5 ms·

I would definitely not describe HN as a place I come to get opposite points of view. I'm actually really very surprised anyone would see it that way, can you el

by IanCal 10y ago

I would definitely not describe HN as a place I come to get opposite points of view. I'm actually really very surprised anyone would see it that way, can you elaborate at all on why you do?

Nadya 10y ago
Dang is speaking about scenarios where there is no /r/ForHillary or /r/The_Donald to intermingle yourself with. You get both sides in one thread and are confronted with ideas that you may not agree with - or that you vehemently disagree with. Not that people "come to HN to see opposing views". Rather that they must see opposing views when browsing a thread. Then you get a bunch of conflict from both sides. As an example, HN often has socially-related posts that hit the front page, such as today's Voice Modulation in the Interview Process (not actual title). This gets people from two very different sides that are informally split, depending on who you ask, as "overly politically correct regressives" and "stupid racist [___]phobic bigots". A bunch of conflict that detracts from the study/topic happens when those two groups butt heads.
- IanCal 10y ago
  You're assuming that there's a very wide range of people that visit HN, you can't get viewpoints from people that don't visit the site. I'd be surprised if a highly tech focused site called "hacker news" didn't have a strong bias towards certain demographics and viewpoints.
  - rexaliquid 10y ago
    You'd be surprised.
    - patrickmay 10y ago
      If only there were some kind of survey mechanism on the site to test the various hypotheses. ;-)
    - IanCal 10y ago
      Well I've just checked the front page and it seems extremely focused on a small range of issues. So I'm currently unsurprised. Is there an article about the huge benefit of for-profit journals? How abortion is an affront to God? How ISIS is trying to do some good in an area? Are you really suggesting there's really no bias towards certain demographics or viewpoints?
      - Udik 10y ago
        Are you two disagreeing about something, by any chance? :)
      - Noos 10y ago
        You could add articles against drug legalization, articles from a conservative (i.e. not libertarian or liberal) basis, articles against increasing city density, articles in favor of cars and suburban living, articles in favor of strong intellectual property laws, articles on the religious ideas and uses of technology, etc. There's a definite demographic that posts here, and it is very much an echo chamber.
        dang 10y ago
        Here is an example of what I claim is not the case. We see angry arguments about all of those topics on HN. They're not even infrequent. My claim is that you (I don't mean you personally, but all of us in your position) perceive HN as an 'echo chamber' on such issues precisely because it isn't. I imagine there are small biases on some of them, but people exaggerate this into "groupthink", "bubble", "echo chamber", etc., not because that's how it is but because that's how it feels.
        type0 10y ago
        It is an echo chamber for some of the threads, for other - people agree to disagree.
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        > Well I've just checked the front page and it seems extremely focused on a small range of issues. This is by "design". These are almost the only things that are on-topic here and we mostly like it this way. I'm sure you know.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ludamad 10y ago
Almost always the top reply critiques the article and it's top reply critiques it. We're an opinionated bunch, it makes sense to me.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
reitanqild 10y ago
I got a few updates on my thoughts just a few minutes ago. I value rational corrections even if I just think parts of it is correct; in some cases I've also come to changed my views somewhat.
dang 10y ago
What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't know it. Instead, you would feel yourself surrounded by enemies. Why? Because we notice what we dislike more strongly than what we like. We remember painful experiences more than pleasurable ones, and it's painful to read comments opposing our strongly held X's. So people feel like the community is biased whether it is or not. Unfortunately they feel this the most about the most divisive topics. I arrived at this view because I have a different perspective than most users. It's my job to monitor the site overall, plus pay attention to the complaints people make about it. From such a position one quickly notices how many complaints about HN contradict each another. For example, for any political X, some people are certain that HN is overwhelmingly X. But those claims can't all be true, so there has to be some distortion at work here. Edit: here's an example I just ran across: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990458. (I'm not mentioning that to single one user out; it's a common phenomenon, and this is just the first example I saw after writing the above.)
- IanCal 10y ago
  > What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't know it. Instead, you would feel yourself surrounded by enemies. Why? Because we notice and remember painful experiences more than pleasurable ones, and it's painful to read comments against one's strongly held X's. So people feel like the community is biased whether it is or not. This doesn't actually address the issue I feel there is in that HN is a fairly small group of people from a particular demographic. A site called "hacker news" with a heavy focus on technology and startups is surely likely to have some bias compared to a random sampling of the general population. Any post added gets voted on and only a small number of the posts that get posted will get any real traction, do you feel there's no bias in the type of things that get to the front page? As a quick example, how many of the frontpage articles do you really disagree with? Which ones are strongly against what you actually believe? I've just had a look and honestly there are none. Everything fits very comfortably with my general beliefs. I have never felt like I was surrounded by enemies here.

by IanCal 10y ago

I would definitely not describe HN as a place I come to get opposite points of view. I'm actually really very surprised anyone would see it that way, can you elaborate at all on why you do?

Nadya 10y ago

Dang is speaking about scenarios where there is no /r/ForHillary or /r/The_Donald to intermingle yourself with. You get both sides in one thread and are confronted with ideas that you may not agree with - or that you vehemently disagree with. Not that people "come to HN to see opposing views". Rather that they must see opposing views when browsing a thread. Then you get a bunch of conflict from both sides. As an example, HN often has socially-related posts that hit the front page, such as today's Voice Modulation in the Interview Process (not actual title). This gets people from two very different sides that are informally split, depending on who you ask, as "overly politically correct regressives" and "stupid racist [___]phobic bigots". A bunch of conflict that detracts from the study/topic happens when those two groups butt heads.

IanCal 10y ago
You're assuming that there's a very wide range of people that visit HN, you can't get viewpoints from people that don't visit the site. I'd be surprised if a highly tech focused site called "hacker news" didn't have a strong bias towards certain demographics and viewpoints.
- rexaliquid 10y ago
  You'd be surprised.
  - patrickmay 10y ago
    If only there were some kind of survey mechanism on the site to test the various hypotheses. ;-)
  - IanCal 10y ago
    Well I've just checked the front page and it seems extremely focused on a small range of issues. So I'm currently unsurprised. Is there an article about the huge benefit of for-profit journals? How abortion is an affront to God? How ISIS is trying to do some good in an area? Are you really suggesting there's really no bias towards certain demographics or viewpoints?
    - Udik 10y ago
      Are you two disagreeing about something, by any chance? :)
    - Noos 10y ago
      You could add articles against drug legalization, articles from a conservative (i.e. not libertarian or liberal) basis, articles against increasing city density, articles in favor of cars and suburban living, articles in favor of strong intellectual property laws, articles on the religious ideas and uses of technology, etc. There's a definite demographic that posts here, and it is very much an echo chamber.
      - dang 10y ago
        Here is an example of what I claim is not the case. We see angry arguments about all of those topics on HN. They're not even infrequent. My claim is that you (I don't mean you personally, but all of us in your position) perceive HN as an 'echo chamber' on such issues precisely because it isn't. I imagine there are small biases on some of them, but people exaggerate this into "groupthink", "bubble", "echo chamber", etc., not because that's how it is but because that's how it feels.
      - type0 10y ago
        It is an echo chamber for some of the threads, for other - people agree to disagree.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      > Well I've just checked the front page and it seems extremely focused on a small range of issues. This is by "design". These are almost the only things that are on-topic here and we mostly like it this way. I'm sure you know.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ludamad 10y ago

Almost always the top reply critiques the article and it's top reply critiques it. We're an opinionated bunch, it makes sense to me.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

reitanqild 10y ago

I got a few updates on my thoughts just a few minutes ago. I value rational corrections even if I just think parts of it is correct; in some cases I've also come to changed my views somewhat.

dang 10y ago

What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't know it. Instead, you would feel yourself surrounded by enemies. Why? Because we notice what we dislike more strongly than what we like. We remember painful experiences more than pleasurable ones, and it's painful to read comments opposing our strongly held X's. So people feel like the community is biased whether it is or not. Unfortunately they feel this the most about the most divisive topics. I arrived at this view because I have a different perspective than most users. It's my job to monitor the site overall, plus pay attention to the complaints people make about it. From such a position one quickly notices how many complaints about HN contradict each another. For example, for any political X, some people are certain that HN is overwhelmingly X. But those claims can't all be true, so there has to be some distortion at work here. Edit: here's an example I just ran across: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990458. (I'm not mentioning that to single one user out; it's a common phenomenon, and this is just the first example I saw after writing the above.)

IanCal 10y ago
> What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't know it. Instead, you would feel yourself surrounded by enemies. Why? Because we notice and remember painful experiences more than pleasurable ones, and it's painful to read comments against one's strongly held X's. So people feel like the community is biased whether it is or not. This doesn't actually address the issue I feel there is in that HN is a fairly small group of people from a particular demographic. A site called "hacker news" with a heavy focus on technology and startups is surely likely to have some bias compared to a random sampling of the general population. Any post added gets voted on and only a small number of the posts that get posted will get any real traction, do you feel there's no bias in the type of things that get to the front page? As a quick example, how many of the frontpage articles do you really disagree with? Which ones are strongly against what you actually believe? I've just had a look and honestly there are none. Everything fits very comfortably with my general beliefs. I have never felt like I was surrounded by enemies here.