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Do internet comment sections satisfy any need?
by laretluval 9y ago
Do internet comment sections satisfy any need?
- 52-6F-62 9y agoIf they provide an avenue for topical and reasonable discourse, then yes. People (at least some people) tend toward the need for discourse to temper and test their ideas. I mean, you're commenting on HN.
- brad0 9y agoWhat makes HN comments great that other comments systems don't have? It's the guidelines. By writing guidelines that promote useful discourse you allow everyone involved to learn more about their own biases and shortcomings. Every person that writes their opinion grows when reading the varied responses (as long as they're open to other people's perspectives).
- hacking_again 9y agoThe text-only interface with no 3rd-party ads plus the smart person cult of YC / PG contribute a lot.
- memeCrasher 9y agoSmarter and more insightful commentators. That's pretty much it. Once the population gets too big and the level of discourse too low, the intelligent people will move to greener pastures with better signal:noise ratios. Slashdot's moderation system didn't save them, and HN's moderation system won't either. I've yet to see a comment system that promotes signal:noise ratio over groupthink.
- rocqua 9y agoExactly, HN works because of it's audience. This leads to weird incentives though, promoting HN to widely might worsen it by diluting the 'good' audience. Not to forget the discussion about who is part of the 'good' audience, that discussion is bound to be toxic.
- eevilspock 9y agoSo you don't think HN has groupthink? Doesn't every groupthink community describe themselves as "Smarter and more insightful commentators"? I'm pretty sure Trump or Clinton voter websites consider their signal-to-noise high and everyone else's low.
- ouid 9y agoIf the article is written in a way that isn't honest, I expect the top comment to describe how, and I expect the top comment to that to be a rebuttal. The best comment doesn't always reach the top, but it often does, and it's usually somewhere to be found. The exceptions are usually found in heavily moderated or highly specialized forums.
- enraged_camel 9y agoIf they didn't, HN wouldn't exist. ;)
- ant6n 9y agoHN is for the news of course.
- _jal 9y agoNow there's a contextually amusing question.
- magic_beans 9y agoWhat are you doing right now?
- laretluval 9y agoSomething I want to do, not something I need to do.
- fragmede 9y agoInternet commenting, wherein people use modern technology for group communication, facilitates the top two, possibly the top three levels on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The base layer accounts for physiological needs like food and water, but past that base layer of physiological necessity, human beings need interaction with other human beings in order not to be a robot. Things like friendship and familial connections, which are are facilitated by social media such as Facebook. And, really, what is Facebook but Internet commenting on baby and cat photos of people you are related to in some form (by choice or by birth). If we accept that humans are social creatures, and social media is able to connect people, then it is possible to say Internet comment sections are able to fulfill some needs that people have. Displaced football fans working far from home may not be able to find a local group that also supports their home team in a far away place, but there's a digital clubhouse for the displaced fan's home team somewhere on the Internet. This may not satisfy a need like food or water, but people organized into geographically-based, sometimes tightly-knit communities before the Internet. That modern technology allows us to organize into loose-knit communities through the use of "Internet comment sections" is to realize J.C.R. Licklider's dream of an inter-networked computer system.