Does it seem to you as well that removing downvote for comments (keeping report for spam and other total garbage etc.) would result in more of this? Hacker News seems to be doing a lot better than subreddits of similar size, and this seems like the main structural difference between them.
Probably yes. I don’t read HN much (reddit provides enough mind crack already), but I never block any comments based on score, only downvote spam and still kinda prefer ye olde days of linear, barely moderated forums. I particularly disagree with “don’t feed the trolls” because I learned tons about algebra, evolution and economics from reading huge flame wars. I thank the cranks for their extreme stubbornness and the ensuing noob-friendly explanations by hundreds of experts.
I particularly disagree with “don’t feed the trolls”
And indeed, a very interesting discussion grew out of this otherwise rather unfortunate post.
I’m quite well acquainted with irc, mailing lists, wikis, wide variety of chans, somethingawful, slashdot, reddit, hn, twitter, and more such forums I just haven’t used in a while.
There are upsides and downsides of all communication formats and karma/moderation systems, but as far as I can tell HN karma system seems to strictly dominate reddit karma system.
If you feel adventurous and don’t mind trolls, I highly recommend giving chans a try (something sane, not /b/ on 4chan) - anonymity (on chans where it’s widely practised, in many namefagging is rampant) makes people drastically reduce effort they normally put into signalling and status games.
What you can see there is human thought far less filtered than usual, and there are very few other opportunities to observe that anywhere. When you come back from such environment to normal life, you will be able to see a lot more clearly how much monkey tribe politics is present in everyday human communication.
(For some strange reasons online pseudonyms don’t work like full anonymity.)
When you come back from such environment to normal life, you will be able to see a lot more clearly how much monkey tribe politics is present in everyday human communication.
I find that working with animals is good for this, too. Though it’s rarely politic to say so.
What you can see there is human thought far less filtered than usual, and there are very few other opportunities to observe that anywhere. When you come back from such environment to normal life, you will be able to see a lot more clearly how much monkey tribe politics is present in everyday human communication.
This is the sort of thing that I was referring to here. Very educational experience.
Does it seem to you as well that removing downvote for comments (keeping report for spam and other total garbage etc.) would result in more of this? Hacker News seems to be doing a lot better than subreddits of similar size, and this seems like the main structural difference between them.
Probably yes. I don’t read HN much (reddit provides enough mind crack already), but I never block any comments based on score, only downvote spam and still kinda prefer ye olde days of linear, barely moderated forums. I particularly disagree with “don’t feed the trolls” because I learned tons about algebra, evolution and economics from reading huge flame wars. I thank the cranks for their extreme stubbornness and the ensuing noob-friendly explanations by hundreds of experts.
And indeed, a very interesting discussion grew out of this otherwise rather unfortunate post.
I’m quite well acquainted with irc, mailing lists, wikis, wide variety of chans, somethingawful, slashdot, reddit, hn, twitter, and more such forums I just haven’t used in a while.
There are upsides and downsides of all communication formats and karma/moderation systems, but as far as I can tell HN karma system seems to strictly dominate reddit karma system.
If you feel adventurous and don’t mind trolls, I highly recommend giving chans a try (something sane, not /b/ on 4chan) - anonymity (on chans where it’s widely practised, in many namefagging is rampant) makes people drastically reduce effort they normally put into signalling and status games.
What you can see there is human thought far less filtered than usual, and there are very few other opportunities to observe that anywhere. When you come back from such environment to normal life, you will be able to see a lot more clearly how much monkey tribe politics is present in everyday human communication.
(For some strange reasons online pseudonyms don’t work like full anonymity.)
I find that working with animals is good for this, too. Though it’s rarely politic to say so.
This is the sort of thing that I was referring to here. Very educational experience.