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> For what little it's worth, I've been online since Compuserve and personal local BBSs... > I absolutely consider HN to be social media. I've been online for

> For what little it's worth, I've been online since Compuserve and personal local BBSs... > I absolutely consider HN to be social media. I've been online for the same period of time, and I absolutely do not consider HN to be social media. Sure, there are some commonalities like upvotes, but I consider (my opinion only) these to be important criteria of something "being" social media: a) Most importantly, a friends/connections list, or "followers" b) Being able to see who liked/disliked posts c) The "feed" being personalized/targeted

betenoire 5y ago
D) no notifications
scarecrowbob 5y ago
Well, the ethos of how long we've been on the net isn't quite as important as our rationale. I feel that the sine qua non of "social media" is user generated content conducted between specific users: tied to specific accounts, where users have one-to-one public conversations and those conversations are foregrounded as the site's content. I don't agree that knowing who has up/down voted a comment is as fundamental as the fact that the sites' content -is- the comment. And while the system doesn't foreground user accounts, I have often found it helpful to look at a user's contributions to better understand their commentary. Finally, the fact that it's entirely possible to implement a "friends" list or a "feed" based on search results (and that this would apply to the foregrounded content of the site) seems to me to indicate that there's not just a social aspect to the content here, but that this is, in fact a social media site. I mean, I could search user reviews on IMBD, amazon, or the wiki, but I've never found that to be in line with how I use those sites... here the conversations are the entire reason I use the site. That user generated content is the whole thing for me.
- slantyyz 5y ago
  HN is social, and media, but I don't consider it social media in the same way as FB, Instagram, Twitter, and their ilk. Let me put it another way, to me, one critical defining feature of a "social media" site: when you register, one of the first tasks you do is to identify people you know (or want to know) so they can be somehow linked to you as a friend or someone you're following.
  - scarecrowbob 5y ago
    If you removed the a feature of trying to get other people to sign up from FB would it still be facebook? I think it very much could be.... and consider other feathers that you could remove, such as "likes" (or karma) and posting (ie, user submitted content and comment threads). I feel like if you removed those two features, neither HN/Reddit nor Facebook would be the "same" service.

betenoire 5y ago

D) no notifications

scarecrowbob 5y ago

Well, the ethos of how long we've been on the net isn't quite as important as our rationale. I feel that the sine qua non of "social media" is user generated content conducted between specific users: tied to specific accounts, where users have one-to-one public conversations and those conversations are foregrounded as the site's content. I don't agree that knowing who has up/down voted a comment is as fundamental as the fact that the sites' content -is- the comment. And while the system doesn't foreground user accounts, I have often found it helpful to look at a user's contributions to better understand their commentary. Finally, the fact that it's entirely possible to implement a "friends" list or a "feed" based on search results (and that this would apply to the foregrounded content of the site) seems to me to indicate that there's not just a social aspect to the content here, but that this is, in fact a social media site. I mean, I could search user reviews on IMBD, amazon, or the wiki, but I've never found that to be in line with how I use those sites... here the conversations are the entire reason I use the site. That user generated content is the whole thing for me.

slantyyz 5y ago
HN is social, and media, but I don't consider it social media in the same way as FB, Instagram, Twitter, and their ilk. Let me put it another way, to me, one critical defining feature of a "social media" site: when you register, one of the first tasks you do is to identify people you know (or want to know) so they can be somehow linked to you as a friend or someone you're following.
- scarecrowbob 5y ago
  If you removed the a feature of trying to get other people to sign up from FB would it still be facebook? I think it very much could be.... and consider other feathers that you could remove, such as "likes" (or karma) and posting (ie, user submitted content and comment threads). I feel like if you removed those two features, neither HN/Reddit nor Facebook would be the "same" service.