4 ms·

The negativity on this site towards people who express any opinion beyond the herd is making this site a groupthink echo chamber. This karma system has failed.

zoeysaurusrex 7y ago
Totally agree. I've largely quit commenting here at all because of it. I always thought gross polarization of topics would never come to HN, but here we are.
- OneWordSoln 7y ago
  And the result is that the comments are really of very little use anymore. Time was they used to be enlightening. Too bad Paul Graham doesn't give a rat's ass. He has the opportunity to create something beneficial to world society here but doesn't care to put in the money and thought to figure out how to make it work.
- stupendousyappi 7y ago
  I think HN still has one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the web.
  - intended 7y ago
    I’ll prove my counter point by calling you names. Serious note: forums decay. Entropy in social media, and forum denizens exists. Such a result is unsurprising,
plootoh 7y ago
+100
dang 7y ago
It isn't accurate to describe HN as pro- or anti-Microsoft (or any $bigco or $bigtopic). It has a wide range of users who feel different things. The comment above isn't representative. Its indignation-to-information ratio was too high to be a good HN comment, though. Calling names like "herd" and "groupthink" doesn't contain information either; it's just bragging. I wrote about this the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19791293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19791293
- OneWordSoln 7y ago
  I'm talking about the commentariat as a whole. It has become polarized and negative and absolutely infused with groupthink, which is a very specific concept. Too bad you can't accept the truth. And speaking the truth to the willfully ignorant is not bragging, and the ad hominems you just slung at me prove that you're the petty one here. The first step to fixing problems is to admit that they exist. Until then, feel free to keep downvoting folks like me and pretending that everything's ok but know that that is NEVER the solution to any problem, especially a software systems problem.

zoeysaurusrex 7y ago

Totally agree. I've largely quit commenting here at all because of it. I always thought gross polarization of topics would never come to HN, but here we are.

OneWordSoln 7y ago
And the result is that the comments are really of very little use anymore. Time was they used to be enlightening. Too bad Paul Graham doesn't give a rat's ass. He has the opportunity to create something beneficial to world society here but doesn't care to put in the money and thought to figure out how to make it work.
stupendousyappi 7y ago
I think HN still has one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the web.
- intended 7y ago
  I’ll prove my counter point by calling you names. Serious note: forums decay. Entropy in social media, and forum denizens exists. Such a result is unsurprising,

plootoh 7y ago

+100

dang 7y ago

It isn't accurate to describe HN as pro- or anti-Microsoft (or any $bigco or $bigtopic). It has a wide range of users who feel different things. The comment above isn't representative. Its indignation-to-information ratio was too high to be a good HN comment, though. Calling names like "herd" and "groupthink" doesn't contain information either; it's just bragging. I wrote about this the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19791293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19791293

OneWordSoln 7y ago
I'm talking about the commentariat as a whole. It has become polarized and negative and absolutely infused with groupthink, which is a very specific concept. Too bad you can't accept the truth. And speaking the truth to the willfully ignorant is not bragging, and the ad hominems you just slung at me prove that you're the petty one here. The first step to fixing problems is to admit that they exist. Until then, feel free to keep downvoting folks like me and pretending that everything's ok but know that that is NEVER the solution to any problem, especially a software systems problem.