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IMO the guidelines, moderation and mechanics all work way better on lobste.rs than here. Here the hivemind effect is pretty damn strong too, so it's going to b
by clarry 8y ago
IMO the guidelines, moderation and mechanics all work way better on lobste.rs than here. Here the hivemind effect is pretty damn strong too, so it's going to be frustrating to try have a fruitful discussion if your opinion doesn't align with the group. Here there are enough toxic people that discussions often turn into tiresome, flamey back-and-forth between a handful of people. And here there are too many people with opinions but no expertise. So the signal to noise ratio gets really bad and you can't assume the people reading your comments can understand subtler points; if you do, it's quite inevitable that a bunch of people with opinions but no expertise will pile up on the comment and it feels like flamebait.
When I post here, I kinda have to indulge in a ton of self-censorship. Most of the time I end up not posting the comment I wrote because it feels like it won't be a worthwhile discussion. Or it'll be just another comment buried among a few hundred others; just noise, not discussion. It's not satisfying.
- bengale 8y agoWhy do you think it’s different there. Also, how do you go about getting an account over there?
- clarry 8y agoIt helps that the community is smaller and we've had the occasional meta thread discussing rules & phenomenons, with moderators and active posters alike present. We also have a somewhat tight knit community of active participants & mods on IRC. I think this makes the whole thing more human. There are other factors, for example downvoting because you disagree isn't seen as a valid reason for downvotes on Lobsters. In fact, when you downvote, you must specify a reason (there's a list of choices). Of course people can abuse the system, but I think it sort of encourages people to go down the right path. The invite system probably helps keep worst of the worst out. Tags help people ignore the topics they find frustrating. Speaking of tags, all stories must be tagged and if you can't find an appropriate tag, the story most likely doesn't belong. We've been trying to focus on purely technical content (and by that I mean really technical and not non-technical stories that are somehow related to technology) with some art, while avoiding politics, inactionable news, opinion pieces and the like. To be fair, as the community has grown larger, it seems like we've been slipping more and more from this ideal and opinion pieces about "practices" (that's a tag) and "culture" (yeah...) have gotten annoyingly common. We can still filter out those tags. As for getting an account... I think there's something written about that on the site.
- bengale 8y agoInteresting, thanks for the info. I'll give it a more thorough look.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago>Here the hivemind effect is pretty damn strong too, so it's going to be frustrating to try have a fruitful discussion if your opinion doesn't align with the group. Entirely correct. For fun, sometime write “I’m aware of the issues in speculative modeling, misleading headlines, and also I don’t feel like a tax solution is the correct response to global climate changes” and see what happens! Edit: and even posting an example phrase - proves my point. Thanks for the downvotes!
- FiveSquared 8y agoI agree with the first two prhases but the last one. How tf are people gonna fix climate changes without taxes? These thingas cost money! But I think you have a point. Juts nitpicking :P
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoIt was an example to show despite putting effort into an air of enlightenment... HN is just as basement dwelling and knee jerk downvote-y as Reddit. And I think I proved it.
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoI'm surprised you are not getting downvoted (more) by mentioning the hivemind. The first rule of the HN hivemind is that you don't mention it.
- FiveSquared 8y agoIts the worst with Rust
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoThe downvotes I'm getting are proof enough.