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> TFA does some handwaving about how it'll save democracy, but it's a crock of shit. All it does is make fewer people participate. crazy_horse tried to tell you
by wutbrodo 5y ago
> TFA does some handwaving about how it'll save democracy, but it's a crock of shit. All it does is make fewer people participate. crazy_horse tried to tell you that. The solution to saving democracy isn't reducing participation.
I don't see that this follows. Limiting participation is not just compatible with democratic systems, it's crucial. Democracy-the-system (the thing being "saved") has long built in safeguards against untempered application of democracy-the-concept. Constitutions, "upper houses", multi-branch government, representative democracy itself: the idea that the untempered whims of the masses are not a stable basis for govt is practically foundational to democratic systems.
Downvotes are even more egalitarian than the proxies that eg govt uses to temper pure democracy. This can make them a double-edged sword: they deter bad actors from causing disproportionate damage to a community (eg a troll starting a flamewar has a sizable blast radius), but they do so by the standards of the community. If the community's norms are "bad" by your definition, then deterring deviation from them is a bad thing. But there's no axiomatic basis for defining what "good" norms are, and the community's views (via downvotes) is a principled mechanism (again, the principle behind democracy).
IMO, the lack of any accountability feedback loop in downvotes alone means that it's a tough sole basis for a healthy community. The best fora I've been on have been on Reddit[1], combining the presence of downvotes with the "constitutional" approach of clearly-defined conversational norms (primarily civility and intellectual charity) and rigorous enforcement.
[1] I have a rule of not naming this family of subreddits on HN or other fora, because maintaining the community quality is a delicate balance and the average HNer would both find it attractive and utterly ruin it in large enough numbers.
- nindalf 5y agoImagine thinking your comments are so influential that a mere mention from you will cause a massive influx of crass HN-ers into your beloved subreddits.
- milesvp 5y agoPlease be generous with your comments. You don’t have to be crass to ‘ruin a place’. I’ve seen it happen just from sheer numbers. Even if the influx measurably improves the signal to noise ratio, just having more signal can make a place exhausting to participate in. Not wanting to risk any advertisement can be a very prudent thing to do.
- nindalf 5y agoI was being exactly as generous as I needed to be. This was a person who went out of their way to tell this thread "I belong to bunch of lovely subreddits and I'm deliberately not mentioning them so 'the average HNer' doesn't join". It wasn't even related to their point. They went out of their way in a footnote (!) to rub in the fact that we're so terrible.
- wutbrodo 5y ago> It wasn't even related to their point. Your comment says: > If the author could use examples from reddit to illustrate their point, it'd be great My comment did the exact thing you had already complained about, and my footnote was explicitly addressing the reason for this gap. It's an incredibly bizarre look to lash out childishly because you can't follow the conversation well enough to remember what you wrote in your previous comment.
- wutbrodo 5y agoLol, good one. I think it's a holdover from when the forum was a lot tinier, and discussion (especially on the topics it focused on) was a lot more suppressed in most other internet fora. While I don't understand your assumption that "influence" is required to spread awareness, you're probably right that the impulse is anachronistic now. OTOH, clearly you read this comment, and if even one person like you was prevented from ending up on that forum, it's worth it 1000x over.