>I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook).
Some of the most interesting commentary on reddit are buried at -5 votes because almost all voting is an emotional reaction or treated as a "disagree/agree" button. I think its bad enough as-is. I don't want to see reddit build out a 'safe space' for me by analyzing my views and what subs I visit. If anything, I really want to see the threshold for when comments are collapsed to be much higher than -5, which seems easily gamed and way too quickly drowned out by knee-jerk disagree voters.
I wish these sites would move towards a slashdot-style moderation where your vote needs to be justified. Like "funny," "controversial," "insightful," "well sourced," or "poorly sourced," etc. Then you can adjust your algorithm as needed to promote quality comments, even if they go against the grain. Or users can tweak their own prefences like having a tick box or drag-n-drop to prefer 'insightful' over 'funny', for example. Or 'well sourced' over 'insightful.'
Sadly, social networks, forums, etc probably are highly disincentivized to do this as they assume we all just want tailored content. Or that if there isn't enough tailoring then users will just jump to the competition. I think most people can be okay with contradicting or some low effort, but still, insightful commentary. Perhaps we're overly coddling each other.
I once had to raise a huge security risk to Comcast and resorted to a reddit post after very little luck raising it through official channels. It was a pretty sobering experience to how reddit users use downvotes for things they didn't understand or disagreed with. A lot of the downvotes came from folks who angrily commented that I was too vague. Giving specifics is just reckless, and if anything, I probably gave way too much information. Any less vague and it would have been out in the open.
Some official folk from Comcast eventually showed up and almost immediately got it fixed (!). Afterwords, there were posts about how "reddit saved the day again". The customer rep who helped out ended up getting more upvotes than any of my posts. I really don't get it.
I'm near expert level in one or two categories. Its difficult to post about my views because they're academic and involve history, the debate, popular consensus, etc. My comments just get downvoted because the hivemind just wants simple answers. Those simple answers are easier to digest, easy to know if you agree or disagree, etc.
This is also why /r/askhistorians is so heavily moderated. If you just let it run itself the top comments would be low-effort junk like "Tesla god; Edison devil" and other nonsense with almost no discussions that go counter to the grain or discussion of the many shades of gray between "good and bad" and "right and wrong."
>Afterwords, there were posts about how "reddit saved the day again".
I feel sorry for the people who post incredible things, especially some of the short story writers, but the press narrative becomes "Reddit did it again!" It wasn't "reddit" it was a single author. I really wish there was more of an emphasis on individual contributions there and the people behind the usernames.
Anyone can complain about a security vulnerability or so forth. However, in getting it fixed, it is reddit that did it, because the "doing it" was getting the high-profile attention of someone who could fix the problem, which requires a reddit-level audience.
Similarly, if a newspaper publishes something about how a local company hurt a customer, it's the clout of the newspaper that "did it", not the customer.
>Anyone can complain about a security vulnerability or so forth.
The skillset to find a unknown security issue is rare. The skillset to post to reddit is common. I think you're wrong here. The author deserves the credit, not the site.
>Similarly, if a newspaper publishes something about how a local company hurt a customer, it's the clout of the newspaper that "did it"
Because the reporter is an employee of the newspaper and like all employees is part of the organization, so its easier to credit the organization. How is reddit like a newspaper? They aren't his employer. Its more like publishing something to the classified sections of a paper than being a reporter. It would be crazy to credit the paper for its classifieds.
If the information was noticed after being stapled to electrical poles, should Comed be given the credit? Hell no. Just because reddit is where the ack happened, that doesn't mean it was reddit who "did it". It just happened to be the place where it worked. It feels pretty unfair to give reddit the creddit here. It would have been significantly easier to either sell it or ignore it. Fuck both of those options.
FWIW, the disclosure sparked the discussion about a bug bounty program and a strong interest to reorganize their methods of raising security issues. I'm told both will go public, "soon". Whatever that means.
Someone should make a site with giant agree/disagree buttons and then separate adds/detracts from discussion buttons in a separate menu.
http://dsg.nd.edu/soc.html http://dsg.nd.edu/soc.html
I'm in the same lab, but I don't work on the Reddit projects currently (although I am on the most recently submitted paper, which, due to it not being accepted yet, is not on the website, either).
This will probably be detached for being off-topic, but until then...
Men and women move in very different ways due to gender policing. Things like how much you are allowed to/required to move your hips side to side are different for men and women. Sometimes in the workplace women are put in positions of less influence and less pay. They experience repeated instances of being passed over, thwarted, harassed, etc, while men with less capabilities, less force of will, in many workplaces advance further on average. Something as small as the way someone moves their hips while they walk immediately signals their gender, which on a given day could trigger feelings of powerlessness.
Or consider a woman who was being harassed by a man at work, and the first man she told was skeptical it was meant in the way she thought it was. She went home and got support from a bunch of girlfriends. The next day you walk into her cube with your male movement, and she's thinking "is this one on his side too?" It's possible that a more female-typical mode of moving and entering would've been less triggering for her even on an otherwise male body.
I probably need to note that I am not suggesting that ONLY women experience things like this, or that ALL women experience things like this, just that it is something that happens.
Oh, you literally mean the way they move.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Do you want men to sway their hips? You think something like that would help? Or would that be a reasonable thing to ask since it sorta reduces to the structure of the body?
Oh, just noticed you followed up here which. of course is where you should have followed up. I just wasn't looking in the right spot.
> Things like how much you are allowed to/required to move your hips side to side are different for men and women. I had interpreted "common male body movement patterns" as movement patterns unique to males, which severely limits the possibilities of what they could be, which is why I had speculated on movements regarding adjusting the crotch area. Given how I had misinterpreted that statement to limit the possibilities, that's the only thing I could think of.
Okay, if you're talking about double standards, and how a woman that moves her hips more might be seen a different way than one that doesn't, and this may affect perception of her, I totally agree. That's a double standard issue, to a degree, and it's not okay.
> The next day you walk into her cube with your male movement, and she's thinking "is this one on his side too?" It's possible that a more female-typical mode of moving and entering would've been less triggering for her even on an otherwise male body.
I don't really understand this. How is your mode of walking, which is natural, or any other feature, such as facial hair or just the fact that you are indeed male, anything you can help? It may sound like victim blaming to say that I think in this instance, it's really the responsibility of her to make sure she's not projecting her feelings onto innocent people, but I don't think it is. I'm not sure how this situation is any different than a white man that feels threatened by a black man one day, and the next day a separate black man approaches him casually and he feels threatened.
That is, I accept that some women, and men, might have exactly these feelings, but I'm not sure that it's the responsibility of the other party to solve that problem. Is that the point you were making, that just accepting that this situation is possible is not allowed by the point of view of those forums, or is it a step farther, and it's the idea that this is the responsibility of the other party (the man in your example, the black man in my example) to somehow change their natural state to address this? I understand the former, even if I don't know enough about Voat to assess whether I agree about them, but I'm not sure the reasoning behind the latter, if that's something you are trying to express.
I'm a man, and I'm a feminist. This isn't controversial, regardless of what large swaths of the internet thinks it is. I believe in equal pay, I believe that we should work into our compensation culture new ideas to make sure that women who are societally conditioned to ask for less don't end up making less just because their equally qualified coworkers are more aggressive. I believe that we have a rape culture in western society because to this day rape victims are questioned and second guessed, and to some of those same areas of the internet a man falsely accused of rape is considered a worse problem than actual rape. I also believe that "Social justice" is inherently an important problem, and it pisses me off that "social justice warrior" is a derisive insult.
I'm also an ally - I call out male coworkers who talk over or interrupt my female coworkers. And if a group of male coworkers get too "bro-y", even without women around, I'm the villain to say "yo dude, don't be sexist", and not back down from the "It's just a joke" defense. I'm a software engineer and I regularly introspect about how I can take active steps to make my environment more welcoming to women engineers.
I say all this to give you SOME of my beliefs before I say the next thing as un-insultingly as I possibly can.
The stuff you are talking about is a step too far, and it actively actively harms the cause of progressive feminism by making it seem frivolous, and immature. There is real harassment going on all around us, active/aggressive, and passive/insideous. But the way people WALK? Are you kidding me right now? I am an ally with my words and my actions. I will not change the way I walk because it signifies my maleness to a sensitive little wallflower who apparently feels powerless in front of 50% of the visible population?
I hate the "#notallmen" hashtag because it was reactionary and distracting from women who were at the time trying to speak real truth about their experiences. It misses just as much of the point as "All Lives matter".
But in the case of your example, a woman who is being harassed at work surely does not assume that all men in her workplace are against her by default, on account of their maleness. If she does, it has more to do with how they treat her, and not how they walk through the office.
Somebody so unstable they get "triggered" by how ordinary human beings walk needs professional help. At some point, you have to acknowledge that certain complaints are not reasonable.
>No, it lets you see a narrow slice of people's real, dark opinions. There are a whole host of opinions you'll never see on Voat because the user base is antagonistic to the basic ideas which underpin them
I don't know how it is on Voat, but on 8chan I'm a frequent user and poster of /leftypol/, titled "Leftist Politically Incorrect", which is basically the flip-side to the infamous /pol/ boards of {8,4}chan. On there people generally don't get banned for having "wrong" opinions (though it does sometimes happen). There are no votes, there are only threads on the board.
I like this a lot more. Taking 8chan as a whole, you get to see different sides. Recently there was something at 4chan's /pol/ where a janitor was removing posts of someone espousing left-wing opinions. The board moderator intervened and said that any political position is allowed on the board.
It really depends where you go, but you are right - the user base of a site is antagonistic to people with opposite views. But they can live side by side, even with an occasional 'raid'. I don't know if I can thank the founder of 8chan enough to have a place where people of my particular opinions (Marxism, socialism) can talk. I'm sure people across the spectrum say the same.
Take a look at /leftypol/ if you want and see that there are frequently debates between sides, and it's absolutely great. I wish I could say the same about /pol/. I posted a comment saying that no matter what position you are on, a vote re-count would be good for democracy. I was permanently banned for, and this is a direct quote: "defending jews". That was the reason.
Depends where you go. That's my 2c on the issue.
Even without moderation, anonymous imageboards have their own way to derail civilized discussion.
Someone could post a thread with an interesting premise, and the first response could be $racial_slur, and then the hivemind would repeat the process and spam $racial_slur indefinitely without any kind of real discussion going on. For the lulz.
This is certainly a problem, but I find it happening less on "special interest" boards. I don't think it's too far from Reddit in this respect. On /r/funny you might expect something like this to happen, with the top 2 comment threads being puns, or unenlightened comments. But on /r/EngineeringStudents or /r/compsci or /r/lisp ... (subs I vaguely remember) that's less likely to happen.
Right now on /leftypol/ there aren't many threads of what you describe. They do exist, but they aren't numerous. What you describe is more similar to 4chan's /b/, but even 4chan's /g/ has "tightened up" and is being steered more toward discussion (still with racial slurs but not entirely focussed on them). A notable exception is the "DESIGNATED SHITTING STREETS"/ "POO IN LOO" meme, though.
I don't know if these are just my experiences.
I meant more as in 4chan and /pol/. Haven't gone to 8chan or /leftypol/ but I'm always interested in quality discussion. That's why I frequent Hacker News.
I think it happens less on special interest boards because there are less posts altogether on niche boards.
/p/, /trv/ - slow boards that have their own shitposts.
I hang out a lot on /diy/ and /out/ and some on /pol/ and behavior is definitely driven by board culture not technology, as the underlying technology is obviously the same. The worst I see is on /out/ is the mora knives nuts, sure I get that you like that knife for outdoor work thanks for telling us the 10000th time now go away. The worst I see on /diy/ is, well, nothing, maybe some half-baked electrical advice sometimes, well intentioned maybe but if you're doing something weird maybe wiring your own subpanel if you have to ask /diy/ how to ground it you should probably give the job to an electrician. The worst I see on /pol/, well no point going there here on HN, but you can guess.
Aren't the chans not about your real beliefs, but simply trolling to get reactions ?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/11/terrorist-troll-pretended-to-be-isis-white-supremacist-and-jewish-lawyer.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/11/terrorist-t...
This guy got articles published as radical feminist as well beyond being a fake isis terrorist, fake white nationalist, fake jewish lawyer.
I think this is a narrow position. On the boards on chans that I frequent, this isn't at all true. Yes, there are occasionally "trolls" who pretend they have positions they do not. The sarcasm may be subtle or not, depending on intention. But far more predominantly there are people who espouse their views and back them up cogently. There are also devil's advocates.
But I wouldn't say that chan culture is about this, or that there is an inextricable link between them. It's simply a common occurance by nature of being anonymous. More often than not, "bait" is called out as such, but even if you're being serious, you can ignore that.
A mixed bag, but certainly not representative. I know of many on the politics board who do sincerely hold nationalist or white supremacist views, and I have argued against them. I also know many on the left-politics board who will talk you through Marx's critique of capitalism.
There is some nuance in my opinion.
As a counter I think there are /leftypol/ users who sincerely hold Stalinst or Maoist views. Jokes are made about gulags, Holodomor and the Great Purge, just as /pol/ will joke about 9/11, the Holocaust and mass shootings.
How does this make it a better place of discussion?
Because from my experience and what I have been told by users of both /pol/ and /leftypol/, people get banned less on /leftypol/ for opposing viewpoints.
I also think that there is a difference between the boards in that /leftypol/ is quick to ridicule a sincere Maoist (Jason Unruhe) but I've seen that /pol/ will jump on the bandwagon of the nearest Holocaust-denier. I think that there is a lot more of a liberal and tolerating view on /leftypol/ due to the sheer diversity of the left. This is in contrast to the very narrow brand of the right-wing (a subsection of the alt-right) that's on /pol/, from what I see.
But we should remember that it's Leftist Politically Incorrect, not Leftist Politics.
I could say "upvote category" (a la Slashdot or Steam where you can tag a comment as "funny" or "insightful") and "downvote category" (so you can specifically downvote for disagreeing vs. offensive vs. irrelevancy) but let me tell you a story about Reddit instead.
Once upon a time I was subbed to /r/redpill, usually to counterpoint their many arguably-false conclusions. Naturally I was downvoted to oblivion most of the time, because Reddit does not do anything to prevent echo-chambers (in fact it probably outright encourages them... because engagement), and thus, echo-chambers are a natural result of subreddits and "comment percolation via upvoting in agreement and downvoting in disagreement" (the fact that Reddit TOS says you should only downvote on irrelevancy, NOT disagreement, doesn't matter, because people are assholes and critical-thinking skill is apparently an extremely precious commodity these days).
At the same time I was subbed to a number of, eh, feminist subs, like TwoXChromosomes. Sometimes, I disagreed with them too (and got downvoted), but most of the time (slightly most of the time), I got upvoted on those.
One day, I got banned from ALL feminist subs. ALL. OF. THEM. Simply because some mod with a god complex did a cross-reference of everyone subbed to /r/redpill, and mass-banned them. My entreaties to the mods ("just look at my fucking comments in there! I'm actually fighting for you guys!!) resulted in no reinstatement. (While this should not matter, it probably didn't help that my username at the time was "GSpotAssassin".)
Around that point, I kind of lost faith in Reddit as a thing not fatally-flawed. (While deciding to completely step out of the modern gender wars. It's a cesspool, anyway.)
I cannot emphasize how much I loathe echo-chambers. And it seems to be getting worse. I literally do not understand how people cannot tolerate the occasional discomfort of a dissimilar viewpoint, especially if it is well-argued. But I'm a rationalist, and we love a good debate, basically. Sadly, this does not at all account for most people, who I like to joke "prefer to belong than be right".
"Do you think there's room for a new discussion site which embraced all these lessons that other discussion sites seem to perpetually be ignoring (perhaps due to simple entrenchment)?"
There's a ton of discussion sites. It's not "reddit or HN or nothing"; it's a question of which of the bajillion forums, blogs, link aggregators, email lists, or other things you're interested in joining. There's room for all kinds of more of them, too. There's so many choices it's more a discovery problem than an availability problem.
However, if you go into it with the hopes of being the next thing that is the size of Reddit, statistically, you're going to be disappointed.
It isn't even clear to me that this is a very good goal, either. Running a site the size of Reddit is an enormous, enormous hassle. The controversies currently associated with it at the moment are merely specific instantiations of the general fact that you can count on being vilified by a good 20%+ of the community once you reach that size, that every change will be met with a huge outpouring of hatred straight into your contact box, and so on. Goodness help the poor person trying to start The Next Reddit (TM) with the naive idea that it is a good idea to be very available to the community... all that does is add to the inevitable flames some fresh flames when you have to reneg on that promise too. Unless you've got a solid plan to monetize enough to make it worthwhile, fast enough for it to be worthwhile, while still somehow organically growing without that getting in the way, I'd suggest shooting for starting a community for $X, for some value of $X of interest to you, rather than trying to be The Next Reddit (TM).