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Yeah, exactly. It's a dysfunctional pattern. I enjoy it, but I really think there's a systemic tendency to dysfunctional patterns here. That's inevitable with a

Yeah, exactly. It's a dysfunctional pattern. I enjoy it, but I really think there's a systemic tendency to dysfunctional patterns here. That's inevitable with any social software, so you have to plan for your dysfunctions. Look at Stack Overflow, the dysfunction they get is karma whores answering as many questions as possible, and competing to be first with the answer. That's a pretty great dysfunction. The dysfunction we have here is anybody who polarizes opinions gets banned. The cynical (me) find it amusing and the sensitive (Giraffes) get their feelings hurt. Either way, it's bad. You don't want a community which punishes anyone for voicing controversial opinions, but that's inherent to the design here.

mcantelon 17y ago
I think it's more the the way that opinions are expressed than the opinions themselves which creates blowback (unless one is expressing something truly polarizing, like singing the praises of racial hierarchy). So, if you pay attention to the tone of communication you can express controversial opinions without defensive blowback and have a higher chance of people understanding your ideas.
- yes_its_giles 17y ago
  you're making the same assumption I disagreed with two comments ago. to me, getting banned is not the negative part of the experience. the negative part of the experience is the bad habit of coming back to engage in more fruitless conversation when I could be off doing stuff. the more offensive my tone is on this site, the sooner I'll get banned again, the quicker I'll get on with something actually useful to do, and the better it'll be for me. I should just follow my own advice and devolve into Tourette's syndrome. fuck you, you chinchilla rapist. (nothing personal.) anyway, ALSO, none of this has anything to do with what I'm talking about, which is that HN's karma system incubates various dysfunctions, and that anyone who sets up any kind of points system on a social site is going to be setting up the rules of a game that people will then play and be emotionally invested in winning. curious game, the only way to win is not to play. I'm going to throw away my password to this account, log out, and see how long I can last before starting account #4.
  - mcantelon 17y ago
    I assumed that being banned wouldn't be a positive experience if not being banned was more of a positive experience, i.e. if you got more value from communication. But yeah, communication is often minimally useful. And I get that the pollution of motivation caused by social app incentives make make it even less so. It seems that without these incentives things tend to fall down in different ways, but maybe my experience of qualities communities that don't rely on social app incentives is limited. [And chincilla is mischaracterizing what happened between us: it was my understanding that it was consensual.]

mcantelon 17y ago

I think it's more the the way that opinions are expressed than the opinions themselves which creates blowback (unless one is expressing something truly polarizing, like singing the praises of racial hierarchy). So, if you pay attention to the tone of communication you can express controversial opinions without defensive blowback and have a higher chance of people understanding your ideas.

yes_its_giles 17y ago
you're making the same assumption I disagreed with two comments ago. to me, getting banned is not the negative part of the experience. the negative part of the experience is the bad habit of coming back to engage in more fruitless conversation when I could be off doing stuff. the more offensive my tone is on this site, the sooner I'll get banned again, the quicker I'll get on with something actually useful to do, and the better it'll be for me. I should just follow my own advice and devolve into Tourette's syndrome. fuck you, you chinchilla rapist. (nothing personal.) anyway, ALSO, none of this has anything to do with what I'm talking about, which is that HN's karma system incubates various dysfunctions, and that anyone who sets up any kind of points system on a social site is going to be setting up the rules of a game that people will then play and be emotionally invested in winning. curious game, the only way to win is not to play. I'm going to throw away my password to this account, log out, and see how long I can last before starting account #4.
- mcantelon 17y ago
  I assumed that being banned wouldn't be a positive experience if not being banned was more of a positive experience, i.e. if you got more value from communication. But yeah, communication is often minimally useful. And I get that the pollution of motivation caused by social app incentives make make it even less so. It seems that without these incentives things tend to fall down in different ways, but maybe my experience of qualities communities that don't rely on social app incentives is limited. [And chincilla is mischaracterizing what happened between us: it was my understanding that it was consensual.]