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Quiet Hacker News

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Re: Quiet Hacker News

#41

Post by weberc2 »

ue_ wrote: post #37
DarkTree wrote: post #19

Yeah I can understand the motivation for creating this. When I first started browsing HN, I couldn't believe how supplemental, civil and noiseless the comments were. However, after several years, I've started to jump straight to the comments, especially when I have a vague clue about what the article is about. That's when I don't feel the incentive to actually read and create my own opinions. I've also started to vie…

I would love to agree that comments on HN can be substantive and civil, but the downvote power afforeded to 'elite' users is horrible, leaving a comment which is perhaps a little challenging to a charged view or commonly held belief is often simply downvoted without explanation, usually once but sometimes up to thrice. Downvoting on HN serves the ingenious function of signalling to others "This comment isn't worth re…

Reminds me of Churchill's quip on democracy: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

HN users will definitely downvote challenges to their deeply-held convictions, but so will any other community, and almost always more vigorously. I say this as the proud recipient of many such downvotes. :)

Re: Quiet Hacker News

#45

Post by ue_ »

weberc2 wrote: post #41
ue_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to agree that comments on HN can be substantive and civil, but the downvote power afforeded to 'elite' users is horrible, leaving a comment which is perhaps a little challenging to a charged view or commonly held belief is often simply downvoted without explanation, usually once but sometimes up to thrice. Downvoting on HN serves the ingenious function of signalling to others "This comment isn't worth re…

Reminds me of Churchill's quip on democracy: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." HN users will definitely downvote challenges to their deeply-held convictions, but so will any other community, and almost always more vigorously. I say this as the proud recipient of many such downvotes. :)

Some forums don't have downvotes at all, and I find that controversial discussion flourishes there. The moderators also are much more laid back than in HN; they enforce rules like spam and illegal content rather than the task the HN mods have tasked themselves with: preventing flamewar, even when good discussion and education results from it, i.e they see themselves as parents, acting in a preventative measure, we are the children. To further the analogy, there is literally an account flag that the HN mods can put onto your account[0] which puts you into a 'timeout', like sitting in the corner wearing the dunce hat.

This was done to me, such that if I post too quickly, I am banned from posting except for twice every two hours for a while. This, I believe, will stick with my account for as long as I have it - because I apparently post too fast, engage with too many people etc.

One gets the message: "You are posting too fast. Please slow down." Mother and father dang and sctb have told me off. I must therefore go to bed early.

I think it's also a fabulous bit of trickery pulled here - there aren't "rules" for HN, there are "guidelines"; this leads you to believe it is laid back, and being guidelines, they are not enforced. How wrongly one is misled! They are rules in evey sense of the word, as rules are differed from guidelines only in their enforcement. I know many places which say they have rules and enforce them less than HN enforces its "guidelines".

Slavoj Zizek made a point here I think is relevant - when the father tells his son "Visit your grandmother, for if you don't then I will punish you", the son is much more likely to rebel, to complain - he reacts against authority. But another father may say "Please see your grandmother, she is very sick and old, she misses you" -- the circumstance is the same, but the mode of violence used is different, and agruably much more powerful. Few sons can resist this kind of force.

[0] https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc#L15...

Re: Quiet Hacker News

#46

Post by krapp »

ue_ wrote: post #45
weberc2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Churchill's quip on democracy: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." HN users will definitely downvote challenges to their deeply-held convictions, but so will any other community, and almost always more vigorously. I say this as the proud recipient of many such downvotes. :)

Some forums don't have downvotes at all, and I find that controversial discussion flourishes there. The moderators also are much more laid back than in HN; they enforce rules like spam and illegal content rather than the task the HN mods have tasked themselves with: preventing flamewar, even when good discussion and education results from it, i.e they see themselves as parents, acting in a preventative measure, we ar…

But Hacker News just isn't that, and it doesn't want to be that. Sometimes you just have to do as the Romans do.

Re: Quiet Hacker News

#47

Post by jasonm23 »

kilceem wrote: post #24
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the background-colour. Every other link on reddit has a slightly darker background, which helps separate the links. HN doesn't have this, preferring to simply number the links as its way of differentiating

If one was so inclined one could make a custom css for HN. everyone has there quarks and can not make everyone happy.

You are triggering my OCD. It's my problem though.

Everyone has their strangeness and charm. Not sure they have quarks but I'm quirky like that.

Re: Quiet Hacker News

#48

Post by jessriedel »

krapp wrote: post #33
jessriedel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but I wish HN would experiment more with new technical tools to improve civility. For all its flaws, HN is still home to some of the very best discussion, and there's no reason to throw up one's hands. For instance, removing public vote counts seems to have been a net positive (although I mistakenly opposed it at the time). Even a small nudge to get people to vote based on constructiveness rather than agree/d…

I'm not certain there is a technical solution to incivility, or at least, I suspect that technical solutions can only go so far. Incivility is a social problem, and that requires community involvement and reinforcement of accepted norms, not attempts at operant conditioning through the UI.

Lots of incivility problems have been ameliorated by technical solutions in the past (up/down votes, flags, bans, etc.). I don't know why one would downplay attacking the remaining issue this way, especially since technical solutions are vastly more replicable and scalable. Indeed, internet incivility is a problem caused by technical difference from real-life interactions.

Re: Quiet Hacker News

#49

Post by ue_ »

krapp wrote: post #46
ue_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some forums don't have downvotes at all, and I find that controversial discussion flourishes there. The moderators also are much more laid back than in HN; they enforce rules like spam and illegal content rather than the task the HN mods have tasked themselves with: preventing flamewar, even when good discussion and education results from it, i.e they see themselves as parents, acting in a preventative measure, we ar…

But Hacker News just isn't that, and it doesn't want to be that. Sometimes you just have to do as the Romans do.

I'm sure HN wasn't a lot of things but has become them. For the majority (I'm guessing) of users, HN isn't a place you can downvote. Perhaps this experience of the website should be widened. I respect that I am on a different website, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't campaign for it to change.

Re: Quiet Hacker News

#50

Post by kup0 »

Can't you just use the regular HN site and avoid clicking the comments link? How hard is that? I do it daily and comment rarely. The only time I ever see HN comments is when I choose to see them.

Also if you want to avoid comments in general on the internet or on a per-site basis, install something like the ShutUp extension (which I use to remove comments on some areas of the web, such as YouTube)

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