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In my opinion, it creates an echo chamber where in order to be a "full member" of the community you have to already espouse views the community supports. It is

In my opinion, it creates an echo chamber where in order to be a "full member" of the community you have to already espouse views the community supports. It is a big reason why I don't participate much.

apendleton 9y ago
I certainly think it's possible to clear 500 karma by playing to the echo chamber, but I don't remember having had much difficulty doing getting 500 and most of my comments have either been technical or about niche policy-ish stuff like urban planning or energy. I think my personal views on particularly echo-chamber-y things are probably at least somewhat different from any normative HN values that may exist, and that hasn't really been a barrier. (That said, I almost never downvote.)
DoreenMichele 9y ago
I espouse a lot of views that the community does not support. I am also the first woman to make the leaderboard (under a different handle -- my retired handle has 25k karma). I don't think it works exactly the way you think it does.
- ryanx435 9y ago
  How do you know you were the first woman to do so? This is a psuedo anonymous internet forum where people aren't required to state their gender or even their real names.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/06/how-do-i-know-im-number-one.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/06/how-do-i-kno... I will add that being the first woman on the leaderboard is not essential to the point that you can get a lot of karma and not be part of the echo chamber. But inevitably that is the detail that gets focused on, as if proving that I am not the first woman (or questioning my assertion, because no proof to the contrary has ever been offered when I get asked this) somehow invalidates my actual point. My other handle has 25k karma. This one has over 3k. I don't in any way whatsoever participate in an echo chamber.
    - ryanx435 9y ago
      > I will add that being the first woman on the leaderboard is not essential to the point that you can get a lot of karma and not be part of the echo chamber. But inevitably that is the detail that gets focused on, If it's not essential, and you don't want people to focus on it, why did you bring it up? It was the only interesting part of your comment (to me). I don't really care if HN is an echo chamber or not. > as if proving that I am not the first woman (or questioning my assertion, because no proof to the contrary has ever been offered when I get asked this) somehow invalidates my actual point. I actually dont care if you were or were not the first woman or if it was someone else, I was just curious about how you knew on an anonymous forum. But go ahead, be mad about it. Your blog post is interesting, so thanks for linking that.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
danso 9y ago
What do you think is being echo-chambered?
- jotm 9y ago
  To sum it up, the ignorance of the harsh realities of life, especially (but not exclusively!) for the lower class. HN is a circlejerk (oh my bad, "echo chamber") of idealists, whether they are utopian or dystopian, pretty far removed from reality. It's the same all over social media "circles", which is why I just gave up on it all, it's more like show off media. If you participate, share your actual thoughts without trying to fit in.. Or just take full on advantage of the circus. Cue the downvotes.
ender89 9y ago
I don't participate much because unlike, say, reddit, HN seems much more focused on delivering people to other destinations. That might just be my perception, but I think reddit has much more sophisticated community features, where as comments have always felt like an add-on for HN
- sciurus 9y ago
  That's so different from my experience. I often read the comments on HN before the linked article. I generally find reddit comments, even in subs dedicated to topics I care about, to be garbage. In contrast, I learn a lot from reading HN's comments.
rhizome 9y ago
Why do you think "views the community supports" is the only thing that people upvote? I upvote entire threads where people are disagreeing because the whole conversation has value. I also upvote comments that add something new to the conversation. I think you have a naïve sense of participation.
jandrese 9y ago
You don't have to join the hive mind to get to 500 karma. People around here are pretty free with the upvotes. If you want a community that is hard to get started in look at StackExchange. You can't even comment until you've gotten quite a few points.
chopin 9y ago
I reached that threshold mostly via submissions, I don't comment that much (but also downvote very rarely). Surely, also submissions may add to the echo chamber, especially if they hit a nerve. One reason for me to stay here is the diversity (and civility) of the comments, I don't think it's too bad. Another favourite read of mine is Arstechnica, but the comments there don't reach the quality of the comments on HN, imho.
efdee 9y ago
Then again, if you feel that you need to be able to downvote people in order to "participate", maybe it's good that you don't have a downvote button yet ;-)

apendleton 9y ago

I certainly think it's possible to clear 500 karma by playing to the echo chamber, but I don't remember having had much difficulty doing getting 500 and most of my comments have either been technical or about niche policy-ish stuff like urban planning or energy. I think my personal views on particularly echo-chamber-y things are probably at least somewhat different from any normative HN values that may exist, and that hasn't really been a barrier. (That said, I almost never downvote.)

DoreenMichele 9y ago

I espouse a lot of views that the community does not support. I am also the first woman to make the leaderboard (under a different handle -- my retired handle has 25k karma). I don't think it works exactly the way you think it does.

ryanx435 9y ago
How do you know you were the first woman to do so? This is a psuedo anonymous internet forum where people aren't required to state their gender or even their real names.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/06/how-do-i-know-im-number-one.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/06/how-do-i-kno... I will add that being the first woman on the leaderboard is not essential to the point that you can get a lot of karma and not be part of the echo chamber. But inevitably that is the detail that gets focused on, as if proving that I am not the first woman (or questioning my assertion, because no proof to the contrary has ever been offered when I get asked this) somehow invalidates my actual point. My other handle has 25k karma. This one has over 3k. I don't in any way whatsoever participate in an echo chamber.
  - ryanx435 9y ago
    > I will add that being the first woman on the leaderboard is not essential to the point that you can get a lot of karma and not be part of the echo chamber. But inevitably that is the detail that gets focused on, If it's not essential, and you don't want people to focus on it, why did you bring it up? It was the only interesting part of your comment (to me). I don't really care if HN is an echo chamber or not. > as if proving that I am not the first woman (or questioning my assertion, because no proof to the contrary has ever been offered when I get asked this) somehow invalidates my actual point. I actually dont care if you were or were not the first woman or if it was someone else, I was just curious about how you knew on an anonymous forum. But go ahead, be mad about it. Your blog post is interesting, so thanks for linking that.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

danso 9y ago

What do you think is being echo-chambered?

jotm 9y ago
To sum it up, the ignorance of the harsh realities of life, especially (but not exclusively!) for the lower class. HN is a circlejerk (oh my bad, "echo chamber") of idealists, whether they are utopian or dystopian, pretty far removed from reality. It's the same all over social media "circles", which is why I just gave up on it all, it's more like show off media. If you participate, share your actual thoughts without trying to fit in.. Or just take full on advantage of the circus. Cue the downvotes.

ender89 9y ago

I don't participate much because unlike, say, reddit, HN seems much more focused on delivering people to other destinations. That might just be my perception, but I think reddit has much more sophisticated community features, where as comments have always felt like an add-on for HN

sciurus 9y ago
That's so different from my experience. I often read the comments on HN before the linked article. I generally find reddit comments, even in subs dedicated to topics I care about, to be garbage. In contrast, I learn a lot from reading HN's comments.

rhizome 9y ago

Why do you think "views the community supports" is the only thing that people upvote? I upvote entire threads where people are disagreeing because the whole conversation has value. I also upvote comments that add something new to the conversation. I think you have a naïve sense of participation.

jandrese 9y ago

You don't have to join the hive mind to get to 500 karma. People around here are pretty free with the upvotes. If you want a community that is hard to get started in look at StackExchange. You can't even comment until you've gotten quite a few points.

chopin 9y ago

I reached that threshold mostly via submissions, I don't comment that much (but also downvote very rarely). Surely, also submissions may add to the echo chamber, especially if they hit a nerve. One reason for me to stay here is the diversity (and civility) of the comments, I don't think it's too bad. Another favourite read of mine is Arstechnica, but the comments there don't reach the quality of the comments on HN, imho.

efdee 9y ago

Then again, if you feel that you need to be able to downvote people in order to "participate", maybe it's good that you don't have a downvote button yet ;-)