Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 332 posts

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#171

Post by wool_gather »

Chathamization wrote: post #159
keithwhor wrote: post #4

Yes. Most of the content you watch on TV was written and acted by outliers. The products you use and consume were crafted, marketed and even distributed by outliers. First, when zoomed out, outliers in all possible tasks become more common — internet commenting is just a subset for silly folks like me. Secondly, the emergent human social fabric is built to recognize and amplify outspoken and / or talented outliers, v…

> First, when zoomed out, outliers in all possible tasks become more common Sure, but we should consider which outliers most internet discussions end up encouraging. They're going to encourage people with fewer family/community/social/hobby/work obligations, because the more of those obligations one has the less time one has for online discussions. It's going to encourage people who spend less time writing their comm…

Good points overall, but this:

> people with fewer family/community/social/hobby/work obligations, because the more of those obligations one has the less time one has for online discussions

seems like a bit of a category error. There are any number of stable online groups that should be considered under the rubric of "community/social" activities. People participating in them know and expect things of each other, just as they do in a face-to-face group.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#172

Post by pelagic_sky »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #160
gniv wrote: post #157

Most of the comments here are either elaborating on the OP, or justify lurking. I am a mostly-lurker myself, but I felt the need to comment here, since I was hoping to see the discussion go into a different direction. The OP uses the word "insane", not outlier. It's clickbaity, and used in jest, but I think it better captures a subtlety of this phenomenon: The prolific commenters are molding every discussion in their…

this argument does resonate. i started getting downvoted a lot. since then, i've become much more of a lurker and have remained logged-out. to me it's obvious, and necessarily the case, that the conversation happening is not representative of my views because i'm not sharing them. it's not worth it to me to contribute to the conversation, and get embroiled in an accidental dispute. my views are my own, and i don't ne…

I've gone from being an admin and owner of popular forums back in the early 2000's to just a lurker who 98% of the time will write a response but just delete it before it's posted because I don't need or want the hassle of an internet argument. I'm proud of even posting this. Maybe this is my one post for 2019. :)

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#173

Post by throwawaymath »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #169
throwawaymath wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is as much of a difference as you're saying. I agree most actors we see on TV and movies are outliers (even within the total population of actors). I don't agree they are consequently better than most other people at acting. I think they're marginally better, somewhat practiced, but really "into it" as a career. Likewise, I think you're underestimating how "good" someone is at a thing if they do i…

regarding actors, I actually disagree. Sometimes I will watch a movie made with second rate actors and they tend to be so much worse than first rate actors at acting, that often those movies are unwatchable.

Precisely. Those actors are still outliers, just as almost all reddit commenters are outliers. Outliers aren't defined by being good at their activity, they're defined by doing it sufficiently more than the rest of the population. That's why I said there isn't much of a difference between Wikipedia editors and actors as concerns their relative skill over the total population.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#174

Post by Phenomenit »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #102
incompatible wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Commitment" to a discussion is optional. It's perfectly reasonable to give your point of view, and come back a few days later to see if there were any interesting replies.

Depends on the forum. HN emphasises that, by not notifying users that they had replies. Reddit on the other hand colours your mailbox in red so you're aware of replies without actively seeking them. I don't know which foster the best quality discussions, but I feel the HN way is a bit impersonal.

Why is it set up like that on HN?

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#175

Post by whatshisface »

ratel wrote: post #165
whatshisface wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between outlier actors and outlier Wikipedia editors are that outlier actors are better than everyone else at acting, but outlier Wikipedia editors need only be superhumanly obsessive. It used to be that the way in which you were an outlier had to be somewhat related to being good at the task you were competing for the honor of completing, but on social networks the only qualification is that you spend…

I found myself instantly agreeing with your sentiment and then failing to explain it to myself. I think the problem is that being good at something is not related to that "good" as an outcome and appreciated by others as such. Let me try to explain with a bit of an overstatement: Most TV is crap, but year after year they keep making it. People making it cannot be good at it? Well actually they are. They found the swe…

Typically, it is considered a bad thing when success comes by exploiting the system instead of achieving the goals of the system. Politicians who are experts at nothing but gathering votes are a failure of the system when they do occur, because the government has a purpose. Another example would be corporate executives that don't know anything about running a business, but are experts are accumulating status. The "degenerate best reviewer" would be a bot that posts the letter "a" at absolute maximum speed.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#176

Post by cholmon »

gniv wrote: post #157

Most of the comments here are either elaborating on the OP, or justify lurking. I am a mostly-lurker myself, but I felt the need to comment here, since I was hoping to see the discussion go into a different direction. The OP uses the word "insane", not outlier. It's clickbaity, and used in jest, but I think it better captures a subtlety of this phenomenon: The prolific commenters are molding every discussion in their…

This parallels civic/political engagement in real life.

It's tough to get lurkers (like me) to speak up and shift the discussion when the emotional cost of doing so - arguing, being downvoted, getting defensive, being ridiculed - seems to make the effort simply not worthwhile for the individual. Not only on the web, but also in the office, at Thanksgiving dinner, at a cookout, etc.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#177

Post by steveklabnik »

sverige wrote: post #168
gniv wrote: post #157

Most of the comments here are either elaborating on the OP, or justify lurking. I am a mostly-lurker myself, but I felt the need to comment here, since I was hoping to see the discussion go into a different direction. The OP uses the word "insane", not outlier. It's clickbaity, and used in jest, but I think it better captures a subtlety of this phenomenon: The prolific commenters are molding every discussion in their…

> The prolific commenters are molding the discussion in their image. ... In any case, there is a lack of diversity in general -- discussions are driven by the worldview of a few. The most interesting point to me in TFA was the 99.8 - 0.2 - 0.0003 rate of lurkers, commenters, and prolific commenters. It's the 0.0003% who obsessively comment (or edit or play games or whatever) all day on anything and everything that I…

> that I don't understand.

One of the examples in the post, Ninja, reportedly earns $500,000 per month for that twelve hours a day of streaming. So.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#178

Post by kbuchanan »

gniv wrote: post #157

Most of the comments here are either elaborating on the OP, or justify lurking. I am a mostly-lurker myself, but I felt the need to comment here, since I was hoping to see the discussion go into a different direction. The OP uses the word "insane", not outlier. It's clickbaity, and used in jest, but I think it better captures a subtlety of this phenomenon: The prolific commenters are molding every discussion in their…

Another possibility is that diversity is simply represented by extremes; that individuals sitting on the polar sides of issues are shaping the conversation. In other words, it's the boring, moderate, stable, center who remains silent.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#179

Post by [deleted] »

pelagic_sky wrote: post #172
mr_spothawk wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this argument does resonate. i started getting downvoted a lot. since then, i've become much more of a lurker and have remained logged-out. to me it's obvious, and necessarily the case, that the conversation happening is not representative of my views because i'm not sharing them. it's not worth it to me to contribute to the conversation, and get embroiled in an accidental dispute. my views are my own, and i don't ne…

I've gone from being an admin and owner of popular forums back in the early 2000's to just a lurker who 98% of the time will write a response but just delete it before it's posted because I don't need or want the hassle of an internet argument. I'm proud of even posting this. Maybe this is my one post for 2019. :)

[deleted]

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#180

Post by vidarh »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #102
incompatible wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Commitment" to a discussion is optional. It's perfectly reasonable to give your point of view, and come back a few days later to see if there were any interesting replies.

Depends on the forum. HN emphasises that, by not notifying users that they had replies. Reddit on the other hand colours your mailbox in red so you're aware of replies without actively seeking them. I don't know which foster the best quality discussions, but I feel the HN way is a bit impersonal.

A trick I finally hit on for Reddit a couple of years ago was that when I start feeling a discussion does not feel fun or interesting anymore, I look away while I click on the inbox icon.

When I don't see the replies, they're easy to ignore.

At some point (I have no idea when), Reddit also added a "disable inbox replies" button to comments, so that you can prevent notifications on a comment by comment basis.

Post reply on HN