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>on contentious issues HN will still reward quality participation Maybe the problem is what you consider "contentious"? I certainly wouldn't put ad-blocking i

>on contentious issues HN will still reward quality participation Maybe the problem is what you consider "contentious"? I certainly wouldn't put ad-blocking in that boat. I would put "sexism in tech", "H1Bs" and "finance crimes" in that boat. How do they fair?

morgante 11y ago
> I would put "sexism in tech", "H1Bs" and "finance crimes" in that boat. For the latter two, you see a diversity of perspectives. There are plenty on HN toeing the populist line (H1Bs = evil, HFT = evil), but also people willing to go into the nuance and give oppositional evidence. Well-substantiated comments rise to the top even when they defy the populist thinking. I'll concede that the former doesn't have good discussions, but I'm not sure it's possible to have a quality discussion about "sexism in tech" in any online forum. Saying the wrong thing will lead to you losing your job, but full anonymity brings out the trolls and the sexists.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I'd put those in there. Also promoting old tech like Ada, criticizing popular things like Rust/Web/Cloud, shifting blame to women on sexism posts where it makes sense, discouraging use of VC tech for anything critical, countering pg on economic inequality, countering white privileged concept from angle of white minority in black-controlled areas, and countering mainstream security in general. I'd say that's a nice collection of all the reasons my account would disappear somewhere else. As dang and tptacek described, there is an effect where they get hit with significant, sometimes massive, downvotes followed by more thoughtful people who valued a counterpoint that at least presented arguments or evidence. Plus a handful that agree with it probably. The sloooow upvote, but rapid downvotes, of some of those comments which would be popular elsewhere shows the site bias in action. Critical to a parent's claim, though, is that those comments all survived with positive votes and sometimes continuing discussion. It's rare that I delete one for being totally ineffective. For me, high in dissent in contentious topics, I scrounged up 5000+ karma in a year without actually trying to get karma. That's clearly due to culture and moderation here that pushes for higher-quality discussions that are more tolerant of dissent than critics elsewhere say about HN.

morgante 11y ago

> I would put "sexism in tech", "H1Bs" and "finance crimes" in that boat. For the latter two, you see a diversity of perspectives. There are plenty on HN toeing the populist line (H1Bs = evil, HFT = evil), but also people willing to go into the nuance and give oppositional evidence. Well-substantiated comments rise to the top even when they defy the populist thinking. I'll concede that the former doesn't have good discussions, but I'm not sure it's possible to have a quality discussion about "sexism in tech" in any online forum. Saying the wrong thing will lead to you losing your job, but full anonymity brings out the trolls and the sexists.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

I'd put those in there. Also promoting old tech like Ada, criticizing popular things like Rust/Web/Cloud, shifting blame to women on sexism posts where it makes sense, discouraging use of VC tech for anything critical, countering pg on economic inequality, countering white privileged concept from angle of white minority in black-controlled areas, and countering mainstream security in general. I'd say that's a nice collection of all the reasons my account would disappear somewhere else. As dang and tptacek described, there is an effect where they get hit with significant, sometimes massive, downvotes followed by more thoughtful people who valued a counterpoint that at least presented arguments or evidence. Plus a handful that agree with it probably. The sloooow upvote, but rapid downvotes, of some of those comments which would be popular elsewhere shows the site bias in action. Critical to a parent's claim, though, is that those comments all survived with positive votes and sometimes continuing discussion. It's rare that I delete one for being totally ineffective. For me, high in dissent in contentious topics, I scrounged up 5000+ karma in a year without actually trying to get karma. That's clearly due to culture and moderation here that pushes for higher-quality discussions that are more tolerant of dissent than critics elsewhere say about HN.