people aren't interested i…

You and many others. There is an 'average life-span' of a contributor to HN and it is less than the age of the site. Commenting less is 'stage 2'.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#174

Post by known » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 6:43 AM UTC

Will NOT work against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#175

Post by lake99 » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 7:29 AM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #120

Taek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anonymity often brings relief to people who weight otherwise self-censor. 4chan is a really good example of this. Though it's got a terrible SNR, the peak signal is actually really high and sometimes you see really intelligent discussions about taboo topics like incest, furrydom, and racism. The anonymity allows people to state beliefs that simply wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else. Maybe HN should have an 'anonymo…

I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan, and am dismayed when I realize this is because anonymity allows us to be truthful without the baggage of reputation and consequences of controversy - which is how we make progress. We must never lose our ability to remain anonymous when necessary.

> I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan

Can you show me some examples? I tried browsing 4chan, but the site's navigation trips me up badly.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#176

Post by imron » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 7:40 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #167

imron wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the upvoter should remain karma neutral. That keeps a steady flow of karma currency entering the system, which is necessary when the primary mechanism for filtering and ranking interesting content is upvoting. If you penalise users for doing that, they'll do less of it, which will make the ranking/filtering less effective.

The writing of good comments and the submission of good links will already do that.

Not to nearly the same level.

Like any major site, I would guess the majority of HN readers do not comment, or only comment rarely.

Losing karma for upvoting means you need to comment if you want to upvote, and I suspect many readers will simply choose not to participate in either activity rather than try to maintain a positive karma balance.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#177

Post by elementalest » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 8:16 AM UTC

_puk wrote: post #172

elementalest wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of deducting karma for a downvote. However, forcing a comment on downvote, while perhaps leading to less downvotes, might also just lead to many more comments that are not thought out and simply put there in order to downvote. Maybe we need more nuanced voting options? While this could get a bit complex, such a system may function better. People could upvote a post as it is well written/thought out an…

Or simply force a comment if none already exist from a previous down voter. That way first one in has to give a reason for the downvote, which others can then +1 (or is it -1..)

That's a good point. The system could potentially be much more expressive with that approach, in that its not limited to simple categorical voting.

It will still have the problem that child comments of a downvoted comment will not get as much exposure. It also means that even if the comment was just unpopular (despite being well thought out) it will be downvoted after the first person posts a comment disagreeing.

Another approach could be to factor child karma when ranking comments. Though this gets significantly more complex as there are many edge cases where this will not work as intended.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#178

Post by mattlutze » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 9:21 AM UTC

p4wnc6 wrote: post #31

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd encourage you to stop 'self-censoring'. What matters a few karma points, if you have something important to say? You'll find that often an initial knee-jerk downvoting can turn around half a day later, as more considerate users join the conversation.

I disagree. I have sometimes faced reply comments that are quite unreasonable and at times meant solely as insult. It's very rare here, but still a risk. But what's far worse is that the moderation of Hacker News functions with very little transparency. Even just Googling for the moderator `dang` turns up a lot of angry rants on other blogs and in other sections of the internet, full of people who feel wronged by bla…

> And I'm speaking as someone with a lot of anti-authoritarian tendencies. I'm not shy at all about speaking my mind and I struggle with finding a way to feign respect for authority apparatuses that are not legitimate, like HN moderation. If I feel this apprehension and backlash, I can only imagine that more timid readers feel it to a much more damaging degree.

(I'm preemptively sorry if I end up delving into the realm of armchair psychology here)

Is it possible that, if you know you tend to look for authoritarian themes in the artifacts you interact with, that maybe part of your perception is the result of false positives magnified by the emotional impact of the administrative action?

There's always some subjective elements to imposing community rules as a moderator -- that's common in every community, ever. What would be less expected is malice in those actions.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#179

Post by progman » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 10:17 AM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

justsaysmthng wrote: post #27

HN is the most intelligent and open minded online community of this size that I know online. I have deep respect for you guys and girls and your opinions are always enlightening and thought provoking. I really feel much smarter because I have access to all these very valid points of view that you are surfacing. But even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" which leads me to go into this…

I'd encourage you to stop 'self-censoring'. What matters a few karma points, if you have something important to say? You'll find that often an initial knee-jerk downvoting can turn around half a day later, as more considerate users join the conversation.

Self-censoring is plainly wrong. You have a human right of free speech - use it!

I never care if people vote me down. I have been downvoted often. It's just a convenient way to censor unwelcome messages.

If people don't want to listen to you even when you have good arguments then the downvoters aren't worth your opinion. Their response however points out if they have something important to say which could question your point of view so that you can use it to advance your own view.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#180

Post by jcr » Tue, Mar 29, 2016, 12:09 PM UTC

Surveillance by a nation-state is troubling problem, but surveillance by the populace is an equally troubling problem.