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Actually what happens is the level headed people on one side of an issue divide recuse themselves, leaving a "seemingly level-headed consensus echo chamber" beh

Actually what happens is the level headed people on one side of an issue divide recuse themselves, leaving a "seemingly level-headed consensus echo chamber" behind. IMHO, that's worse. This account exists largely to counter exactly that trend. It's important (to me) that newcomers to the site don't get the idea that "hackers" are all fringe libertarians on every non-technical subject.

dang 6y ago
This site may feel like a "consensus echo chamber" but in reality it is nothing remotely close to that. I think you may be running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since you report noticing fringe libertarians, we can be sure that you dislike fringe libertarianism. We can also be sure that they have just the opposite picture of HN, since everyone crafts their picture in the image of what they dislike, without realizing that they're doing that. It just feels like an objective picture. I can list dozens of examples of this, but I'll restrain myself for once and spare you. Unfortunately, these extremely contradictory subjective images of HN seem to be a consequence of its structure, being non-siloed: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20non-siloed&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... This creates a paradox where precisely because the site is less divisive it feels more divisive—in the sense that it feels to people like it is dominated by their enemies, whoever their enemies may be. That's extremely bad for community, and I don't know what to do about it, other than post a version of this comment every time it comes up. Thanks for caring about level-headeness, in any case.
- newacct583 6y ago
  The sensitivity with which you replied just tells me I'm probably right about this. I assure you that, having dealt with HN readers in real life contexts on both sides of that divide, that the perception absolutely isn't symmetric. HN is seen as a "safe space" for some demographics and definitely as hostile by others. (Edit: I'll just say it. I've had multiple conversations with real life women where I have to make excuses for the perspective of posters here and explain why it's still a valuable forum anyway.) I mean, I agree with you that we all have biases and blind spots in our perception. Which means... so do the mods. I comment because I want HN to continue to be a site that people like me want to comment on. The site that "people whose comments dang likes" want to comment on surely looks different.
  - dang 6y ago
    I totally empathize with what it's like to try to defend HN as a worthy place to participate when you're talking with someone who has extremely strong feelings about how awful it is, and the fact that you're willing to do that makes me feel much more sympathy and common ground with you than any disagreement we may have on other points. But I think your explanation of why this is is much too simplistic. The difference seems to be that you aren't being bombarded every day with utterly contradictory extremely strong feelings about how awful it is. If you were, you wouldn't be able to write what you just posted. Your judgment that the perception "isn't symmetric" is wildly out of line with what I encounter here, so one of us must be dealing with an extremely skewed sample. Perhaps you read more HN posts and talk to a wider variety of people about HN than I do. From my perspective, the links below are typical—and there are countless more where these came from. Of course, there are also countless links claiming exactly the opposite, but since you already believe that, they aren't the medicine in this case. I sample that list when responding to commenters who see things this way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 A sample email, for a change of pace: "It's clear ycombinator is clearly culling right-wing opinions and thoughts. The only opinions allowed to remain on the site are left wing [...] What a fucking joke your site has become." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343
- lefstathiou 6y ago
  Dang, I respectfully disagree. Just the other day I noticed HN take a heavy hand on removing an article that hit the homepage about a virologist publishing a paper that suggested the only logical explanation for COVID is that it’s manufactured. There are absolutely topics and perspectives that are not welcomed on HN, as the lead moderator it would be unwise in my opinion to think otherwise (given your biases would be the most threatening to an open forum) and you naturally would have a tough time identifying the absence of a perspective you don’t share. As an example, I would challenge you to pick five articles that discuss unions that hit the homepage on HN and see what % of threads (and how much of the up vote they accounted for) were inherently anti union. I would also be sure to give only partial credit for threads that added boiler plate sentences saying something along the lines of “while I believe in the value of XYZ” because that’s basically a requirement to take any contrarian (to liberal / Silicon Valley ideology) or conservative view on this site. I can give you a laundry list of topics that will show this trend. From my (biased) perspective (and from someone outside of the valley reading this site religiously for 13 years) HN is increasingly hostile to certain perspectives (and I’m not talking about social issues here). I don’t care much about it - I just opt out - which is the point. Why not run a poll about it?
  - Ghjklov 6y ago
    What was the article? Now I'm curious
    - lefstathiou 6y ago
      Google around and you will find it. To me it makes no difference whether it was or wasn’t, what was eye opening was the speed of it hitting and being removed. It’s the unwillingness to even allow the topic on HN which intrigued me. Believing what I believe (ie my bias) I was surprised it got as far as it did - because I know that’s not the HN community party line - and then noticed it disappeared within seconds of me seeing it on home page. I was the first to comment on it so it couldn’t have been because the threads descended into a flame war and I was unaware of which other guidelines it could have broken given it was a legit site referencing a legit paper in a legit journal (but taking a perspective the broader Hn community won’t tolerate).
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  I'd have to disagree. I've noticed a growing trend of comments like [1] getting upvoted rather than flagged despite making some awful remarks. I don't think it has anything to do with HN being 'non-siloed' because that would be the same argument as on Twitter or Facebook which mostly lack silos as well. To make an unflattering comparison, Gab and the like are also non-siloed. But that doesn't stop a site from having an innate level of bias to the userbase. The nature of any forum on the internet is that it will cultivate a certain type of userbase over time. Obviously I'm not the greatest one to speak here because I definitely trend more towards the asshole side of the spectrum but I think it's something to be aware of. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23743914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23743914
  - dang 6y ago
    We must understand the word 'silo' differently. Twitter and Facebook are the leading examples of siloed sites in my sense of the word. Twitter has follow lists, Facebook has the social graph. Similarly, on Reddit there are subreddits. HN has no mechanism like any of these: everyone is one big room, for better and for worse. I think this has significant effects, which I wrote about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 Re 23743914: I've banned that account. We didn't see that post at the time. I don't think it's typical for such a comment to get upvoted. From what I see, the vast majority get downvoted and/or flagged and/or moderated.
- frank2 6y ago
  >That's extremely bad for community, and I don't know what to do about it If I were to start a site for online discussion, I would probably not even try to foster a sense of community in the participants. Although is quite unhealthy for most people not to belong to a community, the human need for belonging is not so pressing that the average person cannot afford to participate a few hours a week on a site that has no hope of ever providing belongingness.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    One advantage of having a T/V distinction in a language is that one can set the tone of a site by the address used, informal for "chummy aligned community" (belonging over contributing) and formal for "respectful diverse community" (contributing over belonging). Fortunately english has a formal "you" which we could use to demonstrate that this site is a community of inquiry among diverse opinions, not a community of like-minded folk. Unfortunately english no longer has the informal "thou"[1] so that signal is worth exactly zero bits. [1] Don't thee thou me, thee thou thissen, and 'ow tha likes thee thouing. Also, in the old days, T/V was asymmetric. If A V'd B, B T'd A. These days we use symmetric address, so either A and B T each other or they V each other. (if A are a business advertising, the choice of V or T implicitly segments their market. Some businesses wimp out and advertise in english to avoid making any decision.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction
    - spacechild1 6y ago
      As a German speaker, I can assure you that T/V doesn't necessarily say something about the level of politeness or respect in a discussion. I have witnessed newspaper comment sections or Facebook threads where people would V each other but still say very rude things.
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        Very true. A single advisory bit, itself interpreted by primates with iphones, only goes so far. "Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden." (I'm trying to think of how one might translate the T/V lines in "Küss die Hand schöne Frau" into english, and failing...)
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  I dislike fringe libertarianism but my experience here is the opposite - I notice posts, sometimes I reply to them, I'm often downvoted by those commenters, but it's not a central element on HN, and I don't feel it dominates the narrative. There is a silent upvote majority here who will un-down almost anything that isn't clearly toxic or counterfactual. So I certainly do appreciate the level-headedness here.
randallsquared 6y ago
I assume you're using "this account" to mean some series of accounts you've created over time, since it's only about 80 days old, and the days when libertarianism was arguably a majority view on HN had been long gone for years by then. In this respect HN is about ten years behind the trend of the rest of the web, culturally; even r/libertarian comments in 2020 are probably less reliably libertarian than comments on not-explicitly-political forums anywhere on the web in 2000.
friendlybus 6y ago
The site is anchored to YC and PG's perspective. I don't agree with them the majority of the time, but that's what gives this place an identity and a location in the world to draw it's internal culture from. This place is always going to lean into predictable US tech politics. A website detached from a real world purpose accumulates so much more moderating requirements, simply being a part of YC and means that a lot of the public self-selects not to be here. And boy it does get too repetitive sometimes, but it's not all things to all men, it's a US tech forum.

dang 6y ago

This site may feel like a "consensus echo chamber" but in reality it is nothing remotely close to that. I think you may be running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since you report noticing fringe libertarians, we can be sure that you dislike fringe libertarianism. We can also be sure that they have just the opposite picture of HN, since everyone crafts their picture in the image of what they dislike, without realizing that they're doing that. It just feels like an objective picture. I can list dozens of examples of this, but I'll restrain myself for once and spare you. Unfortunately, these extremely contradictory subjective images of HN seem to be a consequence of its structure, being non-siloed: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20non-siloed&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... This creates a paradox where precisely because the site is less divisive it feels more divisive—in the sense that it feels to people like it is dominated by their enemies, whoever their enemies may be. That's extremely bad for community, and I don't know what to do about it, other than post a version of this comment every time it comes up. Thanks for caring about level-headeness, in any case.

newacct583 6y ago
The sensitivity with which you replied just tells me I'm probably right about this. I assure you that, having dealt with HN readers in real life contexts on both sides of that divide, that the perception absolutely isn't symmetric. HN is seen as a "safe space" for some demographics and definitely as hostile by others. (Edit: I'll just say it. I've had multiple conversations with real life women where I have to make excuses for the perspective of posters here and explain why it's still a valuable forum anyway.) I mean, I agree with you that we all have biases and blind spots in our perception. Which means... so do the mods. I comment because I want HN to continue to be a site that people like me want to comment on. The site that "people whose comments dang likes" want to comment on surely looks different.
- dang 6y ago
  I totally empathize with what it's like to try to defend HN as a worthy place to participate when you're talking with someone who has extremely strong feelings about how awful it is, and the fact that you're willing to do that makes me feel much more sympathy and common ground with you than any disagreement we may have on other points. But I think your explanation of why this is is much too simplistic. The difference seems to be that you aren't being bombarded every day with utterly contradictory extremely strong feelings about how awful it is. If you were, you wouldn't be able to write what you just posted. Your judgment that the perception "isn't symmetric" is wildly out of line with what I encounter here, so one of us must be dealing with an extremely skewed sample. Perhaps you read more HN posts and talk to a wider variety of people about HN than I do. From my perspective, the links below are typical—and there are countless more where these came from. Of course, there are also countless links claiming exactly the opposite, but since you already believe that, they aren't the medicine in this case. I sample that list when responding to commenters who see things this way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 A sample email, for a change of pace: "It's clear ycombinator is clearly culling right-wing opinions and thoughts. The only opinions allowed to remain on the site are left wing [...] What a fucking joke your site has become." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343
lefstathiou 6y ago
Dang, I respectfully disagree. Just the other day I noticed HN take a heavy hand on removing an article that hit the homepage about a virologist publishing a paper that suggested the only logical explanation for COVID is that it’s manufactured. There are absolutely topics and perspectives that are not welcomed on HN, as the lead moderator it would be unwise in my opinion to think otherwise (given your biases would be the most threatening to an open forum) and you naturally would have a tough time identifying the absence of a perspective you don’t share. As an example, I would challenge you to pick five articles that discuss unions that hit the homepage on HN and see what % of threads (and how much of the up vote they accounted for) were inherently anti union. I would also be sure to give only partial credit for threads that added boiler plate sentences saying something along the lines of “while I believe in the value of XYZ” because that’s basically a requirement to take any contrarian (to liberal / Silicon Valley ideology) or conservative view on this site. I can give you a laundry list of topics that will show this trend. From my (biased) perspective (and from someone outside of the valley reading this site religiously for 13 years) HN is increasingly hostile to certain perspectives (and I’m not talking about social issues here). I don’t care much about it - I just opt out - which is the point. Why not run a poll about it?
- Ghjklov 6y ago
  What was the article? Now I'm curious
  - lefstathiou 6y ago
    Google around and you will find it. To me it makes no difference whether it was or wasn’t, what was eye opening was the speed of it hitting and being removed. It’s the unwillingness to even allow the topic on HN which intrigued me. Believing what I believe (ie my bias) I was surprised it got as far as it did - because I know that’s not the HN community party line - and then noticed it disappeared within seconds of me seeing it on home page. I was the first to comment on it so it couldn’t have been because the threads descended into a flame war and I was unaware of which other guidelines it could have broken given it was a legit site referencing a legit paper in a legit journal (but taking a perspective the broader Hn community won’t tolerate).
fzeroracer 6y ago
I'd have to disagree. I've noticed a growing trend of comments like [1] getting upvoted rather than flagged despite making some awful remarks. I don't think it has anything to do with HN being 'non-siloed' because that would be the same argument as on Twitter or Facebook which mostly lack silos as well. To make an unflattering comparison, Gab and the like are also non-siloed. But that doesn't stop a site from having an innate level of bias to the userbase. The nature of any forum on the internet is that it will cultivate a certain type of userbase over time. Obviously I'm not the greatest one to speak here because I definitely trend more towards the asshole side of the spectrum but I think it's something to be aware of. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23743914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23743914
- dang 6y ago
  We must understand the word 'silo' differently. Twitter and Facebook are the leading examples of siloed sites in my sense of the word. Twitter has follow lists, Facebook has the social graph. Similarly, on Reddit there are subreddits. HN has no mechanism like any of these: everyone is one big room, for better and for worse. I think this has significant effects, which I wrote about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 Re 23743914: I've banned that account. We didn't see that post at the time. I don't think it's typical for such a comment to get upvoted. From what I see, the vast majority get downvoted and/or flagged and/or moderated.
frank2 6y ago
>That's extremely bad for community, and I don't know what to do about it If I were to start a site for online discussion, I would probably not even try to foster a sense of community in the participants. Although is quite unhealthy for most people not to belong to a community, the human need for belonging is not so pressing that the average person cannot afford to participate a few hours a week on a site that has no hope of ever providing belongingness.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  One advantage of having a T/V distinction in a language is that one can set the tone of a site by the address used, informal for "chummy aligned community" (belonging over contributing) and formal for "respectful diverse community" (contributing over belonging). Fortunately english has a formal "you" which we could use to demonstrate that this site is a community of inquiry among diverse opinions, not a community of like-minded folk. Unfortunately english no longer has the informal "thou"[1] so that signal is worth exactly zero bits. [1] Don't thee thou me, thee thou thissen, and 'ow tha likes thee thouing. Also, in the old days, T/V was asymmetric. If A V'd B, B T'd A. These days we use symmetric address, so either A and B T each other or they V each other. (if A are a business advertising, the choice of V or T implicitly segments their market. Some businesses wimp out and advertise in english to avoid making any decision.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction
  - spacechild1 6y ago
    As a German speaker, I can assure you that T/V doesn't necessarily say something about the level of politeness or respect in a discussion. I have witnessed newspaper comment sections or Facebook threads where people would V each other but still say very rude things.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      Very true. A single advisory bit, itself interpreted by primates with iphones, only goes so far. "Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden." (I'm trying to think of how one might translate the T/V lines in "Küss die Hand schöne Frau" into english, and failing...)
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
I dislike fringe libertarianism but my experience here is the opposite - I notice posts, sometimes I reply to them, I'm often downvoted by those commenters, but it's not a central element on HN, and I don't feel it dominates the narrative. There is a silent upvote majority here who will un-down almost anything that isn't clearly toxic or counterfactual. So I certainly do appreciate the level-headedness here.

randallsquared 6y ago

I assume you're using "this account" to mean some series of accounts you've created over time, since it's only about 80 days old, and the days when libertarianism was arguably a majority view on HN had been long gone for years by then. In this respect HN is about ten years behind the trend of the rest of the web, culturally; even r/libertarian comments in 2020 are probably less reliably libertarian than comments on not-explicitly-political forums anywhere on the web in 2000.

friendlybus 6y ago

The site is anchored to YC and PG's perspective. I don't agree with them the majority of the time, but that's what gives this place an identity and a location in the world to draw it's internal culture from. This place is always going to lean into predictable US tech politics. A website detached from a real world purpose accumulates so much more moderating requirements, simply being a part of YC and means that a lot of the public self-selects not to be here. And boy it does get too repetitive sometimes, but it's not all things to all men, it's a US tech forum.