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What they fail to understand is that there was never a conspiracy to censor their content, it was the greater Digg community that did that because their article
by byrneseyeview 16y ago
What they fail to understand is that there was never a conspiracy to censor their content, it was the greater Digg community that did that because their articles are usually unprofessional, fact-challenged fantasies that nobody wants to read.
They should probably have asked a conservative. It's hard to tell whether these folks were submitting quality stories with a different slant, or were actively submitting crap. Obviously it's hard to trust the views of a site that says:
There are a few differences of opinion within DP, although for the most part, they are extremely similar in perspective. They hate Obama. They hate progressives. They hate the UN, diplomacy, and peace/disarmament efforts. They hate reforms of health care, Wall St., and immigration. They hate science, in fact many are creationists, and some even blog about it. They hate the secular nature of our nation. They hate environmental protection, requiring polluters to be responsible for their own cleanup, and especially hate climate efforts. They hate unions and any attempt to level the playing field to give all Americans economic opportunities. They hate the government, except the military-industrial complex. They hate abortion rights. They hate public schools and really hate higher education. They hate anyone in the media except far right personalities like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin. They hate anyone who doesn’t think Obama is a secret islamist and/or marxist who was born in Kenya.
And follows that up with the unironic:
They just love to hate.
Fortunately, this article makes it easier for voting sites to detect cabals and manipulators by seeing which accounts vote in tandem. That might lead to false positives, but that may not be so bad--if only a tiny minority cares very strongly about a single story, I don't have to care whether or not they're coordinating their votes. Either way, it's likely to be of less interest to the average reader.
- gwern 16y ago> It's hard to tell whether these folks were submitting quality stories with a different slant, or were actively submitting crap. If I may quote from the article quoting the conspiracy's users about the submissions of 'these folks' > "If any of the usual suspects subbed a story claiming “sky blue/water wet,” I’d BURY IT without question. I’ve been on digg for almost 4 years… > -JeremiahLaments (account says Joined Digg on 21Aug2009)" > "I personally vote for a complete blackout on lib subs: Bury every comment (including the conservatives “helping” to pop the story). No up-votes (no matter how much you agree). > -asami21" > "Whether I agree with Bjornski, Anamaly100, PhilPerspective, Novenator, JanineWallace, UncaJoe, & a couple others I can’t think of right now, I bury `em anyway. ACTUALLY each of them has been “dead-on, balls-accurate” (an industry term) at least once in the past week or so, and it sort-of pains me to be dishonest by burying them anyway, but then I remember . . . I’m not up for re-election! > -BentheDog"
- jcromartie 16y agoWell, what do you know. They just hate everything. Nice.
- byrneseyeview 16y agoRight, that's the content they're getting rid of. But that says nothing about the content they're posting. If it's freep threads, that's unfortunate; if it's links to GNXP.com or Paul Romer, or touting Angelo Codevilla's new essay (http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-cla... -- read it!), that's something completely different. To someone who disagrees with all of it, Codevilla is just Glenn Beck at greater length. Which is why the author should have asked a conservative if the content that crew posted was high-quality or not.
- jbooth 16y agoIf they're exercising such intellectually dishonest and, to me at least, morally deficient behavior with suppressing other stories ("even if you agree with it"), then any content they post is probably of similar character. Regarding "someone should have asked a conservative", that just goes to show how deeply the "we'll just believe our own facts, thank you" is embedded in the conservative movement. http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page. Not that liberals are always right or anything, but you can ask 10 liberals and get 20 answers, or you can ask 10 conservatives and get 1 answer.
- Aaronontheweb 16y agoContrary to popular belief, conservatives are actually an intellectualy diverse group, not a centrally planned hivemind.
- byrneseyeview 16y agoI'm not sure you understand my criticism. I'm not arguing that they are doing something good or useful. But I'm not sure you can deduce that they're posting low-quality content because of the tactics they use to subvert other people's content. I don't think the writer of the original story is a good source for judging the quality of content written from a conservative perspective, due to his/her existing views. I would bet that most conservatives disagree with most of what is written in the two examples I gave, so I doubt that conservatism is an intellectual monolith. Within the conservative movement, there's plenty of lively debate; when a traditionalist Souther Agrarian can claim to share the same party as a hedonistic libertarian psychonaut, it's unlikely for there to be "1 answer."
- davidw 16y agoThis kind of stuff (both sides) is why politics should be kept as far as possible away from Hacker News.
- LaPingvino 16y agoMaybe... At least I've got the impression that on HN reactions are way more professional, I see people here actually listening to the arguments of others and that's the least you need to keep things quiet. Most people here keep extremism out here anyway. Emotional arguments don't succeed to gain traction, you have to be factual and nuanced to gain respect here, and as far as I see blind extremism doesn't get that far.
- davidw 16y agoYeah, reddit started that way too. It doesn't last long.
- eru 16y agoOn HN the fear is "Are we turning into Reddit?". On Reddit the comparison used to be Digg. (I left three years ago, so I don't know what happened in the mean time.)
- dsmithn 16y agoIt's to 4chan now. With pride, usually.
- jbooth 16y agoI'm considering starting my own shadow conspiracy to downmod every comparison to, or mention of, reddit.
- davidw 16y agoIs the point not valid? If you want to avoid mentioning... "it", you could simply say that without imposing some rules/order, random internet discussion of politics degrades fairly rapidly.