4 ms·

I would argue there are way too many variables in that question to present a strong argument either way. One thing I will say on it though is how much of our hu

I would argue there are way too many variables in that question to present a strong argument either way. One thing I will say on it though is how much of our humanity are we ready to sacrifice on the altar of this mythical "meritocracy" that every online community, especially those built on or around code, seems to aim for? And how long until we're ready to confront the fact that a lot of these meritocracies strangely produce very similar "top contributors" in terms of demographics, i.e. white, straight men? I'm not getting into either side of it, I'm just saying that you have to admit it's an astonishing coincidence that online communities, started by, moderated by, largely inhabited by, and currently operated by white men seemingly always have a cadre of white men on the top as the "most valuable contributors" and nobody ever seems to wonder if all those things are connected. Maybe the fears of POC/women are invalid. Maybe it's all a big damn misunderstanding. But I don't think it's right to have white men deciding if it is or not, and I don't think the best damn catalog of coding answers on the planet means a thing if everyone who isn't part of the in-crowd is too damn terrified to ask a question of it.

notatoad 9y ago
>One thing I will say on it though is how much of our humanity are we ready to sacrifice on the altar of this mythical "meritocracy" that every online community, especially those built on or around code, seems to aim for? i don't mean to imply that we should preserve the toxic communities for the point of good content. but there seems to be a correlation here, and it's worth studying what positive effects the toxicity might create, otherwise it's going to be very difficult to re-create it without the toxicity and the sites that value the human creators over the content will always be at a natural disadvantage to the other sites.
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  I'd imagine you could exploit all kinds of humanities' worse tendencies (in this case, tribalism) and create something that is "better" in some measurements, the real challenge I think is objectively ranking different communities based on the quality of the content in question, and finding how that correlates to whatever, in this case, "tribe" is being used to make it. IMHO, no problem ever, software related or otherwise has benefited or been solved better by way of having fewer brains involved, and the shortest path to having more brains is having more people, i.e. being more open and inclusive. It would seem to be that SO already has excellent tools to moderate quality without resorting to allowing users to treat each other in such a poor manner.
- shagie 9y ago
  The article A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy ( http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enem... ) gets into that a bit. One of the interesting bits in there is: > The second basic pattern that Bion detailed: The identification and vilification of external enemies. This is a very common pattern. Anyone who was around the Open Source movement in the mid-Nineties could see this all the time. If you cared about Linux on the desktop, there was a big list of jobs to do. But you could always instead get a conversation going about Microsoft and Bill Gates. And people would start bleeding from their ears, they would get so mad. Which can be seen in Stack Overflow (its the newbies that don't read that are messing everything up) and reddit (Stack Overflow aka Downvote and Duplicate). Each group is making their group stronger and a more firmer identification by vilifying the other group (merited or not). This happens in all groups. -- The "everyone is mean" nature of some of the communities, I believe, comes from further down in the 'three things to accept': > 2.) The second thing you have to accept: Members are different than users. A pattern will arise in which there is some group of users that cares more than average about the integrity and success of the group as a whole. And that becomes your core group, Art Kleiner's phrase for "the group within the group that matters most." > The core group on Communitree was undifferentiated from the group of random users that came in. They were separate in their own minds, because they knew what they wanted to do, but they couldn't defend themselves against the other users. But in all successful online communities that I've looked at, a core group arises that cares about and gardens effectively. Gardens the environment, to keep it growing, to keep it healthy. > Now, the software does not always allow the core group to express itself, which is why I say you have to accept this. Because if the software doesn't allow the core group to express itself, it will invent new ways of doing so. When the core group lacks the tools necessary to maintain the vision / success of the site as a whole, they are going to find other ways to defend themselves from excessive workload. The easiest way is to be rude to people so they go away (and the overall workload is reduced). I believe that this pairs with the (misguided?) efforts of Stack Overflow to become more inclusive by lowering barriers to participate (see design for #3) and making it harder for the core group to moderate content (be nice, changing close reasons, removing 10k rep flagging assistance, reducing 15k rep protection ability, a diamond moderator culture of "if it got upvoted it shouldn't be deleted unless there's vote fraud"). -- The entire article is a very interesting read. The author's credentials is also an interesting read - https://www.bloomberg.com/research//stocks/private/person.asp?personId=25574469 https://www.bloomberg.com/research//stocks/private/person.as... . Check what organizations he's a member of the board at.
vokep 9y ago
>I'm not getting into either side of it, I'm just saying that you have to admit it's an astonishing coincidence that online communities, started by, moderated by, largely inhabited by, and currently operated by white men seemingly always have a cadre of white men on the top as the "most valuable contributors" and nobody ever seems to wonder if all those things are connected. Of course these things are connected, everything is. It isn't an astonishing coincidence at all, its the exact expected result given the environment. Why does the color/gender matter? Flip it universally and do you feel the same way? "When roles are reversed, opinions are too"

notatoad 9y ago

>One thing I will say on it though is how much of our humanity are we ready to sacrifice on the altar of this mythical "meritocracy" that every online community, especially those built on or around code, seems to aim for? i don't mean to imply that we should preserve the toxic communities for the point of good content. but there seems to be a correlation here, and it's worth studying what positive effects the toxicity might create, otherwise it's going to be very difficult to re-create it without the toxicity and the sites that value the human creators over the content will always be at a natural disadvantage to the other sites.

FussyZeus 9y ago
I'd imagine you could exploit all kinds of humanities' worse tendencies (in this case, tribalism) and create something that is "better" in some measurements, the real challenge I think is objectively ranking different communities based on the quality of the content in question, and finding how that correlates to whatever, in this case, "tribe" is being used to make it. IMHO, no problem ever, software related or otherwise has benefited or been solved better by way of having fewer brains involved, and the shortest path to having more brains is having more people, i.e. being more open and inclusive. It would seem to be that SO already has excellent tools to moderate quality without resorting to allowing users to treat each other in such a poor manner.
shagie 9y ago
The article A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy ( http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enem... ) gets into that a bit. One of the interesting bits in there is: > The second basic pattern that Bion detailed: The identification and vilification of external enemies. This is a very common pattern. Anyone who was around the Open Source movement in the mid-Nineties could see this all the time. If you cared about Linux on the desktop, there was a big list of jobs to do. But you could always instead get a conversation going about Microsoft and Bill Gates. And people would start bleeding from their ears, they would get so mad. Which can be seen in Stack Overflow (its the newbies that don't read that are messing everything up) and reddit (Stack Overflow aka Downvote and Duplicate). Each group is making their group stronger and a more firmer identification by vilifying the other group (merited or not). This happens in all groups. -- The "everyone is mean" nature of some of the communities, I believe, comes from further down in the 'three things to accept': > 2.) The second thing you have to accept: Members are different than users. A pattern will arise in which there is some group of users that cares more than average about the integrity and success of the group as a whole. And that becomes your core group, Art Kleiner's phrase for "the group within the group that matters most." > The core group on Communitree was undifferentiated from the group of random users that came in. They were separate in their own minds, because they knew what they wanted to do, but they couldn't defend themselves against the other users. But in all successful online communities that I've looked at, a core group arises that cares about and gardens effectively. Gardens the environment, to keep it growing, to keep it healthy. > Now, the software does not always allow the core group to express itself, which is why I say you have to accept this. Because if the software doesn't allow the core group to express itself, it will invent new ways of doing so. When the core group lacks the tools necessary to maintain the vision / success of the site as a whole, they are going to find other ways to defend themselves from excessive workload. The easiest way is to be rude to people so they go away (and the overall workload is reduced). I believe that this pairs with the (misguided?) efforts of Stack Overflow to become more inclusive by lowering barriers to participate (see design for #3) and making it harder for the core group to moderate content (be nice, changing close reasons, removing 10k rep flagging assistance, reducing 15k rep protection ability, a diamond moderator culture of "if it got upvoted it shouldn't be deleted unless there's vote fraud"). -- The entire article is a very interesting read. The author's credentials is also an interesting read - https://www.bloomberg.com/research//stocks/private/person.asp?personId=25574469 https://www.bloomberg.com/research//stocks/private/person.as... . Check what organizations he's a member of the board at.

vokep 9y ago

>I'm not getting into either side of it, I'm just saying that you have to admit it's an astonishing coincidence that online communities, started by, moderated by, largely inhabited by, and currently operated by white men seemingly always have a cadre of white men on the top as the "most valuable contributors" and nobody ever seems to wonder if all those things are connected. Of course these things are connected, everything is. It isn't an astonishing coincidence at all, its the exact expected result given the environment. Why does the color/gender matter? Flip it universally and do you feel the same way? "When roles are reversed, opinions are too"