Commenting on Hacker News(superbowl.substack.com)
superbowl.substack.com
Commenting on Hacker News
https://superbowl.substack.com/p/commenting-on-hacker-news
119 comments
Just post about whatever gripes have with Google in one of weekly "Google Bad" threads.
#upvotes !~ effort put into comment
either you were one of the first to comment, said something really flame-baity, or were just lucky. most of my high-effort comments fell flat, while I get a +160 from a lucky two sentences.
either you were one of the first to comment, said something really flame-baity, or were just lucky. most of my high-effort comments fell flat, while I get a +160 from a lucky two sentences.
#upvotes !~ effort put into comment
Absolutely true in the strictest sense. I've posted very detailed, well researched, citation filled comments in response to questions from people, and gotten absolutely zero upvotes before. OTOH, I've posted borderline flamebait comments that consisted of something like "Fuck the NSA" or whatever, and gotten hundreds of upvotes.
That said, I think that on balance higher quality / higher effort posts are more likely to garner upvotes. But it's definitely not a deterministic, linear correlation at all.
Absolutely true in the strictest sense. I've posted very detailed, well researched, citation filled comments in response to questions from people, and gotten absolutely zero upvotes before. OTOH, I've posted borderline flamebait comments that consisted of something like "Fuck the NSA" or whatever, and gotten hundreds of upvotes.
That said, I think that on balance higher quality / higher effort posts are more likely to garner upvotes. But it's definitely not a deterministic, linear correlation at all.
HN has many problems and groupthink like all online communities, but one thing that sets it apart is higher quality effort posts are actually rewarded here because people still are generally curious. It's not deterministic as you said, but there is a correlation. On every other platform save some (some) subreddits, effort posts are anti-correlated with karma. So on net HN is better.
Is it the Lyceum, the height of learned, reasoned debate and intellectual curiosity? No, HN is definitely not an ideal but it is certainly better, on net compared with the alternatives, not that the alternatives are harsh competition.
Is it the Lyceum, the height of learned, reasoned debate and intellectual curiosity? No, HN is definitely not an ideal but it is certainly better, on net compared with the alternatives, not that the alternatives are harsh competition.
effort put into comment !~ value of comment to others
It should be noted that the author's maximially downvoted comment was one that didn't make any sense[1] so it does give another tip on what not to do.
[1] Serving web sites off of a blockchain somehow.
[1] Serving web sites off of a blockchain somehow.
> but getting one to front page does give you a lot of karma too, apparently.
Don't overestimate that effect. I'd say a hundred or maybe two hundred is realistic, but quite often a front page submission only nets you a dozen.
Of course there are outliers in the other direction, but 500 or more is a rare event. You need to keep in mind that karma is discounted, a story that displays n upvotes will add << n points to your account.
Don't overestimate that effect. I'd say a hundred or maybe two hundred is realistic, but quite often a front page submission only nets you a dozen.
Of course there are outliers in the other direction, but 500 or more is a rare event. You need to keep in mind that karma is discounted, a story that displays n upvotes will add << n points to your account.
> Choosing to post anonymously, rather than using my real name, made things much easier. I’ve occasionally commented under my real name, and am embarrassed looking back at my post history. There’s nothing terrible, but I’m sure some of my colleagues and friends have stumbled upon it and smirked. This might be projection or paranoia, but it causes enough anxiety to deter me from posting regularly.
One thing that pseudonymity will do is allow you support positions you don't actually hold. To steel man them. To really stretch your brain to find the best way to present and argue in favor of them. Doing so pseudonymously means never having to explain yourself to friends, family, employers, or three-letter organizations later.
This also works really well for positions you're leaning toward but don't know why. Or half-baked ideas you'd like someone to respond to. Or just questions that you're embarrassed to ask.
This may not fit with the letter of the HN guidelines, depending on the distinctions between "throwaway," "pseudonym," and "temporary pseudonym":
> Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
But I think it fits with the spirit. From "What to Post?":
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
One thing that pseudonymity will do is allow you support positions you don't actually hold. To steel man them. To really stretch your brain to find the best way to present and argue in favor of them. Doing so pseudonymously means never having to explain yourself to friends, family, employers, or three-letter organizations later.
This also works really well for positions you're leaning toward but don't know why. Or half-baked ideas you'd like someone to respond to. Or just questions that you're embarrassed to ask.
This may not fit with the letter of the HN guidelines, depending on the distinctions between "throwaway," "pseudonym," and "temporary pseudonym":
> Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
But I think it fits with the spirit. From "What to Post?":
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> One thing that pseudonymity will do is allow you support positions you don't actually hold. To steel man them. To really stretch your brain to find the best way to present and argue in favor of them. Doing so pseudonymously means never having to explain yourself to friends, family, employers, or three-letter organizations later.
Anonymous posts also allow honesty which might otherwise be impossible. Job safety, physical safety, and protection against embarrassment etc are potentially easier when anonymous.
I have a generally pessimistic outlook but do see a positive here.
Anonymous posts also allow honesty which might otherwise be impossible. Job safety, physical safety, and protection against embarrassment etc are potentially easier when anonymous.
I have a generally pessimistic outlook but do see a positive here.
Indeed! I would never discuss my micro-penis and erectile dysfunction without using a throwaway account like this one.
EDIT: oops
EDIT: oops
As a relatively new commer to HN, i can say overall I agree.
I signed up here because i was fedup with reddit,
I am just fed up with all the politics, Thr extreme US focus and the reddit culture. It began affecting my life, and I wasn't happy about it.
For example I knew more about the US than I should, and the constant negative "the world is ending" news from the US media were very negative.
I still use reddit, its a very good platform if used correctly(only for niches), subreddits like r/selfhosting, r/homelab and others are a goldmine of good discussions and valuable info.
But i stopped following trending or any general/humor subs, and decided to focus more on Tech, and replace US stations with world wide news , because generally all they do is doom and gloom, and us vs them.
I realize the bias of US focused news is obviously coming from the English language, but it helps to diversify, and when possible use sources in another language.
My experience mimcks OP, its a very rich and detailed platform about tech, and I think its like this because of the webiste design, and the things you have to care about to know HN.
The moderation on HN is mostly pretty good, and I think it certainly helps that the mods are also HN users.
I had my fair share of down votes, particularly about The Occupation in Palestine, but it was expected and I stand by my comments.
I signed up as an anon, because its easier to post things that truthfully represent you without being worried about how it might affect your job 10 years later, and what the new trends might be that far in the future.
I have a real name account, but its not as successful as this one, because I'm not really ready to comment on everything, also I really got lucky with that Proton post :).
Also one note, I really wouldn't be able to use HN without the Awesome app called Glider, its an open source HN client on Android, and its really really good, especially for someone coming from infinity for reddit.
Its has bugs, but in general its pretty good.
I signed up here because i was fedup with reddit,
I am just fed up with all the politics, Thr extreme US focus and the reddit culture. It began affecting my life, and I wasn't happy about it.
For example I knew more about the US than I should, and the constant negative "the world is ending" news from the US media were very negative.
I still use reddit, its a very good platform if used correctly(only for niches), subreddits like r/selfhosting, r/homelab and others are a goldmine of good discussions and valuable info.
But i stopped following trending or any general/humor subs, and decided to focus more on Tech, and replace US stations with world wide news , because generally all they do is doom and gloom, and us vs them.
I realize the bias of US focused news is obviously coming from the English language, but it helps to diversify, and when possible use sources in another language.
My experience mimcks OP, its a very rich and detailed platform about tech, and I think its like this because of the webiste design, and the things you have to care about to know HN.
The moderation on HN is mostly pretty good, and I think it certainly helps that the mods are also HN users.
I had my fair share of down votes, particularly about The Occupation in Palestine, but it was expected and I stand by my comments.
I signed up as an anon, because its easier to post things that truthfully represent you without being worried about how it might affect your job 10 years later, and what the new trends might be that far in the future.
I have a real name account, but its not as successful as this one, because I'm not really ready to comment on everything, also I really got lucky with that Proton post :).
Also one note, I really wouldn't be able to use HN without the Awesome app called Glider, its an open source HN client on Android, and its really really good, especially for someone coming from infinity for reddit.
Its has bugs, but in general its pretty good.
In the last year, I have joined https://lobste.rs which is relatively low-volume, but tends towards high quality. It is entirely tech / programming focused, and politics and such are not allowed. It is an invite-only membership, so you have to know someone who will extend to you an invite. Since their account is listed as the sponsor for your own account (forever), your reputation will affect your sponsor's. Not automatically, but if the site admins see a particular person inviting a bunch of yaboos, there will be some kind of consequences.
I too mostly don't use reddit for the mainstream subs, but instead of niche stuff like /r/RISCV and /r/rust.
I too mostly don't use reddit for the mainstream subs, but instead of niche stuff like /r/RISCV and /r/rust.
I don't think you can really compare HN to Reddit and Twitter, because HN has essentially one experience for everyone (or at most two experiences for everyone, if you count /newest as a separate experience, which the article discusses), whereas Reddit and Twitter are what you make of them, especially Twitter. You decide which subreddits to read, you decide which Twitter accounts to follow (and whether to use Latest Tweets or "Home"). The Reddit or Twitter experience for one individual can be entirely different than for another individual.
It's all too easy to take the worst parts of Reddit or Twitter and claim HN is better, but Reddit and Twitter have a lot more self-curation than HN.
It's all too easy to take the worst parts of Reddit or Twitter and claim HN is better, but Reddit and Twitter have a lot more self-curation than HN.
> ... or at most two experiences for everyone ...
Or three or four, if you count the people who have been shadowbanned, and the people who enable viewing from shadowbanned accounts. But those two groups seem to be in the minority.
I do like the approach https://lobste.rs takes, where there aren't separate subreddits, but instead just tags for various articles. You can then browse by tags, or inversely, exclude them from the home page.
Or three or four, if you count the people who have been shadowbanned, and the people who enable viewing from shadowbanned accounts. But those two groups seem to be in the minority.
I do like the approach https://lobste.rs takes, where there aren't separate subreddits, but instead just tags for various articles. You can then browse by tags, or inversely, exclude them from the home page.
New karma farming stratagem: post original content about HN
Super happy to see all the discussion in here! Will hopefully have time to reply later
Super happy to see all the discussion in here! Will hopefully have time to reply later
Complaining about Electron is probably a faster approach
People with over 501 karma. Please down vote the shit out of this post and wreck this guy's karma (hopefully that's how it works ...). Fuck karma, and Fuck karma farmers.
The best way to game HN is just be "nice guy", go along with everyone and only say nice things. For example, you can create a comment to this post that HN is just great, thank dang for his hard work and watch karma pouring in. If you are contrarian, you will soon be at the bottom of the page greyed out.
> nuanced comments, or comments that defend both sides of an argument, tend to get ignored or downvoted. Which is sad, but makes sense—the supporters of either side are the ones who care enough to interact, and they’re not going to signal-boost the opposition.
I actually don't think this is entirely true. I definitely sometimes see people using downvotes as a "I don't like this, fuck you" button a-la Reddit, but most of the times I feel that HN is very civilized when it comes to using the downvote button.
I actually don't think this is entirely true. I definitely sometimes see people using downvotes as a "I don't like this, fuck you" button a-la Reddit, but most of the times I feel that HN is very civilized when it comes to using the downvote button.
Agreed - I think they mainly get ignored.
I mostly see things downvoted that are factually wrong, or just generally abrasive and tone-deaf.
I mostly see things downvoted that are factually wrong, or just generally abrasive and tone-deaf.
I can't know but I think I see a fair amount of downvotes arising from misunderstanding.
I am excluding my own downvotes received and given and only thinking of examples where I was a bystander (except that I probably upvoted someone to counter what I thought was undeserved downvotes).
I can't know that someone else misunderstood a comment, or that I understood a comment of course, so I just leave my own comment saying "I interpreted that this way...."
But I have seen some truely inexplicable torpedoing of the most innocuous comments. I never get an answer to "I don't know why you're downvoted..."
Please assume that I know the difference between interesting or valuable and flies my team colors, or at least gave conscious thought to it, in this talk about deserved/undeserved, understood/misunderstood.
I am excluding my own downvotes received and given and only thinking of examples where I was a bystander (except that I probably upvoted someone to counter what I thought was undeserved downvotes).
I can't know that someone else misunderstood a comment, or that I understood a comment of course, so I just leave my own comment saying "I interpreted that this way...."
But I have seen some truely inexplicable torpedoing of the most innocuous comments. I never get an answer to "I don't know why you're downvoted..."
Please assume that I know the difference between interesting or valuable and flies my team colors, or at least gave conscious thought to it, in this talk about deserved/undeserved, understood/misunderstood.
HN should make displaying your karma in the header optional. I see no benefits to it other than creating a score some people want to game.
In theory this would be good, if the way to game the score was to write thoughtful and helpful comments. In practice, as noted in this post:
> Affirming the political and moral opinions of the average HN reader is the easiest way to get upvotes.
It's easy enough to hide this text using something like uBlock, but I'd rather it were just a thing everybody could toggle. Maybe even turn it off by default.
In theory this would be good, if the way to game the score was to write thoughtful and helpful comments. In practice, as noted in this post:
> Affirming the political and moral opinions of the average HN reader is the easiest way to get upvotes.
It's easy enough to hide this text using something like uBlock, but I'd rather it were just a thing everybody could toggle. Maybe even turn it off by default.
I think limiting the number of upvotes and downvotes a user has per day, with maybe a sliding scale for karma, would vastly improve HN. It would slow down the voting circles considerably and make fake accounts much less valuable to marketing types and political action groups.
Making the order of posts probabilistic instead of strictly ordering by upvotes would also improve the site, making the first post less significant and avoiding some of the rich-get-richer effect noted in the article.
Making the order of posts probabilistic instead of strictly ordering by upvotes would also improve the site, making the first post less significant and avoiding some of the rich-get-richer effect noted in the article.
At 1001 karma you should get a sidevote button. It is a prompt to look beyond the typical emotional response. Sometimes up or down aren't important. But it would help things if the comment could move aside for now.
(Then at 10,001 karma there's the ability to super-upvote a comment, contingent upon its removal to a different website where it would be REALLY relevant... Would be nice if the web could be this integrative)
(Then at 10,001 karma there's the ability to super-upvote a comment, contingent upon its removal to a different website where it would be REALLY relevant... Would be nice if the web could be this integrative)
In my mind, while Reddit and Twitter are cesspools, I still hold the opinion looking at my upvotes/downvotes that Hacker News is irreparably broken as well, it just is taking a much longer period of time to show the cracks. Hacker News is a superior system, a longer-lasting system, but one that is still declining. Nuanced or well-intentioned but mistaken (or sometimes even accurate) comments are increasingly getting downvoted when unpopular, whether they be mine or others. Downvoting is not a sign that a comment is poor quality, but a sign of simple disagreement even if the person downvoting can't formulate (or does not bother to formulate) a response indicating why.
I know that @dang always responds with that FAQ post saying that HN is slowly turning into Reddit is a meme and an illusion as old as the hills, but just saying it isn't does not mean that it isn't. That's the weakest argument from authority there could be. "It's not because I say it isn't."
I know that @dang always responds with that FAQ post saying that HN is slowly turning into Reddit is a meme and an illusion as old as the hills, but just saying it isn't does not mean that it isn't. That's the weakest argument from authority there could be. "It's not because I say it isn't."
> Downvoting is not a sign that a comment is poor quality, but a sign of simple disagreement even if the person downvoting can't formulate (or does not bother to formulate) a response indicating why.
You can lose karma if you reply. You can't lose karma if you downvote.
You can lose karma if you reply. You can't lose karma if you downvote.
I never understood this line. It seems antithetical to everything the site wants to be/claims to be/is .
Votes allow people to express agreement/disagreement without cluttering the discussion. In old-style forums without votes the same sort of basic agree/disagree dynamic actually took up screen space. You'd have people writing "+1," "me too", "so true" (or "I don't think so", "educate yourself", "yeah right"...) as separate comments, each of which you'd have to skim past before finding the next bit of real conversation. You can't eliminate the human impulse to express disagreement, but you can try to channel it out of the way so that comments are longer and more substantive.
I've used newsgroups, mailing lists, forums for 30 years. This has never been a problem on any of them.
Perhaps the venues you used had stronger norms than those I used. To check my memory I just downloaded a collection of posts from rec.arts.sf.written (one of the newsgroups I used to use) from the Internet Archive. Matching my recollection, I see nested replies that are short and express attitude without substantially advancing discussion. e.g.
>>>> DeLaney didn't say it could have happened, merely that he
>>>> would have been happy if it did.
>>
>>> A distinction without meaning or merit.
>>
>>Wrong twice.
>
> On the contrary. It's dead spot on, in fact.
You really are a retard, aren't you?
Oh, there were flame wars. I don't remember any with individual responses this brief though! I don't remember brevity of any kind being an issue.
Flame wars sucked, but I'm beginning to think it's a case of 'cutting off tails on one side kills them on the other'.
HN in particular has always given me vibes of: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/
Flame wars sucked, but I'm beginning to think it's a case of 'cutting off tails on one side kills them on the other'.
HN in particular has always given me vibes of: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I think the tricky thing in evaluating comment voting is this: It's easy to look at a thread and see that junk comments were downvoted, and conclude it's working. It's harder to know which comments were never posted at all.
I'd love to see a system where where you could inject nuance into upvotes or downvotes. Say, one set of arrows for agree or disagree with the conclusions, and a separate set of arrows for whether the comment was respectfully or rudely written, and maybe even another set arrows for arguments that are cogent versus poorly thought out.
I usually make an effort to upvote comments that I thought were particularly well written even if I disagree with them. But we all have our biases, and I recognize that, as with most people, I'm likelier to upvote a comment that I agree with even if it was poorly reasoned. It would be great to be able to rate comments "+1 informative, but -1 author is being a jerk". Or "-1 I disagree, but +1 polite and respectful".
I'm not sure how well it would work in practice. Getting the UI right could be a challenge. Netflix used to let you rate content from 1-5 stars, but they later changed it to just thumbs up/thumbs down. The same pressure that led Netflix do dumb down their system might apply here.
I usually make an effort to upvote comments that I thought were particularly well written even if I disagree with them. But we all have our biases, and I recognize that, as with most people, I'm likelier to upvote a comment that I agree with even if it was poorly reasoned. It would be great to be able to rate comments "+1 informative, but -1 author is being a jerk". Or "-1 I disagree, but +1 polite and respectful".
I'm not sure how well it would work in practice. Getting the UI right could be a challenge. Netflix used to let you rate content from 1-5 stars, but they later changed it to just thumbs up/thumbs down. The same pressure that led Netflix do dumb down their system might apply here.
While not exactly the same that reminds me of metamoderation at Slashdot. Admittedly that was a pretty geeky audience, but the trolling and griefing load there was huge.
Agreed! I think this is the idea behind Facebook's emoji responses.
I guess very much YMMV.
My experience here has been the opposite. I try not to be aggressive or antagonizing here, hard as it is via text, but at times have written things that came across as rude and things that were not popular opinions.
Most of the time one or more people would take the time to respond explaining why they feel I'm incorrect, or telling me I'm being harsh. And my upvotes usually just sit at 1, despite perhaps having 5 or more disagreement comments.
Compare that to Reddit, where even mentioning anything against the hivemind, such as disagreeing with a liberal cause, will get you downvoted to oblivion, sometimes even banned.
My experience here has been the opposite. I try not to be aggressive or antagonizing here, hard as it is via text, but at times have written things that came across as rude and things that were not popular opinions.
Most of the time one or more people would take the time to respond explaining why they feel I'm incorrect, or telling me I'm being harsh. And my upvotes usually just sit at 1, despite perhaps having 5 or more disagreement comments.
Compare that to Reddit, where even mentioning anything against the hivemind, such as disagreeing with a liberal cause, will get you downvoted to oblivion, sometimes even banned.
I think it'd be nice to have emoji on here, even if it'd break the aesthetic a bit. They add just enough extra nuance and color that it can diffuse matter-of-fact statements and completely change an interaction.
Honestly if I didn't have emojis in Slack I'd have a much worse relationship with coworkers
Honestly if I didn't have emojis in Slack I'd have a much worse relationship with coworkers
I find myself using the old text emojis or whatever they are called here :). Kinda a blast from the past, since every other platform insists on inserting some object. Part of me wonders how long until kids have no idea what those ascii symbols mean.
Given this is actually relevant to the article and not meta, we can actually talk about the "turning into slashdot" meme without it being off-topic. It of course is impossible to really quantify how much HN is like reddit or slashdot (or what remains of it), but on relative terms, it's still easy for me to see the difference. You still have much fewer "meme posts" and worse meme threads. I admit this is real nerdiness here, but I favorited this thread years ago, preserved in amber, for you to see[0]. You can still tell it was heavily downvoted. Anyhow, even still, these kind of "meme threads" which pervade reddit just aren't that common here at all even today, usually being snuffed out before they're even started. So, even now, certain ticks that are common across the internet are still discouraged here.
I think one thing that has changed over the years is more acceptance of one sentence replies as long as they uphold the median political perspective. Things like, "this is terrible, how can this be permitted" used to get downvoted more (a lot, in fact), while I see some make it through the cracks lately, as long as they somewhat express a thought. Other than that, not much has changed. I can only say that being on HN so long makes you realize that there are memes and political groupthink here too, it just takes different forms or can be obscured somewhat by the longer more written out comments.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141357
I think one thing that has changed over the years is more acceptance of one sentence replies as long as they uphold the median political perspective. Things like, "this is terrible, how can this be permitted" used to get downvoted more (a lot, in fact), while I see some make it through the cracks lately, as long as they somewhat express a thought. Other than that, not much has changed. I can only say that being on HN so long makes you realize that there are memes and political groupthink here too, it just takes different forms or can be obscured somewhat by the longer more written out comments.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141357
> Things like, "this is terrible, how can this be permitted" used to get downvoted more (a lot, in fact), while I see some make it through the cracks lately, as long as they somewhat express a thought.
This sort of comment is the hot grits and petrified natalie portman of HN. Probably not good enough to consistently rise to the top, but popular enough to farm karma.
The problem, I think, is that HN is attracting the late-stage users, who see up/down as agree/disagree and not contributing/obstructing.
This sort of comment is the hot grits and petrified natalie portman of HN. Probably not good enough to consistently rise to the top, but popular enough to farm karma.
The problem, I think, is that HN is attracting the late-stage users, who see up/down as agree/disagree and not contributing/obstructing.
Eventually, after sufficient pain, it will become like the homepage of LinkedIn.
> Downvoting is not a sign that a comment is poor quality, but a sign of simple disagreement even if the person downvoting can't formulate (or does not bother to formulate) a response indicating why.
Because it requires no effort. But if downvoting required at least 140^W280 char comment describing the reason... or a micro-payment...
But jokes aside this is an unsolvable problem. Though I liked /. comment marking system, but it's not that better too.
Because it requires no effort. But if downvoting required at least 140^W280 char comment describing the reason... or a micro-payment...
But jokes aside this is an unsolvable problem. Though I liked /. comment marking system, but it's not that better too.
The other side of the coin is that Karma is all fake internet points and HN's system makes it pretty easy to farm enough Karma that you don't have to care what other people think for a very long time if you so choose. The cap on downvotes means that while it is possible to have a single post that generates hundreds of Karma, the most you can ever be downvoted is 4. It's almost impossible to lose significant Karma without continual trolling that would probably get you shadowbanned anyway.
Reddit encourages in-group domination, by way of ignoring policy-violating cross-subreddit moderation and banning; Twitter, by design, encourages user retention through passionate engagement with other users, and most often that passion is hatred.
HN doesn't have a corollary for sub-reddits, or a personal feed, or similar. Its singular subject focus is its virtue; but, as you claim, it will fall. All things will, and the problem with HN is that there is _too much money to be made_ by swaying opinion on this forum.
HN doesn't have a corollary for sub-reddits, or a personal feed, or similar. Its singular subject focus is its virtue; but, as you claim, it will fall. All things will, and the problem with HN is that there is _too much money to be made_ by swaying opinion on this forum.
Any slightly political thread on hackernews is a cesspool on reddit or twitter level.
Topics about january 6, the abortion ban, anything adjacent to the "cultur war"...
I suspect the only difference is that technical topics like shiny-rust-program or webframework3000 are less controversial
I suspect the only difference is that technical topics like shiny-rust-program or webframework3000 are less controversial
Don't lump HN in with Reddit. Reddit has a single opinion on the majority of political topics and by the time I arrive at them it's just people arguing that view (often with ad hominem attacks) vs a bunch of deleted comments.
Twitter is much less heavy handed with the deletion of comments but if you read the replies they are often the same ad hominem stuff you'll find on Reddit if you dare stray away from the majority opinion.
I don't consider a place that allows views different than mine to be a cesspool, or people that have different views to be defective. A cesspool to me is when someone makes a reasonable point about a subject like economics and the replies are all about his penis size, that's how Reddit and Twitter operate, not here.
Twitter is much less heavy handed with the deletion of comments but if you read the replies they are often the same ad hominem stuff you'll find on Reddit if you dare stray away from the majority opinion.
I don't consider a place that allows views different than mine to be a cesspool, or people that have different views to be defective. A cesspool to me is when someone makes a reasonable point about a subject like economics and the replies are all about his penis size, that's how Reddit and Twitter operate, not here.
I do like that you cannot downvote people replying to your own comment
I think there's a tipping point to social sites. There's a point where they become too big to moderate.
Maybe make downvotes have a mandatory "and this is why" comment field that forces the downvoter to formulate grievance... Then you can show what kind of downvoter someone is. Even maybe have rationality check on these downvotes rationales?
Relative to this, I've seriously thought about whipping up a funny little website that displays a sort of meter showing positive/negative reception for every HN post based on the top comments using sentiment analysis.
I was curious because it seems like whenever I check the comments on a post the top comment is like "ackchyually..."
I was curious because it seems like whenever I check the comments on a post the top comment is like "ackchyually..."
It really is! I used to get dragged in on them but made a new account with the premise of not falling for those flamewars and to try create more than I consume. I’ll still write a response to an “ackchyually…” post but catch myself and delete it before I send. Life isn’t long enough for those ‘discussions’ :)
> whenever I check the comments on a post the top comment is like "ackchyually..."
I attribute this to the quality of the source material. there's a limit to how much the linked article can reasonably convey while still being an introduction to whatever is being talked about. Very rarely, if ever, is a website article posted that requires prerequisite reading of a different article. So nuance usually gets shafted a bit, and in-depth research postponed, to keep the article easy to read.
it then gets posted here and inevitably someone has something to say about the nuance
I attribute this to the quality of the source material. there's a limit to how much the linked article can reasonably convey while still being an introduction to whatever is being talked about. Very rarely, if ever, is a website article posted that requires prerequisite reading of a different article. So nuance usually gets shafted a bit, and in-depth research postponed, to keep the article easy to read.
it then gets posted here and inevitably someone has something to say about the nuance
A long time as a lurker I was actually thinking that HN would not accumulate the karma people are gaining. Maybe that was silly, but I had the idea of people are not here for fake internet points.
I am wondering what would happen if karma wouldn't actually accumulate.
> almost half of the Karma (325 points) comes from only seven comments
Zipf's law.
Zipf's law.
> Posting somehow felt both beneath and above me—there’s so much brilliance and nonsense in the comment section
Relatable. I rarely post or comment, as when I have something to contribute to the conversation I usually cannot (NDA, etc.). And for the times I could post, I don't really have anything of value to say; echoing into the void and all.
But then I do get value from the comment sections, oftentimes more than the original post/content.
So thank you to those who do comment and contribute!
Relatable. I rarely post or comment, as when I have something to contribute to the conversation I usually cannot (NDA, etc.). And for the times I could post, I don't really have anything of value to say; echoing into the void and all.
But then I do get value from the comment sections, oftentimes more than the original post/content.
So thank you to those who do comment and contribute!
I'm not sure HN has made me less ignorant, but I believe it has made me ignorant on a higher level and about more important things.
[deleted]
IMO as a long time HN reader and poster, the rise in strident un-nuanced posts affirming moral or political opinions is really bringing down the quality of the site. I still defend HN as a good site with a variety of expert technical opinions, but these affirmation posts just turns HN into the worst of Twitter.
It was always in the dna of hackernews…
Sure. I'm just saying it's getting worse. Or at least, that's my subjective observation.
I really depends. There's a long-running, recurrent myth that HN is becoming like reddit.
I think the real cause of what you're observing is that users on HN go through cycles of enculturation, which can include being modded by dang (or challenged/flagged by other users) for crossing the line.
I used to feel frustrated that HN is very limited in its scope of what's allowed -- "curiosity only" which often excludes issues that really matter to me. It can take a while for users to really get that here. But on the other hand, it has allowed an extremely unique anonymous online community to thrive in its own way, and keep us coming back out of curiosity and a desire to learn.
I think the real cause of what you're observing is that users on HN go through cycles of enculturation, which can include being modded by dang (or challenged/flagged by other users) for crossing the line.
I used to feel frustrated that HN is very limited in its scope of what's allowed -- "curiosity only" which often excludes issues that really matter to me. It can take a while for users to really get that here. But on the other hand, it has allowed an extremely unique anonymous online community to thrive in its own way, and keep us coming back out of curiosity and a desire to learn.
Reddit is forcing users off the platform by a lack of innovation, promotion of inauthentic and mediocre posts, and over-moderation... and now they're gravitating towards other places online (in my opinion) after teaching them about how brigading and suggestive comment spam can generate money, but quickly kill a massive site.
I think we're reaching the next phase of the Internet, where big platform influence wanes, and where hopefully small communities figure out how to better govern themselves against nefarious actors.
We should lean on many of the older (proven) community standards again in online communities, and bring back displaying BOTH upvote and downvote data like we used to see... We also need to emphasize more choice and less algorithmic control over what trends on sites (from a "customer satisfaction" perspective). Letting real human readers decide what's relevant and best...
The only way to effectively manage a horrible inauthentic user plague/threat is by crowd sourcing real and authentic human beings that have a solid stake in maintaining positive order. Also, avoid embedding ads in everything as well as selling promotional services... It really does morally corrupt sites and apps.
I think we're reaching the next phase of the Internet, where big platform influence wanes, and where hopefully small communities figure out how to better govern themselves against nefarious actors.
We should lean on many of the older (proven) community standards again in online communities, and bring back displaying BOTH upvote and downvote data like we used to see... We also need to emphasize more choice and less algorithmic control over what trends on sites (from a "customer satisfaction" perspective). Letting real human readers decide what's relevant and best...
The only way to effectively manage a horrible inauthentic user plague/threat is by crowd sourcing real and authentic human beings that have a solid stake in maintaining positive order. Also, avoid embedding ads in everything as well as selling promotional services... It really does morally corrupt sites and apps.
> There's a long-running, recurrent myth that HN is becoming like reddit.
Have you considered the possibility that the reason the myth is pervasive is because it's true, and over time HN is becoming more and more like reddit? It seems to me if the users continually complain about the same problem, maybe there's something there. "No, it's the users that are wrong!" requires a lot more than handwaving if you want me to take you seriously. As someone who's been using HN for years, I absolutely believe it becomes more like reddit over time.
Have you considered the possibility that the reason the myth is pervasive is because it's true, and over time HN is becoming more and more like reddit? It seems to me if the users continually complain about the same problem, maybe there's something there. "No, it's the users that are wrong!" requires a lot more than handwaving if you want me to take you seriously. As someone who's been using HN for years, I absolutely believe it becomes more like reddit over time.
I've seen some pockets here or there of grating, boring "jokes" or obvious attempts at farming karma, but I don't think that really makes the site any more like Reddit. I think folks are using "becoming Reddit" as a shorthand for seeing comments they don't like or believe are low-effort, and it does everyone a disservice when things are framed that way.
Let's call low-effort comments what they are and make the conversations a little simpler.
Let's call low-effort comments what they are and make the conversations a little simpler.
The increase in astroturfing is what I see as the biggest change to HN over time that makes it more like reddit. As HN becomes larger it becomes a larger target for corporate interests. You don't see too many companies successfully promoting crappy products on HN, but I notice lots of articles that are negative towards corporations get flagged and/or swarmed with positive comments. I think this is just something that happens as you grow larger. And as you grow larger you have more people with a wider spectrum of opinions, and while you'd hope the discussions would be civil the mods seem quicker to shutdown topics they believe will lead to flame wars.
That said, it's easy to be critical and hard to be constructive. I still come to HN regularly so there's obviously something to it. I'm not pretending to have the magic bullet to these problems (some of which I believe are fundamental/intractable).
EDIT: I find it ironic this post has fallen off the first page of HN before I finished this comment, despite having many comments and being something I find interesting.
That said, it's easy to be critical and hard to be constructive. I still come to HN regularly so there's obviously something to it. I'm not pretending to have the magic bullet to these problems (some of which I believe are fundamental/intractable).
EDIT: I find it ironic this post has fallen off the first page of HN before I finished this comment, despite having many comments and being something I find interesting.
If you suspect astroturfing, the best course of action is to email the mods. They're very open about this particular topic.
That being said, this is a forum for VC and startup talk among other things, so it would be pretty surprising if there wasn't some astroturfing at play. Self-promotion comes with the territory. The mods are doing their best but to some extent it's in the game.
Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page. When I first clicked into this thread, I was surprised it was FP still, because it had twice as many comments as votes and that usually trips the flamewar detector. I think folks are generally unaware of the systems that make HN tick, and that can make the experience pretty confusing.
That being said, this is a forum for VC and startup talk among other things, so it would be pretty surprising if there wasn't some astroturfing at play. Self-promotion comes with the territory. The mods are doing their best but to some extent it's in the game.
Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page. When I first clicked into this thread, I was surprised it was FP still, because it had twice as many comments as votes and that usually trips the flamewar detector. I think folks are generally unaware of the systems that make HN tick, and that can make the experience pretty confusing.
> Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page.
Sure there is. It's an interesting conversation to me and it's being pushed away from the front page. I didn't say it was foul play, I said it was ironic. The algorithms are so fearful of controversy they push away interesting topics.
Also, I've emailed the mods many times before. My experiences have been mixed.
Sure there is. It's an interesting conversation to me and it's being pushed away from the front page. I didn't say it was foul play, I said it was ironic. The algorithms are so fearful of controversy they push away interesting topics.
Also, I've emailed the mods many times before. My experiences have been mixed.
> The algorithms are so fearful of controversy they push away interesting topics.
That's just one of the tradeoffs. HN optimizes for curiosity, which does sometimes mean using blunt automated tools to fend off negative subjects.
Fundamentally, I think over-meta-commenting on the state of HN is considered boring here (at least by the mods), since it's been covered so many times before.
That's just one of the tradeoffs. HN optimizes for curiosity, which does sometimes mean using blunt automated tools to fend off negative subjects.
Fundamentally, I think over-meta-commenting on the state of HN is considered boring here (at least by the mods), since it's been covered so many times before.
HN prioritizes content with more upvotes than discussion. This is a very common "algorithm". Lobsters uses it, Twitter users call it being "ratio'd", etc. In my experience it works great. Most link aggregators try to optimize for good content, not good conversation starters.
I doubt it. HN has always been company friendly, just look at where it started from. If anything HN has become much more skeptical about corporate interests over the years.
From the HN guidelines:
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob[0] illusion[1], as[2] old[3] as[4] the[5] hills[6].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057
[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob[0] illusion[1], as[2] old[3] as[4] the[5] hills[6].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057
[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852
The entire point of this discussion is that we should be able to discuss it, and discouraging it is not a solution. You're supporting my point, not refuting it.
I'm not attempting to refute you per se, just bringing relevant info into the discussion. It's instructive (at least to me) to look through those links to older comments. People as far back as 2007 were saying "HN is becoming reddit."
I get that quoting a request on the site info page could come across as modding you, but that wasn't my intent.
I get that quoting a request on the site info page could come across as modding you, but that wasn't my intent.
I haven't read through all of those but did want to add that it may be warranted to have this discussion ("is HN becoming reddit?") at different points in time as both communities have changed a lot since 2007 - i.e. its possible that HN was becoming what reddit was in 2007, and again in 2012 or something, and again in 2022.
It might be an interesting conversation to have: has HN trailed Reddit over time in some of its more negative aspects? The guidelines dismissing this I think is wrong.
It might be an interesting conversation to have: has HN trailed Reddit over time in some of its more negative aspects? The guidelines dismissing this I think is wrong.
Where its most become like reddit is the concentration of the politically motivated users and how quickly they act to shut down any discourse they find unsavory.
Reddit became very homogenized because of how quickly the left wing activists were to downvote, report, flag, etc. It made it impossible to have any discussion where you were right of far-left. A lot of those users have made their way over to HN, where it's even easier to have multiple accounts.
Yesterday someone posted a link to CBS News article about a Chipotle being closed after the workers tried to unionize. The article was very matter of fact and sparse. No editorial, no details about what sort of negotiations might have broken down. There was little to discuss about the article and I suspect it was posted by someone naively sympathetic to any labor organization effort trying to spread fodder to label Chipotle as a union-buster. The article still only has 17 comments. I commented asking why this was posted to HN and my comment was flagged in less than 30 seconds. So I commented again, and someone replied that its pertinent to startups because of how automation will cause job losses. The news article did not mention this. My second comment was flagged shortly thereafter.
HN will keep becoming like reddit because there is no recourse for the activists flagging comments or downvoting something they disagree with to hell. HN was already poorly moderated in that there is one moderator. This trend will continue and even the people who might agree with the activist will get bored and leave since there will be no intellectually stimulated conversation to have.
I'm not sure where the honest people go next. Maybe I'll just go outside, its pleasant out.
Reddit became very homogenized because of how quickly the left wing activists were to downvote, report, flag, etc. It made it impossible to have any discussion where you were right of far-left. A lot of those users have made their way over to HN, where it's even easier to have multiple accounts.
Yesterday someone posted a link to CBS News article about a Chipotle being closed after the workers tried to unionize. The article was very matter of fact and sparse. No editorial, no details about what sort of negotiations might have broken down. There was little to discuss about the article and I suspect it was posted by someone naively sympathetic to any labor organization effort trying to spread fodder to label Chipotle as a union-buster. The article still only has 17 comments. I commented asking why this was posted to HN and my comment was flagged in less than 30 seconds. So I commented again, and someone replied that its pertinent to startups because of how automation will cause job losses. The news article did not mention this. My second comment was flagged shortly thereafter.
HN will keep becoming like reddit because there is no recourse for the activists flagging comments or downvoting something they disagree with to hell. HN was already poorly moderated in that there is one moderator. This trend will continue and even the people who might agree with the activist will get bored and leave since there will be no intellectually stimulated conversation to have.
I'm not sure where the honest people go next. Maybe I'll just go outside, its pleasant out.
Any specific examples you can share? I'd like to know to gain awareness of whether or not I'm committing or participating in such gaffes so I can modify my behavior in the future, if needed. I don't want to be "that person"!
When I encounter egregiously toxic posts, I email our lone mod warrior, Dang ([email protected]) to ensure he has the opportunity to review and take whatever action is appropriate.
The daily post volume on HN is so high, it's challenging (to the point of being impossible) to moderate it all alone. Plus it's a generally thankless, horrifyingly soul crushing job. So I try to help out where I can, when I'm not the one causing the trouble :p :cry:
When I encounter egregiously toxic posts, I email our lone mod warrior, Dang ([email protected]) to ensure he has the opportunity to review and take whatever action is appropriate.
The daily post volume on HN is so high, it's challenging (to the point of being impossible) to moderate it all alone. Plus it's a generally thankless, horrifyingly soul crushing job. So I try to help out where I can, when I'm not the one causing the trouble :p :cry:
IMO the linked Substack does a great job of demonstrating it. Take a look at the thread in Big Tech regulation that came up earlier today, that's one too.
For some reason, the Canadian truckers' honking protests were the main topic of discussion here for weeks, with commenters inevitably taking stances for one side or the other. It was ridiculous and I'm pretty sure HN lost plenty of potential users to sites like Lobsters, which just kept posting and commenting about cool tech stuff.
Lost plenty of potential and actual users, and also gained a ton of protest-supporting users because that’s how they can best inflate the appearance of support for their cause (and also because HN attracted the attention of the hostile foreign agents who are instigating these social disruption movements in the West.)
IMO HN would do well to ban political and social-movement posts entirely.
IMO HN would do well to ban political and social-movement posts entirely.
That doesn't match my memory, so I'd be curious which weeks you're talking about. You can find the main topics of discussion via links like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2022-07-19. (They're ordered by time spent on the front page.)
I think I'd rather see short, strident statements of opinion than multi-paragraphed 'reasoned' arguments that are essentially the same thing but with different aesthetics. Much quicker to process!
Issues are
- When the statement is obvious, you mine as well not say it at all. On a lot of Reddit threads every upvoted comment is basically some variation of “This”, “Yep”, “I agree” (sometimes literally those). It’s absurd, there’s no discussion and the entire point of the comments section is wasted. (Honestly, a lot of Reddit is just the same posts and arguments over and over)
- When the opinion actually deserves nuance. When people throw around phrases like “the US is a third-world country”, “Google is an awful company only focused on greed”, “never trust your employer”. No, these statements aren’t 100% true, Google is a greedy company but it really isn’t just a money-making machine, it provides a search engine and mail and office software and video platform that you probably use. Additionally, when the statements are political and derogatory (“all X group is bad”), you start to criticize people who don’t deserve the criticism.
- When the statement is obvious, you mine as well not say it at all. On a lot of Reddit threads every upvoted comment is basically some variation of “This”, “Yep”, “I agree” (sometimes literally those). It’s absurd, there’s no discussion and the entire point of the comments section is wasted. (Honestly, a lot of Reddit is just the same posts and arguments over and over)
- When the opinion actually deserves nuance. When people throw around phrases like “the US is a third-world country”, “Google is an awful company only focused on greed”, “never trust your employer”. No, these statements aren’t 100% true, Google is a greedy company but it really isn’t just a money-making machine, it provides a search engine and mail and office software and video platform that you probably use. Additionally, when the statements are political and derogatory (“all X group is bad”), you start to criticize people who don’t deserve the criticism.
That's fair. It's definitely fashionable to be hyperbolic. But it might also be wrong to interpret those statements literally or at face-value. See Emotivism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism
That is to say, a lot of "nuanced" arguments are just as morally emotive as short punchy ones. The latter might be less persuasive, but I'm not sure many people are changing their minds on moral or ethical debates these days anyway.
That is to say, a lot of "nuanced" arguments are just as morally emotive as short punchy ones. The latter might be less persuasive, but I'm not sure many people are changing their minds on moral or ethical debates these days anyway.
> That is to say, a lot of "nuanced" arguments are just as morally emotive as short punchy ones. The latter might be less persuasive, but I'm not sure many people are changing their minds on moral or ethical debates these days anyway.
It's not always about changing your mind. Nuanced opinions help people understand issues better. If you write a long post talking about value driven at scale at Google vs a predatory advertising market, you can help folks understand, say, what a Google competitor would need to harness to compete effectively. But when you just say "Google is a scourge to this planet", nobody comes away from the conversation better informed and the poster gets tons of HN karma for posting the median view.
It's not always about changing your mind. Nuanced opinions help people understand issues better. If you write a long post talking about value driven at scale at Google vs a predatory advertising market, you can help folks understand, say, what a Google competitor would need to harness to compete effectively. But when you just say "Google is a scourge to this planet", nobody comes away from the conversation better informed and the poster gets tons of HN karma for posting the median view.
Totally - not all nuanced arguments are emotive at root. I think HN is at it's best when the discussion is evidence-oriented.
I've seen a lot of walls of text lately by people that look copied-and-pasted from their blogs/forum rants/whatever.
I agree. But I don't think most HN posts are particularly longer than most Tweets. Many can be fit in 2 tweets in fact. If you're going to make strident, blanket posts (like the ones armchairhacker talks about), Twitter is probably a better medium.
Avoiding the political is generally easy until the minefield vocabulary comes up, even if by accident.
Moral opinions are tricky because they feed directly into and out of concepts like integrity, fidelity and quality, which are favorites on HN and can be discussed technically as well as morally. But we don't really learn much about that razor edge in general education so it's not as easily avoided.
Moral opinions are tricky because they feed directly into and out of concepts like integrity, fidelity and quality, which are favorites on HN and can be discussed technically as well as morally. But we don't really learn much about that razor edge in general education so it's not as easily avoided.
I find that there are many things controlling this not covered here.
1. Fanboys - if an article about an apple product is posted, the very idea of constructive criticism is somehow an affront to Steve's ghost. Same can be said for everyone except Google which seems to be the universal punching bag regardless.
2. Shilling - I'm glad that you are the creater of BloatJS and are willing to answer any questions that show your product in a positive light but you are also on the front page of /r/technology and 20 other blogs because you are trying to get VC funding. Maybe a few of these would be fine but it's hard not to see this suspiciously sitting in the top 5 on any given day and then see the author fumbling to answer the universal question of "what did this solve?"
3. Astroturfing - pick any major article, pick your poison, you will find the comment section littered with suites of all shapes and pay doing damage control with unsubstantiated claims that then cause argument loops that derail useful conversation. Someone will ask for a summery and a well thought out response will get a few bumps, meanwhile Tom who works in marketing has 136 replies to his "rebuttal" that things are fine at BloatSoft and word to the contrary is simply twitters fault.
It's not just HN it's any site that gets sufficiently big but the saddest part for me is how transparent it is. The size causes people who don't use these technologies to lurk around all day and people who make them to defend it all day and the margin of actual people who don't have some axe to grind gets fewer and fewer until they, intelligently, realize one day it's all fluff and not worth their time.
People get called out for just reading the headlines of articles but when half of them are false advertisement and a good chunk of them are just literal ads no wonder...and mercy be upon anyone coming to the comment section for clarity.
1. Fanboys - if an article about an apple product is posted, the very idea of constructive criticism is somehow an affront to Steve's ghost. Same can be said for everyone except Google which seems to be the universal punching bag regardless.
2. Shilling - I'm glad that you are the creater of BloatJS and are willing to answer any questions that show your product in a positive light but you are also on the front page of /r/technology and 20 other blogs because you are trying to get VC funding. Maybe a few of these would be fine but it's hard not to see this suspiciously sitting in the top 5 on any given day and then see the author fumbling to answer the universal question of "what did this solve?"
3. Astroturfing - pick any major article, pick your poison, you will find the comment section littered with suites of all shapes and pay doing damage control with unsubstantiated claims that then cause argument loops that derail useful conversation. Someone will ask for a summery and a well thought out response will get a few bumps, meanwhile Tom who works in marketing has 136 replies to his "rebuttal" that things are fine at BloatSoft and word to the contrary is simply twitters fault.
It's not just HN it's any site that gets sufficiently big but the saddest part for me is how transparent it is. The size causes people who don't use these technologies to lurk around all day and people who make them to defend it all day and the margin of actual people who don't have some axe to grind gets fewer and fewer until they, intelligently, realize one day it's all fluff and not worth their time.
People get called out for just reading the headlines of articles but when half of them are false advertisement and a good chunk of them are just literal ads no wonder...and mercy be upon anyone coming to the comment section for clarity.
TIL a 501 Karma gets you a downvote [0]
[0] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvo...
[0] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvo...
Who invented the wonderful phrase "karma farming?"
The bar charts would be better as scatter plots.
Agreed! I timeboxed this, but specifically I would love to see a scatter plot showing number of descendants vs score
I've been doing this recently, posting a lot more and looking back at my posts to see what was upvoted. This persons conclusions line up pretty well with my predictions based on analyzing my own highest upvoted comments on HN and reddit.
The biggest thing I learned is don't play devil's advocate. Even if it's sincere, don't try to empathize with the other side of the argument. Try to figure out what the "average" (internet points-voter) thinks and say it loud, say it proud. One of my biggest upvotes was on r/politics post, where I posted a direct, forceful and unbeknowingesty satirical support of socialism/socialist policies.
If you're on a media subreddit for a TV show. If there's an obvious character to quote or show trope that people like in response to a post, post that quote/trope.
Some of my biggest downvotes were explaining to a person who asked in a neoliberal subreddit "Why do leftist politicians" say things they know aren't true or can't justify, and pointing out that they are incentivized to exaggerate, precisely because they don't have political power. I guess I figured out later it was a rhetorical question.
And alot of this is in good faith. I'm honestly interested in understanding and discussing the realities of peoples political motivations over and above my own beliefs about them.
The biggest thing I learned is don't play devil's advocate. Even if it's sincere, don't try to empathize with the other side of the argument. Try to figure out what the "average" (internet points-voter) thinks and say it loud, say it proud. One of my biggest upvotes was on r/politics post, where I posted a direct, forceful and unbeknowingesty satirical support of socialism/socialist policies.
If you're on a media subreddit for a TV show. If there's an obvious character to quote or show trope that people like in response to a post, post that quote/trope.
Some of my biggest downvotes were explaining to a person who asked in a neoliberal subreddit "Why do leftist politicians" say things they know aren't true or can't justify, and pointing out that they are incentivized to exaggerate, precisely because they don't have political power. I guess I figured out later it was a rhetorical question.
And alot of this is in good faith. I'm honestly interested in understanding and discussing the realities of peoples political motivations over and above my own beliefs about them.
[deleted]
> The biggest thing I learned is don't play devil's advocate.
Or do it well. Most of the time, “playing devil’s advocate” is just hypocritical trolling, so we’re more or less trained to assume bad faith. Which is an unfortunate bias, but that’s where we are.
On the other hand, posts really need to be very bad to get greyed out. Even if you get a few downvotes, it’s not a huge problem.
Or do it well. Most of the time, “playing devil’s advocate” is just hypocritical trolling, so we’re more or less trained to assume bad faith. Which is an unfortunate bias, but that’s where we are.
On the other hand, posts really need to be very bad to get greyed out. Even if you get a few downvotes, it’s not a huge problem.
> Most of the time, “playing devil’s advocate” is just hypocritical trolling
On reddit and twitter, I usually see the opposite of hypocritical lock-step adherence to a narrative, with any nuance and criticism being disallowed and attacked. I tend to assume bad faith for anyone completely taking one side of any complex (and therefore controversial) topic, on the internet.
On reddit and twitter, I usually see the opposite of hypocritical lock-step adherence to a narrative, with any nuance and criticism being disallowed and attacked. I tend to assume bad faith for anyone completely taking one side of any complex (and therefore controversial) topic, on the internet.
> And alot of this is in good faith. I'm honestly interested in understanding and discussing the realities of peoples political motivations over and above my own beliefs about them.
Related, I really liked the feature on Slashdot where "friends of friends" could be given more visibility, and a karma boost. If I friended you, I would then be exposed to your friends, which I would probably end up valuing, resulting in an amplification of a certain type of mindset across the site. It was a nice way to boost rationality. It would also be a terrible way to make an echo chamber, but to each their own I suppose.
Related, I really liked the feature on Slashdot where "friends of friends" could be given more visibility, and a karma boost. If I friended you, I would then be exposed to your friends, which I would probably end up valuing, resulting in an amplification of a certain type of mindset across the site. It was a nice way to boost rationality. It would also be a terrible way to make an echo chamber, but to each their own I suppose.
Yeah, I've started very slowly accumulating a list of HN commenters who say nonobvious things that I find value in. Occasionally I'll browse through their comment history, and I'm trying to train myself to recognize when they show up in a comment section. It would be nice to have the site automate some of that. But I recognize that it's tough to do without reinforcing an echo chamber.
I don't even wish for a site that would only show me my "blessed community". I like the general commentary to be pretty widely scattered, but I (1) don't want to miss the larger bits of signal, and (2) want to improve my overall cost::benefit ratio. I also definitely don't want the base level to be too widely scattered, or more specifically, too low of an average value.
I don't even wish for a site that would only show me my "blessed community". I like the general commentary to be pretty widely scattered, but I (1) don't want to miss the larger bits of signal, and (2) want to improve my overall cost::benefit ratio. I also definitely don't want the base level to be too widely scattered, or more specifically, too low of an average value.
Yes, having a "friends" feature like on reddit would be welcome... though I find myself using it only very, very rarely. Even though I have well over a dozen accounts marked as "friends".
What I've learned is "right place right time". You can make a post that violates half the commenting guidelines, but if you're in the right thread with the right obvious, you can get a good amount of upvotes.
One of my most upvoted posts on reddit is a vagina joke. There was someone famous who was going to miss something important due to the birth of their kid and someone responded with "Birthgate" and I responded telling him it was called a vagina.
My most downvoted post was a post about tournament card games where I was actually correct, but no one liked the answer regardless. It is also one of my most awarded posts.
My most downvoted post was a post about tournament card games where I was actually correct, but no one liked the answer regardless. It is also one of my most awarded posts.
My comment: What is this actually about?
What is any personal blogging about?
Just seems like an aimless and unsatisfying piece of writing. I guess others must have got something from it. I felt like I was wasting my time.
I was thinking more meta. It's for the writer to solidify their own thoughts, not to reveal the wisdom of the universe. I can guarantee this was satisfying to the writer.
I suppose I'll oblige the invitation.
There's probably some organized downloading going on in crypto discussions. I get Musk downvotes, he's so polarizing.
Why would sociopaths making fintech fraudcoins not defend their cryptoscams in public? It would be job one for something whose value is completely fabricated and perception based.
Why would sociopaths making fintech fraudcoins not defend their cryptoscams in public? It would be job one for something whose value is completely fabricated and perception based.
One thing I've noticed: US-based commenters are much more negative and cynical than anyone else. I've made posts (under a previous username) when the US folks were asleep and got great, helpful replies, only to get much more negative, less nuanced comments once the US woke up.
Didn't you read the article and guidance? This will only attract downvotes. You've stated a political opinion which on HN is any opinion contrary to HN's libertarian US techno-capitalism with bare minimum virtue signalling.
I'll upvote you for limited counterbalancing.
I'll upvote you for limited counterbalancing.
> when the US folks were asleep
That's just the US night-owls being helpful before turning in for their daily sleep.
Then the grumpy I-need-coffee crowd comes in swinging.
(only partly kidding)
That's just the US night-owls being helpful before turning in for their daily sleep.
Then the grumpy I-need-coffee crowd comes in swinging.
(only partly kidding)
orange5(2)
I think a few years ago (almost 10, sheesh) when I started out, it was similar. Basically, most of your karma comes from a few very upvoted comments, or ones that are early and garner conversation. I think something like 3 or 4 got me to 500+ (it's been so long that I forgot the threshold for downvoting). Never had luck with article submissions but getting one to front page does give you a lot of karma too, apparently.
Also, while "upholding the median political viewpoint" is a surefire way to get upvoted, it is worth noting that that can be a moving target and changes from article to article. Poo-pooing crypto on any average crypto article will garner downvotes if it's in a thread likely to be read by crypto enthusiasts, while shitting on web3.0 on another article about the current collapse of everything crypto will engender karma from people who are skeptical. Anyway, the point isn't that there really isn't any median politics here on HN, just that for some topics, it does vary, while for some it doesn't.