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

Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

blog.mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 347 posts

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#231

Post by danjayh »

protomikron wrote: post #220
danjayh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the typical stereotypes about conservative voters to be kind of amusing. I'm fairly young, and I have an BSCE, MSEE, and a very decent paying job doing tech work. I'm a libertarian and I vote conservative because they at least usually claim to want to reduce the size and power of the federal government. Based on what I've seen in the media about people who tend conservative, I don't exist ... that or I'm actua…

> [...] they at least usually claim to want to reduce the size and power of the federal government. Why do you assume that's inherently a good thing?

Most things that the federal government wants to do these days (healthcare, education, food assistance, etc.) can be done just as effectively at the state level (and possibly at the county or city level). In general, if things are done at lower levels of government, people in a particular area get more of what they do want and less of what they don't (for example Californians could have super-high taxes and single-payer, and Texans could have no income tax and a totally unregulated healthcare market). When you start pushing lots things up to the federal level, you get a group of voters on one end of the country forcing people on the other end of the country to do things in ways that they'd rather not do them. Therefore, everyone generally walks away happier if their local governments are left to do as many things as they reasonably can, the state governments take on the next layer of somewhat 'bigger' tasks, and the federal government sticks to things that only it can do - national defense, regulation of interstate commerce, issuance of currency, international treaties, etc. Most of the 'extra' stuff that the federal government does these days is done under a twisted interpretation of the interstate commerce clause, but wasn't actually intended to be the domain of the federal government by the founders, who had recently experienced similar problems in their relationship to England and wanted to avoid them within the USA. This is why the constitution is written the way it is.

EDIT: And if you're interested in learning about the constitution, I strongly recommend starting with Hillsdale College's free 'constitution minute' series ( https://constitutionminute.hillsdale.edu/home ), and if you like that, trying out their free 'constitution 101' series ( https://online.hillsdale.edu/course/con101/schedule )

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#232

Post by toweringgoat »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #57

Mozilla -- the organization that fired its CEO because it disagreed with a political donation he made in California -- lacks credibility when it talks about building an "open society".

Brendan himself says he resigned.

The company should've given more support given it was a ridiculous situation, but it's understandable why he'd resign given how much noise was being made.

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#233

Post by wavefunction »

danjayh wrote: post #231
protomikron wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] they at least usually claim to want to reduce the size and power of the federal government. Why do you assume that's inherently a good thing?

Most things that the federal government wants to do these days (healthcare, education, food assistance, etc.) can be done just as effectively at the state level (and possibly at the county or city level). In general, if things are done at lower levels of government, people in a particular area get more of what they do want and less of what they don't (for example Californians could have super-high taxes and single-pa…

Why aren't they already being done then?

Don't worry, it's more of a rhetorical question than one seeking an answer.

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#234

Post by cookiecaper »

CodeCube wrote: post #13
Yhippa wrote: post #11

I would love to see a big site try to use Slashdot's old commenting system. Commenting felt like a privilege and so did moderation.

Slashdot's commenting system was 100% an echo chamber ;)

Many people make the naive mistake of assuming that this isn't what people want. The truth is that most people, and especially your average reader who doesn't spend their time on online forums as a matter of routine, are distressed by dissenting opinions on important topics, and will reject platforms that thrust this upon them.

For example, I've posted a number of "controversial" comments on HN that were purely technical and resulted in substantial discussion of the intricacies of the solutions discussed. Because these comments condemn the listless tech-hipsterdom that many devs rely upon to feel valuable (and that many important companies subtly leverage), people complained to the mods, seeking protection of the echo chamber. Apparently some of these people were important enough that HN reacted by throttling my account, initially by claiming my posts were too "tedious" and later revising the rationale to the facially spurious explanation of "engages in flame wars".

I haven't flamed anyone, but now I can't participate much in active discussion threads, hitting a something like a 3-hour throttle at something like 5 comments within an hour. Because my voice was drowning the chorus of echoes a little too much for comfort, and this displeased people whose opinion HN values.

This craving for echoes of validation is why reddit can't shed its negative image. reddit's concept of a unified identity with "default subreddits" severely limits the site's appeal, because anyone whom doesn't find the front page appealing is going to leave. Since the front page frequently contains acerbic content that is either critical of a large section of the public or presented in a manner that is conventionally considered crude, hostile, or defamatory, many leave not only uninterested but actively offended. How would your mom react if she loaded up reddit.com and looked around?

This is why the big players like Facebook and Twitter start each user with a blank feed and suggest only the most generic initial follows (usually late-night talk hosts, reality TV stars, and sports figures), and proceed to give each user total control over what they see. People demand echo chambers.

It surprises me to see jedberg still confused about this after all these years.

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#235

Post by hacking_again »

brad0 wrote: post #230
52-6F-62 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they provide an avenue for topical and reasonable discourse, then yes. People (at least some people) tend toward the need for discourse to temper and test their ideas. I mean, you're commenting on HN.

What makes HN comments great that other comments systems don't have? It's the guidelines. By writing guidelines that promote useful discourse you allow everyone involved to learn more about their own biases and shortcomings. Every person that writes their opinion grows when reading the varied responses (as long as they're open to other people's perspectives).

The text-only interface with no 3rd-party ads plus the smart person cult of YC / PG contribute a lot.

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#236

Post by btgeekboy »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #106
jedberg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On Reddit, if the top comment is a joke, you need to wade through a million other jokes before you get to the next top level comment (which may be interesting) You can just collapse it. I agree with you that the categorization on Slashdot was nice, as was the metamoderating. But when I find myself on Slashdot these days, I find it impossible to follow a conversation with so many collapsed comments.

> You can just collapse it. Yeah, but I've usually swiped down and I don't know if its worth going back up to collapse it. Default sorting by category would be nice, push the funnies down and pull the interesting ones up.

Some subreddits have custom CSS that extends the collapse element to the height of the container. /r/overwatch is a good example; I wish that style was the default.

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#237

Post by intended »

>New comments and reactions update instantaneously

Killer feature - in that its going to kill the process.

This is chat. Or close enough to chat that its going to be used as chat.

Chat is terrible for comments. A flame war on chat escalates at the rate at which someone can hit enter.

like the wake of a ship, the comment area will expand, and defeat moderation ability to clean it up.

Flame wars are bad enough, flame wars on chat which persist like comments are a bad idea.

Make it update in non-real time.

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#238

Post by DougWebb »

danjayh wrote: post #231
protomikron wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] they at least usually claim to want to reduce the size and power of the federal government. Why do you assume that's inherently a good thing?

Most things that the federal government wants to do these days (healthcare, education, food assistance, etc.) can be done just as effectively at the state level (and possibly at the county or city level). In general, if things are done at lower levels of government, people in a particular area get more of what they do want and less of what they don't (for example Californians could have super-high taxes and single-pa…

This would be great, if the states had comparable resources and economies, like they (mostly) did when the country was founded. But it hasn't been like that for a very long time, and there are benefits to having the wealthier states help the less wealthy states get some of these things done. That's only going to happen through federal coercion, because states won't volunteer their resources otherwise. (Except for special situations; TX and FL would be getting assistance now from the whole country even if the federal government wasn't involved.)

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#239

Post by danjayh »

wavefunction wrote: post #233
danjayh wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most things that the federal government wants to do these days (healthcare, education, food assistance, etc.) can be done just as effectively at the state level (and possibly at the county or city level). In general, if things are done at lower levels of government, people in a particular area get more of what they do want and less of what they don't (for example Californians could have super-high taxes and single-pa…

Why aren't they already being done then? Don't worry, it's more of a rhetorical question than one seeking an answer.

I've got a few answers anyway, if you're interested:

1) The federal government sucks up all of the money -- see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal,_State,_and_Local... . And that chart only encompasses income tax -- the overall federal tax rate is closer to 20% GDP. The average person in the US already works until April 24 each year just to pay taxes (if you were to take your all of your taxes and pay them at the beginning of the year). Higher income earners already work well over half the year to pay taxes.

2) People only want these things if somebody else is paying for it. 'Free' healthcare and college tuition seem a lot less 'free' if your property tax (or rent, if your don't own -- landlords still have to pay tax, after all) and/or state income tax suddenly jump by a large percentage to cover it. People are usually very happy to spend somebody else's money (the battle cry is "the rich", but the reality is more like "our children's"), but not their own. Local and state governments have less borrowing capacity than the feds and don't control the currency, so it's harder to obscure the true cost of these things.

3) A lot of people don't actually want them. Although large population centers (which hold a lot of sway at the federal level) tend to favor these things, much of the USA geographically does not. Massachusetts, for instance, already had something very similar to Obamacare (in fact, large parts of Obamacare were based on Massachusetts' "Romneycare" law), but it would have been a cold day in hell before a state like North Dakota passed something like that.

Re: Washington Post integrates Talk – Mozilla’s open-source commenting platform

#240

Post by intended »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #5
tvanantwerp wrote: post #3

As a DC-area resident and frequent reader of the Washington Post, the biggest problem with their comments section is the commenters. I'm not sure how this helps.

> "I'm not sure how this helps." Better tools to filter out trolls leaves more space for healthy debate.

Whatever tool removes the troll will tomorrow remove the whistleblower.

People are running pell mell into this arms race and are stopping to imagine how their tools could be put to ill use.

The best option for moderation is trained man power.

Post reply on HN