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Well, see point #3 here. http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ And here: http://news.ycombi

Well, see point #3 here. http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ And here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800253 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800253 The comments and the moderation are extremely predictable in most cases regardless of technical merits of the discussion. A casual or statistical observation would easily reveal the prevalent biases, even amongst the crowd that prides itself on being objective.

raganwald 16y ago
Does HN pride itself on being objective? This seems like wishful thinking. HN is supposed to favour hacking software, hardware, and the ultimate in social and business hacking, disruptive startups. I would call that being biased. If we were "objective" about everything, we wouldn't actually have any culture. It's our lack of objectivity that makes us cohesive. To put it another way, "biased" can often mean the same thing as "opinionated." Sometimes that is annoying if you have a different opinion. Sometimes it is refreshing. So what I will say in response is that without agreeing or disagreeing about whether HN is biased in favour of or against Apple and/or Gruber's writing, we should be careful to distinguish "bias" from "mindlessness." I do know what you mean, humans have a tendency towards groupthink and conformity. Voting a certain way solely because you observe other people voting that way is mindless in the sense you are using, and that dynamic has been seen on HN. But the other thing that takes place on HN is bias that is not based on conformity, the bias that comes from a set of people with similar values tending to interpret objective facts in similar subjective ways. If what you want is to reduce the conformity and deaden the echo-chamber effect, you have my support. I'm only cautioning against assuming that all bias--especially bias towards disagreeing with you--comes from the same place. p.s. Please don't think I'm arguing with you. It would be ironic indeed if I were to argue that bias is acceptable and healthy yet tell you that you are wrong to have a different interpretation of HN's behaviour that I have :-)
- recoiledsnake 16y ago
  > HN is supposed to favour hacking software, hardware, and the ultimate in social and business hacking, disruptive startups. I would call that being biased. Except when it's Apple and then people lose all sense of objectivity and perspective and support the locking down of platforms so that things are not hackable anymore. Example: http://blog.robrhyne.com/post/1015614125/google-voice-says-hi http://blog.robrhyne.com/post/1015614125/google-voice-says-h... And people envisage in grand terms about a Post-PC world with devices such as these which is very alarming given the potential for abuse(which is already happening). There is barely a protest but there is certainly a lot of fawning over the choice of chair in the latest Apple conference. :) Anyone pointing out any fact that can be construed as critical to Apple is usually downvoted to obscurity. The downvotes are even more reflective of the community because of the high karma threshold needed to downvote. Regardless of the origin, the end result is still the same, the bias is harmful because it drowns out alternate views, and most of the people affected either leave or are forced to conform.(see the HN comment link in my comment in a parent post in this thread).
tvon 16y ago
You've linked to two comments there, both o which complain of downvotes, both of which are upvoted. Even so, those are just people who agree with you, that doesn't do anything to strengthen your argument. Are you sure people aren't just over reacting?

raganwald 16y ago

Does HN pride itself on being objective? This seems like wishful thinking. HN is supposed to favour hacking software, hardware, and the ultimate in social and business hacking, disruptive startups. I would call that being biased. If we were "objective" about everything, we wouldn't actually have any culture. It's our lack of objectivity that makes us cohesive. To put it another way, "biased" can often mean the same thing as "opinionated." Sometimes that is annoying if you have a different opinion. Sometimes it is refreshing. So what I will say in response is that without agreeing or disagreeing about whether HN is biased in favour of or against Apple and/or Gruber's writing, we should be careful to distinguish "bias" from "mindlessness." I do know what you mean, humans have a tendency towards groupthink and conformity. Voting a certain way solely because you observe other people voting that way is mindless in the sense you are using, and that dynamic has been seen on HN. But the other thing that takes place on HN is bias that is not based on conformity, the bias that comes from a set of people with similar values tending to interpret objective facts in similar subjective ways. If what you want is to reduce the conformity and deaden the echo-chamber effect, you have my support. I'm only cautioning against assuming that all bias--especially bias towards disagreeing with you--comes from the same place. p.s. Please don't think I'm arguing with you. It would be ironic indeed if I were to argue that bias is acceptable and healthy yet tell you that you are wrong to have a different interpretation of HN's behaviour that I have :-)

recoiledsnake 16y ago
> HN is supposed to favour hacking software, hardware, and the ultimate in social and business hacking, disruptive startups. I would call that being biased. Except when it's Apple and then people lose all sense of objectivity and perspective and support the locking down of platforms so that things are not hackable anymore. Example: http://blog.robrhyne.com/post/1015614125/google-voice-says-hi http://blog.robrhyne.com/post/1015614125/google-voice-says-h... And people envisage in grand terms about a Post-PC world with devices such as these which is very alarming given the potential for abuse(which is already happening). There is barely a protest but there is certainly a lot of fawning over the choice of chair in the latest Apple conference. :) Anyone pointing out any fact that can be construed as critical to Apple is usually downvoted to obscurity. The downvotes are even more reflective of the community because of the high karma threshold needed to downvote. Regardless of the origin, the end result is still the same, the bias is harmful because it drowns out alternate views, and most of the people affected either leave or are forced to conform.(see the HN comment link in my comment in a parent post in this thread).

tvon 16y ago

You've linked to two comments there, both o which complain of downvotes, both of which are upvoted. Even so, those are just people who agree with you, that doesn't do anything to strengthen your argument. Are you sure people aren't just over reacting?