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HN is not a hivemind. There could easily be two groups (or more) of people: one who shows up to Firefox threads and complains, and another who shows up to Firef

HN is not a hivemind. There could easily be two groups (or more) of people: one who shows up to Firefox threads and complains, and another who shows up to Firefox fork threads and complains. There may be some overlap between these groups, but there doesn't have to be. In my opinion, it's pretty easy to spot this pattern, because when you've read HN long enough, you know what sorts of posts are likely to elicit reactions from a particular group. But that's not to say any given group is representative of HN as a whole, which I think is still largely dominated by lurkers.

infogulch 5y ago
Users that comment on a post are not a random sample of the community at large. So you can't draw conclusions about the community by looking at a biased sample of posts, because it just projects that bias into the comments. This is a truism of most online platforms, e.g. Twitter.
no-dr-onboard 5y ago
> HN is not a hivemind. Big claim. Add the keywords "Rust", "Webasm" or "Burnout" to your title and your chances of making it to the frontpage increase significantly.
- timeon 5y ago
  Maybe you are just closer to the group that gets triggered by these keywords. And that is OK. But my point is that these 'opposing' sentiments are always present in those threads. Which begs the question: where is the hivemind?
- skrtskrt 5y ago
  Also make sure you note somewhere in your post: * that MBAs and VCs are useless leeches * but rich tech founders are folk heros and visionaries * that all regulations are just market capture by entrenched players * Europe's government health plans work great and America's private one is an embarrassment * but that also government cannot possibly be an efficient provider of services and the only true answer is pure libertarianism
tedunangst 5y ago
I think the question is why you apparently see rather few people show up in adjacent threads. You see this with many topics. There's the people who complain about Apple's monopoly, and there's the people who say Apple is dying because they have no marketshare, but you might reasonably expect both groups to fall under the umbrella of people interested in Apple's marketshare.
newaccount2021 5y ago
a9h74j 5y ago
> what sorts of posts are likely to elicit reactions from a particular group Also: given such sorts of posts, once one seeming/presumed group acquires dominance in a thread of comments, that "others" may self-select out of commenting on that particular article.
sjmm1989 5y ago
Lurker here. Made an account because fuck it, why not.

infogulch 5y ago

Users that comment on a post are not a random sample of the community at large. So you can't draw conclusions about the community by looking at a biased sample of posts, because it just projects that bias into the comments. This is a truism of most online platforms, e.g. Twitter.

no-dr-onboard 5y ago

> HN is not a hivemind. Big claim. Add the keywords "Rust", "Webasm" or "Burnout" to your title and your chances of making it to the frontpage increase significantly.

timeon 5y ago
Maybe you are just closer to the group that gets triggered by these keywords. And that is OK. But my point is that these 'opposing' sentiments are always present in those threads. Which begs the question: where is the hivemind?
skrtskrt 5y ago
Also make sure you note somewhere in your post: * that MBAs and VCs are useless leeches * but rich tech founders are folk heros and visionaries * that all regulations are just market capture by entrenched players * Europe's government health plans work great and America's private one is an embarrassment * but that also government cannot possibly be an efficient provider of services and the only true answer is pure libertarianism

tedunangst 5y ago

I think the question is why you apparently see rather few people show up in adjacent threads. You see this with many topics. There's the people who complain about Apple's monopoly, and there's the people who say Apple is dying because they have no marketshare, but you might reasonably expect both groups to fall under the umbrella of people interested in Apple's marketshare.

newaccount2021 5y ago

a9h74j 5y ago

> what sorts of posts are likely to elicit reactions from a particular group Also: given such sorts of posts, once one seeming/presumed group acquires dominance in a thread of comments, that "others" may self-select out of commenting on that particular article.

sjmm1989 5y ago

Lurker here. Made an account because fuck it, why not.