I just got my quora account demoted to read-only for not using a real name .. wtf
Requiring login to view is their biggest problem. Requiring real names is their second problem.
This is just making things worse.
This is a bit f'd, Quora
171–180 of 240 posts
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#172So far I counted 10 fuck/ings and one nazi calling in this discussion. Please guys, I come here for a civil discussion and not some ragefest.
stfu
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#173So far I counted 10 fuck/ings and one nazi calling in this discussion. Please guys, I come here for a civil discussion and not some ragefest.
your username is stfu.
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
You haven't said anything concrete enough to attack. Just a bunch of stuff about "the telling of the truth", whatever that's supposed to mean. I hold that when you consider both subject matter and the community together, there are things which should not be discussed and analyzed. The reddit thread in question is an example. The community clearly demonstrated it was not equipped with the tools to handle that discussi…
Are you saying you can't comprehend what I was trying to mean? Your second paragraph is exactly the attitude that I despise. I don't care what your intent is: the effect is you want to hide what people really think. There are no tools to handle that discussion. And that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. And that means we'll find the tools for it. Clueless. edit: I feel like I'm in the midst of the argument that HN do…
So, I suppose you would describe yourself as being absolutely in favor of unrestricted free speech. Nothing is off-limits. All shall be discussed.
Now, what happens when you mix this attitude with a self-moderating system? There will be no moderation at all. Every and any topic is able to be discussed by anyone. The fringe opinions mobilize and are given a powerful soapbox, and so horrible becomes the new normal. You can see this in nearly every thread on reddit dealing with sexism and (especially) race relations.
You can't say that the average internet citizen, wandering into any of the sickeningly racist discussions found weekly on r/videos, won't see the hundreds of upvotes on vile opinions without also seeing an illusion of consensus, the normalization of disgusting prejudice. And you can't say that won't have an effect on their thought process next time they interact with a person of colour. That is the price paid for unrestricted discussion of the worst crap people can dedicate themselves to typing on the internet.
That was just a particularly salient example. Everywhere else you see normalization of mysogyny, normalization of pedophilia (seriously, nearly any discussion of gymnasts during the olympics was disgusting). All this on a website with tens of millions of users, claiming itself as the front page of the internet.
You go on to say reddit has self-examination. Reddit is not a single organism; the self-examination you refer to comprises many disgusted users, yelling at the people spouting crap who carry along regardless. "Self-examination" in this fashion is not a substitute for actual moderation. SRS has started linking to the odd HN comment, by the way.
The crux is that tolerating and analyzing horrible opinions only serves to normalize them. There are some ideas that quite simply don't deserve to see a soapbox. You'll probably play the slippery slope card here. I don't care. We have many excellent moral frameworks with which to analyze ideas, and they are more than adequate for sorting out the grey area of what should and should not be allowed.
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#175The forced login stuff really enraged me. This is the rant I posted to Quora on the topic in hopes of getting them to change their minds: For a long time I've been meaning to write personal stuff about my mom's death last year from a brain tumor. The question "Death and Dying: What does it feels like when doctor says you'll just live X days / months?" popped up in my feed. So I answered it. In detail. Crying as I wen…
Quora was founded by facebookers. People who actually have the worst fucking view online about what should be private and what should be public. People who have no digital-cultural compass because the only reference point they have is from working at Facebook, thus they think that "this is how it was thought of and done at Facebook - and Facebook is the most overly hyped company in history, so I must be a fucking gen…
I get your perspective, but I think Facebook is basically correct in the long term. Privacy is basically a historical accident belonging to the few hundred years in the west where transportation tech got ahead of information technology.
An excellent read on the topic is David Brin's "The Transparent Hand". He basically makes the argument that we face one of two futures: either all of us know everybody's business or a small elite controls the flow of information. Basically, our choice is a surveillance democracy vs a surveillance state.
I think he's right that there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle. That's not to say that Quora's moves aren't fucking annoying, but I do think just refusing to participate won't make a long-term difference in how things turn out.
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#176The new "social" web is really creepy . Browsing in an incognito browser and logged into nothing has sortof become my default. I don't want google chrome saving my search history, or to accidentally read an article on some news website that then broadcasts that fact to all of my facebook friends.
Blhack, I ran across this comment of yours - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377315 - and certainly appreciate your privacy concerns. A healthy private life is undoubtedly everyone's personal choice. At the same time, HackerNews is YCombinator's tech blog, and highly visible. Frankly, your opinion comes off as somewhat paranoid. It's not that it isn't justified, I'm not saying that one way or another, but I woul…
I tip my hat. The passive-aggressive corporate speak that commits to nothing while cutting a throat is a master work.
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#177I can't help bit feel vindicated by moves like this because they're a sign that Quora isn't the Next Big Thing that many inside the bubble that is Silicon Valley seemed to think it is (eg [1]). Actually Quora is better than that (for me) in that it's a double hit on the hype on both Q&A and social. These kinds of moves: - requiring login to view content; - partially obscuring content on Google results to maximize sig…
I just created a bookmarklet to kill the shitty login form of Quora and keep reading it without logging into it: http://jsfiddle.net/PUyAQ/6/embedded/result/
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know well of the niche communities in reddit. I frequent most of them to hide myself from the default subs. However, the same problems still exist. For instance, I enjoy the show Adventure Time , so I subscribed to the /r/adventuretime subreddit. It was fine for a while, but then a submission popped up on my front page. It was a photograph of a group of kids cosplaying as Adventure Time characters at a local conven…
If people acting like jerks offends you that much, you are going to have a bad time on the internet. Although if you know of anywhere besides HN that is mostly reasonable, please PM me :) nitpick: just as you are offended by rude comments, I am offended by advocating violence as a response to rudeness. I don't think you were serious, but I have to say there's nothing you can say or write that actually warrants a punc…
> Although if you know of anywhere besides HN that is mostly reasonable
Quora.
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you saying you can't comprehend what I was trying to mean? Your second paragraph is exactly the attitude that I despise. I don't care what your intent is: the effect is you want to hide what people really think. There are no tools to handle that discussion. And that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. And that means we'll find the tools for it. Clueless. edit: I feel like I'm in the midst of the argument that HN do…
So, I suppose you would describe yourself as being absolutely in favor of unrestricted free speech. Nothing is off-limits. All shall be discussed. Now, what happens when you mix this attitude with a self-moderating system? There will be no moderation at all. Every and any topic is able to be discussed by anyone. The fringe opinions mobilize and are given a powerful soapbox, and so horrible becomes the new normal. You…
>So, I suppose you would describe yourself as being absolutely in favor of unrestricted free speech. Nothing is off-limits. All shall be discussed.
Yup.
>Now, what happens when you mix this attitude with a self-moderating system?
/r/AskScience
You can't make horrible opinions less horrible by making them invisible.
Re: This is a bit f'd, Quora
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much, much better support on Ask Metafilter. You have to pay a whole $5 for eternal access, but that's apparently enough to reduce the level of trolls by 9000%.
You lose something when you cross that wall.
Money?
Metafilter seems particularly relevant in light of Quora and App.net, and while the price tag has kept it obscure I've only heard good things about its community. So I'm curious what criticisms you have.