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I think that most of the filtering happened because different communities operated on different platforms rather than a single huge one like Reddit or Facebook.

by vkk8 5y ago

I think that most of the filtering happened because different communities operated on different platforms rather than a single huge one like Reddit or Facebook. A small, old time discussion forum for a specific interest in my (rather small) language had only perhaps a hundred active participants and another few hundred casual posters. In that sort of environment it is actually possible for the actives to get to know each other and have occasional live meetings, which builds a much better community. The threshold of participation is a lot higher since a new participant would first have to find the forum and then go through the registration process, both of which filter out people who were not actually that interested in the topic. In Reddit or Facebook, any "community" (the word in quotations because I don't think they actually are very communal) for even a mildly popular topic gets filled with thousands and thousands of posts from thousands or millions of casual participants. The quality of the posts get very low, it becomes impossible for anyone to read all of them and personalities of the participants don't matter at all.

eloisant 5y ago
I think it's a good point. Also everything being in the same place, easy to link or retweet means the small weirdo community will invariably see outside people coming to make fun of them or explain them that they're bad people who deserve to burn on hell.
ItsMonkk 5y ago
Yep, this is something I noticed as well. Reddit calls its subreddits communities, but most communities are not about the people but about the content. As you can only have nuanced conversation when you repeatedly run into the same people, the only subreddits able to withstand conversation are niche or heavily moderated like AskHistorians. What this means is that if you want good conversation on Keyboards, it better be about mechanical. Good conversation on coffee or want a new pair of headphones? Better be into audiophile equipment. There's no room for generalists who just want good enough. Overnight WallStreetBets went from an interesting community of people willing to gamble far more than I to a pile of garbage. I'm beginning to think that Dunbar's number and the associated tribal splits are something that we should factor into our community building, and not try to work around through metrics and algorithms. So HN does this aspect correct, by grouping by interest of a certain type of person, but even on HN as more people show up and post the same problems will become evident.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  There are subreddits pretty much dedicated to generalist hardware that does things "well enough". Reddit users recognise that not everyone has a large budget to play with, such as teenagers who have to scrounge together a setup with a few dollars and a handful of pocket lint.

by vkk8 5y ago

eloisant 5y ago

I think it's a good point. Also everything being in the same place, easy to link or retweet means the small weirdo community will invariably see outside people coming to make fun of them or explain them that they're bad people who deserve to burn on hell.

ItsMonkk 5y ago

Yep, this is something I noticed as well. Reddit calls its subreddits communities, but most communities are not about the people but about the content. As you can only have nuanced conversation when you repeatedly run into the same people, the only subreddits able to withstand conversation are niche or heavily moderated like AskHistorians. What this means is that if you want good conversation on Keyboards, it better be about mechanical. Good conversation on coffee or want a new pair of headphones? Better be into audiophile equipment. There's no room for generalists who just want good enough. Overnight WallStreetBets went from an interesting community of people willing to gamble far more than I to a pile of garbage. I'm beginning to think that Dunbar's number and the associated tribal splits are something that we should factor into our community building, and not try to work around through metrics and algorithms. So HN does this aspect correct, by grouping by interest of a certain type of person, but even on HN as more people show up and post the same problems will become evident.

selfhoster11 5y ago
There are subreddits pretty much dedicated to generalist hardware that does things "well enough". Reddit users recognise that not everyone has a large budget to play with, such as teenagers who have to scrounge together a setup with a few dollars and a handful of pocket lint.