HN comments are underrated • Hacker News Board

Re: HN comments are underrated

#331

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 12:18 AM UTC

obstacle1 wrote: post #210

oldmanjay wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you see as "groupthink" is really your bias attempting to dismiss any number of people for disagreeing with you. I understand the point of your post, I just don't find that particular bias funny enough to let it pass uncommemted.

Or, it could actually be groupthink, and your bias is acting to prevent you from having to admit that a group you identify with expresses positions that are wrong. There's actually no way to prove that either case is true. However, you expressed a position as a certainty -- "what you see as groupthink is really..." -- that is in reality just another opinion. Therefore, your comment is equally as ill informed and myop…

[deleted]

Re: HN comments are underrated

#332

Post by spectrum1234 » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

This article and the (currently) highest rated comment with the Medium article is making me want to write more.

I've always considered a simple blog where I just write short commentary on articles I've read that I feel are incorrect or incomplete. One thing that has held me back is knowing I'm not a brilliant writer. However am going to try and keep in mind the great blog post by Paul Graham that stresses to always write in short sentences. Good luck me!

Re: HN comments are underrated

#333

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 1:11 AM UTC

tedmiston wrote: post #260

frik wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant the karma ratio (or what it was called) that was on the profil page, a percentage value as far as I remember - ...maybe dang can explain it?

Here are the comments he made in reference to removing average karma [1][2][3]: > dang 781 days ago > It's based on comment scores only. My sense is that it's an irrelevant distraction and we should get rid of it. > For example, we caught a bunch of users who were gaming it by deleting any comments that brought their average down. We fixed that by treating deleted comments as comments of score 0 for average-computing…

I'll add to this that statisticians taught me averages are actually meaningless when applied to individuals. The number is tied to a data set but that data set can be all over the place in terms of what it contains. You can't know where you're at relative to others in a data set just by comparing to an average. Unless it's the median where you know you're above or below the middle person without further data on what that means. Pretty useless.

From what I was taught, averages are mainly (or solely?) there to measure trends in sets of data. Basically, where it's collectively going over time. Applying it to individuals is meaningless. So, that feature should never exist unless you're intentionally exploiting psychology & common misinformation for personal gain. Example: showing players how they compare to an "average" so at least half of them think they're better than average and keep playing to get number higher. Another example: differentiating a software company with terrible defect rate by comparing it to the industry average, which is worse, in an industry full of shoddy software. The software looking good is still crap but "better than average." ;)

Re: HN comments are underrated

#334

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 2:07 AM UTC

lorenzhs wrote: post #224

qb45 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was more to it than missing support in Linux. These SSDs have two modes of operation: AHCI (supported by any OS) and proprietary (requiring special drivers). Lenovo chose to hide the corresponding menu in UEFI setup and hacked the firmware to revert changes made through UEFI variables so that the SSD was permanently stuck in proprietary RAID mode, at that time supported only by Lenovo's modified Windows 10. Ult…

I didn't argue that Lenovo did everything right - but there was no conspiracy. No secret deal with Microsoft. There were lazy decisions on Lenovo's side and missing driver support in Linux. But regardless of what the actual technical reasons where, when you look at that thread now, wouldn't you agree that many of the comments were sub-par and didn't meet the quality guidelines of HN?

I'm around a quarter through that thread which I missed previously cuz this dude bought an Ubuntu Dell that lasted 8 years. So, the situation seems to be they intentionally changed BIOS setting to not allow alternatives to their proprietary image or something like that. A lock-in technique in an industry that's had one after another exposed going back over a decade. So, what is going on the thread posits. Let me go through the top-ranked comments.

vanderZwan quotes a reference about companies that take away users' freedoms using proprietary extensions or changes that cripple or lock you into the product somehow. Biggest PC manufacturers do that when they can. Lenovo appears to. It fits. That subthread includes at least two good ones with the rest "blah."

Next is paulintrognon sayings they locked the thread. DanBC countered that. Quality of this subthread & that original got upvoted is best evidence of your position so far. Then SamBam references a history of shady inclusions while some others show alternative products for Linux. Remember some upvote a shoddy, top-level comment if it contains useful information.

Getting to your original point is deviate_X saying it doesn't have Linux drivers. dagaci points out Microsoft wouldn't block other MS products. Sounds good but subpoints win me over from a3n, the throwaway, and nowprovision. This is already probably the answer based on prior experience that showed up by 2nd top-level comment with some shoddy one-liners and such that are easy to skim since they likely greyed out quickly & rapid-fire, small responses are often flamewars.

You might be thinking, "Hold on! You agreed with what?!" Microsoft's riches started with monopolistic partnerships with OEM's that preloaded what they wanted on the system with ways to knockout competition. This evolved into big manufacturers preloading garbage for competitive advantage plus controlling images. Sold it as convenience and recovery. I got bit by that with HP when I got my first computer that had a recovery CD but not a Windows install and license (wth!?). With Vista, Microsoft convinced manufacturers to help it trick the public about the value of a huge, bloated OS with hardware upgrades that generated revenues for the manufacturer. That one backlashed with resulting Windows 7 being awesome. Then, they tried to push Windows 8 on people with a discount then try forced moves to Windows 10. The commenters indicate this Lenovo scheme forces a move to recent Windows as a side effect of its operation. That's exactly what Microsoft, who controls Windows licensing at OEM level, wants along with their prior preference they executed in many ways with corrupt OEM's cooperating.

So, that's my theory after just two high-level comments and skimming past some garbage ones in the sub-threads of the second one. Got to what I needed to know in minutes. Overall thread might be full of garbage comments with the eye rolling implications of that. However, if BIOS was changed & for an OEM image of latest Windows, then the voting scheme worked since I got to the likely scenario in just a minute or two. That's if those premises were true. If they're not, then the thread would be an example of something else entirely.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#335

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 2:14 AM UTC

GrinningFool wrote: post #174

hellofunk wrote: post #74

> comments are often gratuitously mean, and people will often defend gratuitously mean comments by claiming that it’s either impossible or inefficient to convey information without being mean. > Most of the negative things you hear about HN comments are true. I think it is interesting how the relatively anonymised nature of the internet has a similar effect on people of all stripes. HN readers, I believe, are among t…

I've found my negative tendencies curbed quickly when I started using my real name, or accounts directly linked to my real name (such as this one). For me, it just forces an extra second of thought - whatever I type next affects people's perception of me as a person. At first this was just in the form of considering my reply more, but over time it shifted to occurring as a part of reaching my initial conclusions.

I use my main account as "nickpsecurity" for the same reason. I've posted as "Nick P" in security field for a long time. It's close to my real name. I do controversial posts and generate plenty of material that could be used for smears but tying it to my real identity does filter out some foolish, reckless or smearing comments I might otherwise make with zero accountability.

So, I post everything here under that name or don't post it at all. The results have overall been positive with a very low amount of bad reactions in moderation or downvotes vs an aggressive throwaway I might create to write comments of dubious value.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#336

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

yanjuk wrote: post #193

pjc50 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silent ignorance is fine. It's the loudly wrong people that are the problem. Wrong comments take more effort to rebut than they do to post; get enough of them and the SNR drops too low, because often the rebuttal is also "noise" - most people don't need a comment reminding them that global warming exists, for example.

My assumption is that commenting has the effect of reducing ignorance, even where ignorant comments are plentiful i.e. silent ignorance is more deadly than mostly-ignorant noise. This is because the very act of writing a comment, be it laden with misconceptions, causes its author to think , at least a little. Also reading different points of view helps people to identify common misconceptions and to make up their min…

"My assumption is that commenting has the effect of reducing ignorance, even where ignorant comments are plentiful i.e. silent ignorance is more deadly than mostly-ignorant noise."

What little, empirical evidence we have on these things shows the opposite: misinformation spreads more rapidly with less likelihood of being countered than accurate information. Facebook and others have done studies to show that. It would probably take a bit of time to go into the components of that but people (a) make spot judgments more than they do solid research; (b) prefer stuff compatible with their existing beliefs; (c) get those beliefs from biased sources; and (d) often attack people more as accountability goes down. This combo, which oversimplifies things but captures quite a bit, will create and reinforce echo chambers quite naturally if it's both easy to comment and vote.

And we see it everywhere from HN to Reddit to political discussions about U.S. election. People presenting or voting in a balanced way giving disagreeing parties a chance are a tiny minority in overall discourse. Reputation and moderation systems should probably be designed with that as an assumption built-in.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#337

Post by grzm » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 2:46 AM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #336

yanjuk wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption is that commenting has the effect of reducing ignorance, even where ignorant comments are plentiful i.e. silent ignorance is more deadly than mostly-ignorant noise. This is because the very act of writing a comment, be it laden with misconceptions, causes its author to think , at least a little. Also reading different points of view helps people to identify common misconceptions and to make up their min…

"My assumption is that commenting has the effect of reducing ignorance, even where ignorant comments are plentiful i.e. silent ignorance is more deadly than mostly-ignorant noise." What little, empirical evidence we have on these things shows the opposite: misinformation spreads more rapidly with less likelihood of being countered than accurate information. Facebook and others have done studies to show that. It would…

"[M]isinformation spreads more rapidly with less likelihood of being countered than accurate information. Facebook and others have done studies to show that."

Ouch. As much as I'd like to imagine this isn't the case, my gut tells me it's true.

If you happen to have references to such studies at hand, would you mind providing them? If not, no big deal. I'm sure I can find them with a little searching.

"Reputation and moderation systems should probably be designed with that as an assumption built-in."

I agree. There are two pieces to this as well: (a) discouraging undesirable behavior and (b) encouraging desirable behavior. Reputation systems are harder to implement as well if you allow for anonymous behavior, which I think there is a place for. What does reputation mean if it's not something that sticks with an individual?

Re: HN comments are underrated

#338

Post by Camillo » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 2:47 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #255

I second Dan's advice of blogging more. I'm a very average HN commenter. I do put in effort in writing here, trying to be civil above all and sharing my experience where it could be of interest. But I'm not Alan Kay, I've never rewritten a distributed deep learning system in Haskell using a genetically optimized Paxos consensus protocol, and my entrepreneurial experience is a loose string of "don't do this" case stud…

I want to start blogging, but I'm concerned about giving control of my content to a third party. At the same time, I can't be bothered to register my own domain (mainly due to the herculean task of finding a decent name).

Re: HN comments are underrated

#339

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 3:00 AM UTC

grzm wrote: post #337

nickpsecurity wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My assumption is that commenting has the effect of reducing ignorance, even where ignorant comments are plentiful i.e. silent ignorance is more deadly than mostly-ignorant noise." What little, empirical evidence we have on these things shows the opposite: misinformation spreads more rapidly with less likelihood of being countered than accurate information. Facebook and others have done studies to show that. It would…

"[M]isinformation spreads more rapidly with less likelihood of being countered than accurate information. Facebook and others have done studies to show that." Ouch. As much as I'd like to imagine this isn't the case, my gut tells me it's true. If you happen to have references to such studies at hand, would you mind providing them? If not, no big deal. I'm sure I can find them with a little searching. "Reputation and…

Here is Facebook's that I still have from earlier conversation:

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/facebook-echo-chambers-...

Far as your Googling, cross-reference the words study or empirical with "echo chamber," "filter bubble," and "misinformation." That should get you best results.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#340

Post by grzm » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 3:02 AM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #339

grzm wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"[M]isinformation spreads more rapidly with less likelihood of being countered than accurate information. Facebook and others have done studies to show that." Ouch. As much as I'd like to imagine this isn't the case, my gut tells me it's true. If you happen to have references to such studies at hand, would you mind providing them? If not, no big deal. I'm sure I can find them with a little searching. "Reputation and…

Here is Facebook's that I still have from earlier conversation: http://www.iflscience.com/technology/facebook-echo-chambers-... Far as your Googling, cross-reference the words study or empirical with "echo chamber," "filter bubble," and "misinformation." That should get you best results.

Thanks!