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I think there a fine line between these and curated lists (which most would use) that create echo chambers and comfirmation bias (which many platforms have). I

I think there a fine line between these and curated lists (which most would use) that create echo chambers and comfirmation bias (which many platforms have). I like the methods this site uses over others quite frankly and that seems to be quite a bit of human moderation to get to it. But i think scale also has something to do with it. Reddit was much like this site in its earlier days.

dec0dedab0de 6y ago
In its earlier days reddit was a bunch of bots talking to themselves. HN works because the official moderation is more of a nudge than a fist, the community enforces its own standards, and it's a relatively small niche.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  The community kind of enforced its own standards (eg almost no jokes, especially no stupid Reddit-style joke threads). But I think moderation was more important. However much pg wrote about being curious or “intellectual honesty” or whatever, it was the change in moderation (to dang) that saw changes. But that sort of thing doesn’t fit all communities. For one thing this one is basically public (there’s no shared-private things like subgroups or DMs) and tends to have reasonably highly educated members. For another, the volume is low enough that dang can deal with it all with only some automated tools, giving a reasonably consistent approach to moderation. Also I think he is paid much more like a software engineer in Silicon Valley than a typical social media moderator. There are certainly some other more general things though, like the anti-flame mechanisms, the lack of more inflammatory media like pictures or videos, the lack of printed comment score and downvote limits, and the generally public moderation trail (though moderator may privately email users too).
  - dec0dedab0de 6y ago
    I agree, I meant that dang and sctb have a style that is more about nudging people into better behavior than about demanding compliance.
    - ddingus 6y ago
      Doing that is worth a lot! Many will see something like that and give it thought. If they do, that is halfway there, maybe more.
    - p1necone 6y ago
      I'm learning to just downvote and not respond to troll bait, slowly. And I got my upvote points past the point where I can set the color of the title bar so I don't care about those any more which helps.
- setr 6y ago
  I think it has more to do with culture — the way moderation occurs enforces a certain style of good and bad behavior, and once the community is trained correctly, it becomes self-enforcing. And people have a natural tendency to conform, and if they refuse to, quickly leave to find another group more relevant to them. The problem with most communities is that there is no culture being enforced — whatever grows, grows haphazardly and randomly. It’s also why good communities tend to start small and grow slowly — and why eternal September is so deadly. If you have too many people enter the system too quickly, that culture can’t be enforced and trained before the next group of people come in. Rather than having the “elders” teach their ways to the “young”, it becomes the young teaching the young. As an additional influence, those elders tend to leave and establish new communities, making it such that the problem can never be corrected.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
closeparen 6y ago
Echo chambers and confirmation bias are also known as community. I know everyone wants to “do something” but other people occupying communities whose identities and norms and beliefs you don’t like is a problem of humanity, not the internet.
- croutonwagon 6y ago
  See that take I don't agree with. There are plenty of communities where you can disagree without flaming. Where discussion and dissent can be had and heard without having to alienate or "pwn" them. You don't have to just ignore or exclude minority viewpoints to be a community. Most of the more welcoming communities typically embrace those as a matter of fact, and try to educate or evolve based on challenging their viewpoints.
  - sthnblllII 6y ago
    In a Christian community you can't deny Christ. In a Dungeons and Dragons community you cant call everyone a nerd and tell them to play Call of Duty. In the Black community you can't be a white woman with hair extensions and claim be to be the victim of discrimination. Communities exist specifically because they exclude people from them. Sometimes thats good and sometimes its bad but attacking the very concept of a group of people organizing for a specific purpose is simply dishonest.
    - spartanatreyu 6y ago
      I think there's an important distinction to be made here. Communities aren't only exclusive, they can be anywhere on a gradient between exclusive and inclusive. An inclusive community may have a central focus, but would allow outsiders to participate. Each of your examples have both inclusive and exclusive communities.
      - what2prefer4 6y ago
        'Communities can be anywhere on a gradient between (alphabetical) exclusive and inclusive (termed), but focused (themed), and would allow outsiders to participate (eigen).' Um I like what you wrote, reminding: //wiki/Genitive; 'Indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun', 'serving purpose indicating relationships', 'may feature arguments', 'a head noun, in a construction' ...a shift, yes -but that may be way too offtopic (-;
joshspankit 6y ago
It’s my personal opinion as someone who has watched the internet “grow up”, that at some point we are better off to mandate a percentage of “echo chamber busting” across all platforms. Even if it’s 3%, the algorithms can promote not just the polar opposite opinion (which is currently done to create “sticky” polarity), but the things that let people say “huh, I never thought of it that way”, or “I never knew that there were people in that situation” because those lead to empathy, understanding, and recognizing the humanity of people in other “groups”.
- wussboy 6y ago
  I generally agree with you. I think a better solution would be reputation-based. An account created 4 seconds ago that posts dozens of videos that people generally find distasteful should wallow in obscurity. Still there? Yes. Findable? Yes. Promoted? No. I recommend this solution because I think this is generally how human societies have traditionally worked. Humans have always been free to say whatever they want (meaning, it's physically possible to say any words), but there has often been a penalty for promoting ludicrous or hateful ideas: You weren't respected and were often ignored. If you gathered followers around you who threatened to become violent, you were removed. I don't see why the same system couldn't work for content moderation. Of course, the fundamental problem is that controversial things trigger emotional responses which trigger engagement, and that's what social media's business model relies on.

dec0dedab0de 6y ago

In its earlier days reddit was a bunch of bots talking to themselves. HN works because the official moderation is more of a nudge than a fist, the community enforces its own standards, and it's a relatively small niche.

dan-robertson 6y ago
The community kind of enforced its own standards (eg almost no jokes, especially no stupid Reddit-style joke threads). But I think moderation was more important. However much pg wrote about being curious or “intellectual honesty” or whatever, it was the change in moderation (to dang) that saw changes. But that sort of thing doesn’t fit all communities. For one thing this one is basically public (there’s no shared-private things like subgroups or DMs) and tends to have reasonably highly educated members. For another, the volume is low enough that dang can deal with it all with only some automated tools, giving a reasonably consistent approach to moderation. Also I think he is paid much more like a software engineer in Silicon Valley than a typical social media moderator. There are certainly some other more general things though, like the anti-flame mechanisms, the lack of more inflammatory media like pictures or videos, the lack of printed comment score and downvote limits, and the generally public moderation trail (though moderator may privately email users too).
- dec0dedab0de 6y ago
  I agree, I meant that dang and sctb have a style that is more about nudging people into better behavior than about demanding compliance.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    Doing that is worth a lot! Many will see something like that and give it thought. If they do, that is halfway there, maybe more.
  - p1necone 6y ago
    I'm learning to just downvote and not respond to troll bait, slowly. And I got my upvote points past the point where I can set the color of the title bar so I don't care about those any more which helps.
setr 6y ago
I think it has more to do with culture — the way moderation occurs enforces a certain style of good and bad behavior, and once the community is trained correctly, it becomes self-enforcing. And people have a natural tendency to conform, and if they refuse to, quickly leave to find another group more relevant to them. The problem with most communities is that there is no culture being enforced — whatever grows, grows haphazardly and randomly. It’s also why good communities tend to start small and grow slowly — and why eternal September is so deadly. If you have too many people enter the system too quickly, that culture can’t be enforced and trained before the next group of people come in. Rather than having the “elders” teach their ways to the “young”, it becomes the young teaching the young. As an additional influence, those elders tend to leave and establish new communities, making it such that the problem can never be corrected.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

closeparen 6y ago

Echo chambers and confirmation bias are also known as community. I know everyone wants to “do something” but other people occupying communities whose identities and norms and beliefs you don’t like is a problem of humanity, not the internet.

croutonwagon 6y ago
See that take I don't agree with. There are plenty of communities where you can disagree without flaming. Where discussion and dissent can be had and heard without having to alienate or "pwn" them. You don't have to just ignore or exclude minority viewpoints to be a community. Most of the more welcoming communities typically embrace those as a matter of fact, and try to educate or evolve based on challenging their viewpoints.
- sthnblllII 6y ago
  In a Christian community you can't deny Christ. In a Dungeons and Dragons community you cant call everyone a nerd and tell them to play Call of Duty. In the Black community you can't be a white woman with hair extensions and claim be to be the victim of discrimination. Communities exist specifically because they exclude people from them. Sometimes thats good and sometimes its bad but attacking the very concept of a group of people organizing for a specific purpose is simply dishonest.
  - spartanatreyu 6y ago
    I think there's an important distinction to be made here. Communities aren't only exclusive, they can be anywhere on a gradient between exclusive and inclusive. An inclusive community may have a central focus, but would allow outsiders to participate. Each of your examples have both inclusive and exclusive communities.
    - what2prefer4 6y ago
      'Communities can be anywhere on a gradient between (alphabetical) exclusive and inclusive (termed), but focused (themed), and would allow outsiders to participate (eigen).' Um I like what you wrote, reminding: //wiki/Genitive; 'Indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun', 'serving purpose indicating relationships', 'may feature arguments', 'a head noun, in a construction' ...a shift, yes -but that may be way too offtopic (-;

joshspankit 6y ago

It’s my personal opinion as someone who has watched the internet “grow up”, that at some point we are better off to mandate a percentage of “echo chamber busting” across all platforms. Even if it’s 3%, the algorithms can promote not just the polar opposite opinion (which is currently done to create “sticky” polarity), but the things that let people say “huh, I never thought of it that way”, or “I never knew that there were people in that situation” because those lead to empathy, understanding, and recognizing the humanity of people in other “groups”.

wussboy 6y ago
I generally agree with you. I think a better solution would be reputation-based. An account created 4 seconds ago that posts dozens of videos that people generally find distasteful should wallow in obscurity. Still there? Yes. Findable? Yes. Promoted? No. I recommend this solution because I think this is generally how human societies have traditionally worked. Humans have always been free to say whatever they want (meaning, it's physically possible to say any words), but there has often been a penalty for promoting ludicrous or hateful ideas: You weren't respected and were often ignored. If you gathered followers around you who threatened to become violent, you were removed. I don't see why the same system couldn't work for content moderation. Of course, the fundamental problem is that controversial things trigger emotional responses which trigger engagement, and that's what social media's business model relies on.