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

281–290 of 332 posts

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

#281

Post by thiagotomei »

schrodinger wrote: post #245
username90 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a recent interview, Michelle Obama said... I always wondered why USA places so much focus on the Presidents wife? I'm not an American but I know more American leaders wives than I know spouses for all other country leaders together... Isn't that insane? I've never heard anyone talk about spouses of leaders in other countries. Do you know who Merkels husband is? Did you ever hear about David Cameron's wife? So wh…

That’s a really interesting point. It does seem that we’ve (the US) got a long tradition of the First Lady (and First Gentleman once the time comes) taking a big role in politics. At the risk of sounding ignorant, do most other countries require their president-equivalent to live in a government building? If not, perhaps that’s a contributing factor?

In Brazil, there is an official residence for the Pres. and their family, but they could choose to live in some other official building. Pres. Collor (1991--1992) lived in "Casa da Dinda", instead if "Palacio da Alvorada".

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

#282

Post by techwolf »

sigttou wrote: post #10

Am here for over 2 years now, rarely upvote something, haven't submitted anything and this is just my 2nd comment... Pretty sure this rule holds for close to all kind of forums.

I've been reading HN semi-regularly for over half a decade, but only created an account ~1.5 years ago and my first comment was last month. This is my second comment as well, and probably my 10th across all social media in the last year.

The topics on HN generally align with my interests and the quality of discourse here is fairly high, but I'm rarely willing to make the additional mental effort of participating. I prefer to research any points I make and back them up with data, and it's not worth my time to do so only to end up arguing with trolls or people who refuse to reconsider their position when presented with new information.

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

#285

Post by brightball »

naravara wrote: post #186
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…

>but outlier Wikipedia editors need only be superhumanly obsessive. Yup. The way the internet works is it privileges the perspectives and opinions of people who have an abundance of time to spend on the internet (either because their jobs are online or because they just have a lot of free time). So you wind up seeing the perspectives of bored office workers overrepresented and manual laborers underrepresented, you se…

I got bored one day and decided to spend an evening going through a full discourse with somebody who was using the gamified rhetoric, essentially making a counter point and dropping a link with a "study" that had a title and synopsis which sounded like it backed up his claim.

I sat down and read every...single...link.

What I discovered was that not only had he clearly not read anything he'd posted but that what is allowed to pass for a publishable study is borderline laughable.

After going through it and then realizing that several "prominent voices" on my assorted feeds use the exact same approach, it became apparent that these folks only goal was to keep a conversation thread going in order to amplify the headline reach of a post. Slightly more sophisticated spamming essentially. The only solution was to realize what was happening and refuse to engage.

Now the only conversations I'll have about topics online are a) off of Facebook and b) logical conversations that can be had without link bombing.

The more conversations I've been involved in, the more I've realized that if it seems like what's being said doesn't add up...there's usually a reason.

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

#287

Post by username90 »

airstrike wrote: post #251
username90 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a recent interview, Michelle Obama said... I always wondered why USA places so much focus on the Presidents wife? I'm not an American but I know more American leaders wives than I know spouses for all other country leaders together... Isn't that insane? I've never heard anyone talk about spouses of leaders in other countries. Do you know who Merkels husband is? Did you ever hear about David Cameron's wife? So wh…

She's in the spotlight because she's an amazingly accomplished person. A 54-year-old black woman from the South Side of Chicago who went to Princeton despite her high-school career advice telling her "she wasn't really Princeton material". It also helps that she wrote a #1 NY Times best-seller that everyone is talking about[0]. Maybe if you read it you will understand what makes her so special. –––––––––– ⁰ https://w…

I don't understand, what makes her more inspiring than these women?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Burns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Brewer

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

#288

Post by CM30 »

cableshaft wrote: post #196
IggleSniggle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a story like this, but I did the work (that was backed out) over a decade ago. The domain was not especially political (something related to history of music notation). It sticks with you because when you are already an expert in an area, and spend days contributing high quality content with good references only to have it vaporized without comment/reason, it is deeply demoralizing and creates long standing re…

Yep. I made an attempt to get into it over a decade ago, and it didn't help that I was heavy in the Flash game/animation scene and felt that was the best way to contribute. I say it didn't help, because so few of those pass the ridiculously restrictive 'Notability Test' of Wikipedia. The animation could have 50 million views and be known across the internet, but because no 'reputable news organization' wrote about it…

Wikipedia's notability rules are generally about ten/twenty years out of late, and seem to be designed on the assumption the internet doesn't exist. As you said, they often miss out notable works that aren't reviewed by what they class as 'mainstream' sources, and they also often end up failing to consider the amount of credibility someone may have in their own area of expertise.

For instance, in the gaming world, I often look at Serebii.net as a good example of where Wikipedia's credibility priorities are misplaced. To them, it being a fan site run pseudononymously makes it less credible/reputable than a publication like IGN or Vice or what not, but in the actual community/among those who know of the topic, it's actually the far more credible source. The owner has written in magazines, been quoted by popular media sources, used as a reference by those seen as more reputable, etc.

But Wikipedia doesn't think like this. To them, credibility equals being paid as part of a major publication, and it doesn't matter even if you're a distinguished professor writing on your blog or academic site otherwise. And this then hurts the niche topics you mention even more.

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

#290

Post by CM30 »

nathan_long wrote: post #117
jccalhoun wrote: post #104

Outliers write most of what we read, period. Our whole existence is outliers. Most people don't live in our town, don't do our job, don't live in our country, don't speak our language. The problem is we think our life is normal and everyone is like us when that isn't true.

It's true that most people aren't like me in many ways. But that's not what's meant by "outliers". To have an outlier, you have to have some way in which most people are alike. Eg, most people don't have $1 million in the bank. If all the financial advice you can read on the internet were written by millionaires, it might (eg) encourage risk-taking that isn't wise for average people. But you could get the impression…

To be honest, it sometimes does feel like millionares are overrepresented online, and that social media sites have a higher percentage of wealthy contributors than the general population. You see quite a few business advice stories by people who 'just happened' to get loaned $XX,000 by relatives to start up their business and going on Twitter/Instagram/YouTube/whatever will show you plenty of people who seemingly don't have to work a day in their life.
Post reply on HN