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I'm relatively new to HN but a reddit "senior", and one of the things I really appreciate about this place is the relative lack of toxicity. To me, it seems peo

by etripe 6y ago

I'm relatively new to HN but a reddit "senior", and one of the things I really appreciate about this place is the relative lack of toxicity. To me, it seems people really come here for civil discussion and default to asking questions instead of flaming. Well, that and more people source their claims.

beagle3 6y ago
From a 30 year view of communities, including Fido, Usenet, Reddit and many others, I’d attribute that to @dang’s and @pg’s benevolent dictatorship. Many communities start out nice and well meaning, but at some point devolve into a Wild West. HN did not, and I think that’s thanks to dang’s moderation (and pg’s at an earlier time) Also, “small” things like dropping the vote counts, and having canonical rules for titles (which are, as pg noted, a “commons” but treated in other platforms as a land grab) reduces competition and bragging rights. Doesn’t seem like much, but it’s part of what keeps the people looking for conversation here, and those looking mostly for signaling and gratification out.
- Kaibeezy 6y ago
  As the great architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said: “God is in the details.” Mies’ work wasn’t without flaws or detractors, but then compare one of his subtle, perfected masterworks to the infinite cheap and nasty boxes that leveraged only the sketch outline of his style. Now translate that into any field, absolutely including online community building. There’s no question where HN stands.
Treegarden 6y ago
Have been reading reddit since 5 or so years now, but pretty much only the frontpage. I like reddit but it has gotten so political and toxic. Many posts boil down to "haha look how stupid this person is". I sometimes skim the controversial comments to see what the hive mind disapproves of. Recently, on the mega threat of Trump being covid positive, the controversial comments were along the lines of "I don't like Trump but I hope he gets better, nobody deserves covid". So not wishing someone death is bad? Overall reddit is pretty toxic.
- dash2 6y ago
  I think you absolutely must avoid the front page. Reddit seems to have a relatively young audience, and the front page just gets the guff that the average teenager likes (at best, puppies; at worst, self-righteous posturing and feeble jokes). If you look into the subforums, they can be very different. Something serious like r/statistics has little in common with a hilarious shitshow like r/wallstreetbets.
parasubvert 6y ago
TBH that’s good moderation (And scalable algorithms to delegate such privilege) at work. there are plenty of flames and toxicity here, they’re just suppressed. Also the really controversial topics tend to get flagged.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  Moderation is relatively easy with a community like HN. Facebook and Twitter desperately need moderation - but they're built completely differently and much larger. Moderation there will immediately be compared to censorship, which Twitter and FB are afraid of because it threatens their money. We're so afraid of one good idea being hidden by moderation that we allow thousands of bad ideas - which eventually create a hive-mind and drive out the good ideas anyway.

by etripe 6y ago

beagle3 6y ago

From a 30 year view of communities, including Fido, Usenet, Reddit and many others, I’d attribute that to @dang’s and @pg’s benevolent dictatorship. Many communities start out nice and well meaning, but at some point devolve into a Wild West. HN did not, and I think that’s thanks to dang’s moderation (and pg’s at an earlier time) Also, “small” things like dropping the vote counts, and having canonical rules for titles (which are, as pg noted, a “commons” but treated in other platforms as a land grab) reduces competition and bragging rights. Doesn’t seem like much, but it’s part of what keeps the people looking for conversation here, and those looking mostly for signaling and gratification out.

Kaibeezy 6y ago
As the great architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said: “God is in the details.” Mies’ work wasn’t without flaws or detractors, but then compare one of his subtle, perfected masterworks to the infinite cheap and nasty boxes that leveraged only the sketch outline of his style. Now translate that into any field, absolutely including online community building. There’s no question where HN stands.

Treegarden 6y ago

Have been reading reddit since 5 or so years now, but pretty much only the frontpage. I like reddit but it has gotten so political and toxic. Many posts boil down to "haha look how stupid this person is". I sometimes skim the controversial comments to see what the hive mind disapproves of. Recently, on the mega threat of Trump being covid positive, the controversial comments were along the lines of "I don't like Trump but I hope he gets better, nobody deserves covid". So not wishing someone death is bad? Overall reddit is pretty toxic.

dash2 6y ago
I think you absolutely must avoid the front page. Reddit seems to have a relatively young audience, and the front page just gets the guff that the average teenager likes (at best, puppies; at worst, self-righteous posturing and feeble jokes). If you look into the subforums, they can be very different. Something serious like r/statistics has little in common with a hilarious shitshow like r/wallstreetbets.

parasubvert 6y ago

TBH that’s good moderation (And scalable algorithms to delegate such privilege) at work. there are plenty of flames and toxicity here, they’re just suppressed. Also the really controversial topics tend to get flagged.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
Moderation is relatively easy with a community like HN. Facebook and Twitter desperately need moderation - but they're built completely differently and much larger. Moderation there will immediately be compared to censorship, which Twitter and FB are afraid of because it threatens their money. We're so afraid of one good idea being hidden by moderation that we allow thousands of bad ideas - which eventually create a hive-mind and drive out the good ideas anyway.