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I do the same. The diff between HN & Twitter is voting mechanism at HN. Voting mechanism when all is said and done, has kept things sane and of high quality (

by achow 5y ago

I do the same. The diff between HN & Twitter is voting mechanism at HN. Voting mechanism when all is said and done, has kept things sane and of high quality (though there is a echo chamber kind of vibe going, to the detriment of diversity of thoughts).

pstuart 5y ago
Don't forget dang.
rmbyrro 5y ago
There certainly is an echo chamber, but I'd argue it's way less detrimental than the shit chamber that search engines became... At least for searching tech related comments, site:news.ycombinator.com is a mandatory filter for me on any search engine nowadays.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Search engines are more manipulative than that, for a start, large players (govts & global businesses) can game search engines which probably explains your comment describing search engines. You cant run that many sock puppets on hacker news without drawing attention unless you just do a MITM to create a fake hacker news. In that instance the original hackernews wouldnt miss you and the people doing the MITM would be able to psychologically manipulate you all they like, all it needs is someone not too hot on computer security and include an OS and device which isnt that secure over and above what a court order couldnt solicit, like root certs.
chrisan 5y ago
I've found the opposite to be true with echo chambers. Twitter you normally just get the person's followers echoing around On HN, I never got the vibe of sects as anyone can be challenged and there is one singular front page instead of a custom algo home page that gives almost echo chamber by default with twitter. Because of the quality/voting, I never regret reading HN. I often regret knowing twitter exists after reading. Even if there is good content there, it is not enjoyable to follow a multiple tweet single thought or sorting through replies. It is just plain frustrating to me.
- toyg 5y ago
  > I never got the vibe of sects as anyone can be challenged However, I have definitely noticed that, over time, a certain set of views that were common before, have been marginalized or disappeared altogether. Particularly the libertarian/right-wing of the US political spectrum, which used to be very popular around here, is now substantially under-represented or even completely absent. I say that as someone who hated that perspective - I found certain comments maddening - but in a way it was interesting to hear views that are very far from my background. Part of it is probably that even tangentially-political content is stomped on extremely quickly by dang. Part of it is that the growth in the number of commenters clearly changed the social and geographical composition of commenters (there are lots of internationals like me now, whereas it used to be mostly US west-coasters). Part of it is probably that certain positions "lost" the public debate. In the end, it's how it is.
- Too 5y ago
  I think large part of that is user names here are very small and anonymous. As opposed to twitter and the old style phpBB forums where everybody has a much more prominent and recognizable avatar. There, you (subconsciously) judge by the person, before reading the content. Here, I hardly ever even read who I am replying to.
digitallyfree 5y ago
Reddit has a voting mechanism as well, but I'll argue that the "echo chamber" and closed-mindnessness of the users is a lot stronger there especially in the larger communities. Also the people here are typically more respectful to one another compared to Reddit and Twitter. Both of these factors affect how people vote on Reddit compared to HN.
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  I agree, and would like to highlight two differences in social network structure that help lead to HN being a more civil place than Reddit beyond just the qualities of the user-ships: *1. Restricted comment downvoting* A user must achieve a not-insignificant amount of karma before they can access the downvote-comment feature. *2. Lack of emphasis on notifications, especially regarding comment replies* This is huge! It must certainly decrease engagement in the short run to continue with the status quo, compared to Reddit notifying the user of every reply via every protocol available to them. You have to seek out a reply to your comment, which requires you to write something worth responding to. It reduces Poe’s law significantly. I would actively oppose notifications being integrated into news.ycombinator.com - the apps and readers can do as they please. Wonderful balance, thank Guthix.
  - karmakurtisaani 5y ago
    I'd add also a few points * Unappealing UI makes the site look boring. Furthermore, users have to be comfortable with the fact that there's no "easy" content, I.e., memes and one liners. * Comment score is mostly irrelevant, so users don't try optimizing their score. This leads to better discussion. * Only one board. Things stay on topic, as users from that toxic subboard don't leak elsewhere. So "bad" types of users don't have a place to hang out here, unlike Facebook or Reddit. I'm much happier commenting here than on Reddit. It's demoralizing to put effort into a comment and then be buried under one liners and memes.

by achow 5y ago

pstuart 5y ago

Don't forget dang.

rmbyrro 5y ago

There certainly is an echo chamber, but I'd argue it's way less detrimental than the shit chamber that search engines became... At least for searching tech related comments, site:news.ycombinator.com is a mandatory filter for me on any search engine nowadays.

Terry_Roll 5y ago
Search engines are more manipulative than that, for a start, large players (govts & global businesses) can game search engines which probably explains your comment describing search engines. You cant run that many sock puppets on hacker news without drawing attention unless you just do a MITM to create a fake hacker news. In that instance the original hackernews wouldnt miss you and the people doing the MITM would be able to psychologically manipulate you all they like, all it needs is someone not too hot on computer security and include an OS and device which isnt that secure over and above what a court order couldnt solicit, like root certs.

chrisan 5y ago

I've found the opposite to be true with echo chambers. Twitter you normally just get the person's followers echoing around On HN, I never got the vibe of sects as anyone can be challenged and there is one singular front page instead of a custom algo home page that gives almost echo chamber by default with twitter. Because of the quality/voting, I never regret reading HN. I often regret knowing twitter exists after reading. Even if there is good content there, it is not enjoyable to follow a multiple tweet single thought or sorting through replies. It is just plain frustrating to me.

toyg 5y ago
> I never got the vibe of sects as anyone can be challenged However, I have definitely noticed that, over time, a certain set of views that were common before, have been marginalized or disappeared altogether. Particularly the libertarian/right-wing of the US political spectrum, which used to be very popular around here, is now substantially under-represented or even completely absent. I say that as someone who hated that perspective - I found certain comments maddening - but in a way it was interesting to hear views that are very far from my background. Part of it is probably that even tangentially-political content is stomped on extremely quickly by dang. Part of it is that the growth in the number of commenters clearly changed the social and geographical composition of commenters (there are lots of internationals like me now, whereas it used to be mostly US west-coasters). Part of it is probably that certain positions "lost" the public debate. In the end, it's how it is.
Too 5y ago
I think large part of that is user names here are very small and anonymous. As opposed to twitter and the old style phpBB forums where everybody has a much more prominent and recognizable avatar. There, you (subconsciously) judge by the person, before reading the content. Here, I hardly ever even read who I am replying to.

digitallyfree 5y ago

Reddit has a voting mechanism as well, but I'll argue that the "echo chamber" and closed-mindnessness of the users is a lot stronger there especially in the larger communities. Also the people here are typically more respectful to one another compared to Reddit and Twitter. Both of these factors affect how people vote on Reddit compared to HN.

DiggyJohnson 5y ago
I agree, and would like to highlight two differences in social network structure that help lead to HN being a more civil place than Reddit beyond just the qualities of the user-ships: *1. Restricted comment downvoting* A user must achieve a not-insignificant amount of karma before they can access the downvote-comment feature. *2. Lack of emphasis on notifications, especially regarding comment replies* This is huge! It must certainly decrease engagement in the short run to continue with the status quo, compared to Reddit notifying the user of every reply via every protocol available to them. You have to seek out a reply to your comment, which requires you to write something worth responding to. It reduces Poe’s law significantly. I would actively oppose notifications being integrated into news.ycombinator.com - the apps and readers can do as they please. Wonderful balance, thank Guthix.
- karmakurtisaani 5y ago
  I'd add also a few points * Unappealing UI makes the site look boring. Furthermore, users have to be comfortable with the fact that there's no "easy" content, I.e., memes and one liners. * Comment score is mostly irrelevant, so users don't try optimizing their score. This leads to better discussion. * Only one board. Things stay on topic, as users from that toxic subboard don't leak elsewhere. So "bad" types of users don't have a place to hang out here, unlike Facebook or Reddit. I'm much happier commenting here than on Reddit. It's demoralizing to put effort into a comment and then be buried under one liners and memes.