7 ms·

I wouldn't compare HN with Twitter. On HN barely anyone would give you a nasty response (in my case, I rarely even check the name of the commenter, which is eas

I wouldn't compare HN with Twitter. On HN barely anyone would give you a nasty response (in my case, I rarely even check the name of the commenter, which is easy due to the lack of avatars and all, so I have even less reasons to take anything personal) while on Twitter people can harass you almost for anything and make a whole stormshit for a single comment.

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
HN is 'about' tech. When people have strong opinions, there's at least a consensus that we can discuss them in a reasonable matter. But it's not immune from the problem - I've observed, and been on the receiving end of, small pile-ons when introducing emotion into a HN topic. Twitter is, ostensibly, about everything. I've found it easy to filter out all the stuff I'm not interested in, but observed as a whole, without any filtering, an awful lot of discussion is about politics or social issues, and they are naturally divisive and cause conflict.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
This. Also the mechanisms work differently. If I post an unpopular opinion on HN, it gets downvoted and disappears. There's no shitfight. If I post a popular opinion it gets upvoted and I get Fake Internet Points. It's asymmetrical and weighted in favour of getting FIP. Much easier to deal with. On Twitter other people can retweet my unpopular opinion and comment on it, tagging me on their reply. My feed fills up with people being nasty to me. I can't deal with that in a mature, adult fashion, as it immediately triggers old trauma. I curl in a ball and retreat. I had to leave Twitter.
wpietri 5y ago
Wait, what? I've been using both platforms for something like 15 years. In both places I get lots of good, thoughtful engagement. But I'd say dickish replies for me are more common here than on Twitter. And I'll note that the term "flame war" long predates the existence of Twitter, and originates in exactly the sort of tech-heavy, nerd-favoring online context that HN is.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  And on Twitter, you can at least filter out the jerks.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Absolutely. I would pay cash money for a mute button here.

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago

HN is 'about' tech. When people have strong opinions, there's at least a consensus that we can discuss them in a reasonable matter. But it's not immune from the problem - I've observed, and been on the receiving end of, small pile-ons when introducing emotion into a HN topic. Twitter is, ostensibly, about everything. I've found it easy to filter out all the stuff I'm not interested in, but observed as a whole, without any filtering, an awful lot of discussion is about politics or social issues, and they are naturally divisive and cause conflict.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

This. Also the mechanisms work differently. If I post an unpopular opinion on HN, it gets downvoted and disappears. There's no shitfight. If I post a popular opinion it gets upvoted and I get Fake Internet Points. It's asymmetrical and weighted in favour of getting FIP. Much easier to deal with. On Twitter other people can retweet my unpopular opinion and comment on it, tagging me on their reply. My feed fills up with people being nasty to me. I can't deal with that in a mature, adult fashion, as it immediately triggers old trauma. I curl in a ball and retreat. I had to leave Twitter.

wpietri 5y ago

Wait, what? I've been using both platforms for something like 15 years. In both places I get lots of good, thoughtful engagement. But I'd say dickish replies for me are more common here than on Twitter. And I'll note that the term "flame war" long predates the existence of Twitter, and originates in exactly the sort of tech-heavy, nerd-favoring online context that HN is.

jacquesm 5y ago
And on Twitter, you can at least filter out the jerks.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Absolutely. I would pay cash money for a mute button here.