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I can't believe this would be described as a selling point. Negative replies are necessary for the usefulness of any community. Unless the intent is just to ma

I can't believe this would be described as a selling point. Negative replies are necessary for the usefulness of any community. Unless the intent is just to maximally echo chamber the network, protect con artists from unfavorable replies and so on. Until someone takes a screenshot of your post, and posts their reply as a new root, and the point has been defeated...

alimov 4y ago
I completely agree
rectang 4y ago
Frankly, I'm so tired of the pervasive low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion of disenfranchised communities on HN, that I've been looking for an alternative for a long time. Innovation is desperately needed in this space. I've experienced a similar commenting system to RadioPaper in use on the Gawker properties, and it's not bad. It is siloed. But just because there's a single silo at HN doesn't mean everybody sticks around in that silo.
- alimov 4y ago
  > “Frankly, I'm so tired of the pervasive low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion of disenfranchised communities on HN…” Would you care to elaborate? I am genuinely interested, in part because of curiosity and also because I haven’t experienced this personally.
  - rectang 4y ago
    See for example: https://melissamcewen.medium.com/a-guide-to-hacker-news-for-people-who-arent-men-5737bc3e68a https://melissamcewen.medium.com/a-guide-to-hacker-news-for-... That author advocates that HN stay how it is — or rather, she advocates changing it from within. But I don't think it's possible — I believe that the "assume good faith" proposition leads to toleration of unlimited low-grade hostility that does not rise above the threshold of flagging. The result is that outgroups flee the platform. Have you not noticed the gender imbalance around here? From what I can see it's pick your poison: * "Assume good faith" — outgroups don't participate. Exclusion may not be the intent, but it is the de facto result. * Siloed: outgroups can and will meaningfully participate, but debate is more constrained.
    - gsinclair 4y ago
      I was interested but not particularly moved by that example.
      - rectang 4y ago
        Yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, the ridiculous gender imbalance here doesn't bother a lot of those who have stayed. It's a vicious cycle — the people who it bothers leave, and since those are disproportionately women, the imbalance gets worse.
        sitkack 4y ago
        FWIW I agree with you. That this and your other post are both light gray kinda proves your point. Neither post ‘contribute nothing to the discussion’
        rectang 4y ago
        Well, the HN guidelines for downvoting consider disagreement a legitimate criteria. I take the downvotes as connoting mostly disagreement rather than a judgment that I was commenting in bad faith or posting something substance-free. The disagreement may be unsurprising, but I'd rather be persuasive. I'm not chasing "heretic" cred.
        smsm42 4y ago
        I think it looks more like people interested in gender and identity based activism leave, and people interested in signal-to-noise ratio stay. I literally have no idea about gender of any person but a handful of "celebrities" on HN - and it never occurred to me to account for it in reading or writing comments (excluding, of course, ones directly discussing gender issues of a specific person, which are thankfully rare). But of course, I am aware of demographics of the tech community, and there's a place to discuss it. It's just it doesn't have to be the only - or the primary - thing to discuss on HN. For me. I guess for people that think otherwise there might be other venues they may prefer, and it's fine too. There's absolutely no problem in existence of the multiple forums with diverse set of focal topics. One doesn't even have to "leave" HN to be able to discuss gender issues in other places.
  - robocat 4y ago
    I think Yishan (ex-CEO of Reddit) explains it well: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1514938507407421440.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1514938507407421440.html Everyone feels like they are targeted and disenfranchised, as a side effect of the nature of social media. All my left-wing woke friends are CONVINCED that the social media platforms uphold the white supremacist misogynistic patriarchy, and they have plenty of screenshots and evidence ... All my alt/center-right/libertarian friends are CONVINCED the social media platforms uphold the woke BLM/Marxist/LGBTQ agenda and they ALSO have plenty of screenshots and evidence of times when...
    - rectang 4y ago
      Yishan is bothsides-ing. It's a cop-out. I do not believe or claim that dang is personally biased against "my side". I think he tries incredibly hard and is rigorously driven to avoid bias because of the grand social experiment he's shepherding. It's our privilege to participate in that experiment. What I claim is that the policy of "assume good faith" has an inevitable, unavoidable side effect of driving away outgroups. On reflection it wouldn't be just left-affiliated outgroups either — the mechanism is that leniency in moderation means that low-grade hostility is tolerated — BUT that hostility could be directed against the outgroups of any forum, and who the outgroups are is variable and forum-specific.
    - smsm42 4y ago
      The fact that both sides make similar claims does not necessarily means both of them are wrong. One can be just mistaken - or lying, and another telling the truth. An aggressor frequently claims the victim started it - but that doesn't mean aggressors and victims do not exist. You can see that the people that control moderation on most social networks are political left, and aren't shy about discussing it. You can see that the political support from the social media workers leans to the left (I think over 99% of all political donations from twitter goes to the left). You see that these people routinely proclaim support for leftist political causes in their personal social media. Do you think there's a chance this influences their decisions? Now, we've been told a lot about implicit biases and how people that think they are even handed may be still prejudiced even if they don't realize it, and need to take deliberate actions to ensure this bias does not influence their work. Do you think this also relates to people controlling social media, or they are unique caste of saints untainted by biases the rest of humanity suffers from? Or, more likely, they don't think they need to any take such actions, because they live in 99% agreement bubble? Do you think the existence of 99% agreement bubbles hinders their ability to evaluate their biases and enact measures to reduce their impact on their work?
- version_five 4y ago
  > Frankly, I'm so tired of the pervasive low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion of disenfranchised communities on HN You mean exclusion of moderate to right leaning opinions right? That's my experience. If not (or even if so), I've seen lots of discussion on HN where everyone thinks their pet viewpoint is getting unduly picked on. That's probably as good a sign of neutrality as one can find (not that I think HN reader moderation is neutral) Edit: maybe I'm misunderstanding the replies but my point is that many people seems to feel like the overall forum sentiment is against them. I'm not saying HN has a demonstrable left-wing bias. People seem to be trying to refute that for some reason
  - rectang 4y ago
    Well, I would like it if I could participate in a forum where "women are genetically predisposed to be less ambitious than men" is not a constant theme of debate. Having that debate drives away women. I don't know if that's the kind of "right-leaning opinion" you're talking about, but if it is, I would rather that we were divided into two silos: one silo where people talk about how women are not ambitious, and one silo with women.
    - sacrosancty 4y ago
      I think there are plenty of forums where vulnerable people are shielded from uncomfortable ideas. And there are plenty where open exploration of ideas happens. The internet is decentralized enough that everyone can be satisfied already. I don't see what needs fixing. I wonder, are there predominantly female areas of society where members often worry about how their rules drive away men? Are nurses afraid to talk about men's propensity to not be caring in case it scares them off?
      - rectang 4y ago
        A lot of the most provocative conversations I've read have been in siloed forums, where people are not constantly getting shouted down and interrupted and can actually string together coherent lines of thought. I would like it very much if Radiopaper's approach, or some variant of it, made it possible to actually have a more enriching exploration of ideas.
- namecheapTA 4y ago
  I'm basically an expert in retail automobiles being heavily involved in car racing, selling cars for Audi Porsche for over a decade, and have a mechanical engineering degree. The amount of misinformation I see on Jalopnik articles, and the comments, is staggering. I attempted to post civil replies and corrections countless times. I was never 'ungrayed'. Not only did I eventually stop using the site, I can only imagine the thousands of people that missed out on useful knowledge.
  - version_five 4y ago
    I have found that I'm always most disappointed in the comments in areas that I know something about, and I rarely comment on such article (luckily it doesn't happen that often). To be fair though I don't see HN as some kind of authoritative information source, it's just a place for somewhat like minded people to come and shoot the shit about stuff. So people have some dumb opinions about cars, they just want to talk about it, they're not writing legislation or something. It's like overhearing a conversation in a coffee shop, you can walk over and tell the people they're wrong, but my experience is that rarely leads to any kind of comeaderie. Better to just take part in the conversation and not worry if people are wrong (not that I'm good at following my own advice)
    - User23 4y ago
      This sounds like Gell-Mann amnesia for forums.
    - namecheapTA 4y ago
      That's a totally rational point about general coffee shop etiquette. But for an automotive website to have a comments section where only approved people can comment, and someone clearly posting well thought out details can't even get approved to post... Has a problem.
      - rectang 4y ago
        Over the years I've left a couple hundred comments on Jezebel and TheRoot. I'd say a third or so have gotten ungreyed — almost exclusively replies on existing threads that have been either approved or replied to by the author of the parent comment, in the same mechanism as RadioPaper. Gawker staff used to participate in the comments, but those days are long gone. That means that a top-level comment by anybody who isn't already pre-approved will almost certainly remain in the greys. I miss the way it was, but the Gawker properties have gone through multiple wringers. So I agree that the Gawker properties have serious problems, but I think that the commenting mechanism actually yields some pretty great results. It would be fab if Radiopaper could iterate and improve on that model!
- LightHugger 4y ago
  I wonder how often you have made comments that others would consider "low grade harassment" and exclusionary without realizing it, and thus would have those comments removed by someone, somewhere, if they had their way. It's a lot more frequent than you might realize. One thing i fail to understand about this viewpoint is why the relationship between the removal of replies and comments and "low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion" isn't more prominent. Someone might say something one doesn't like, but the one has very little real power over the someone just with a reply. But if they have the power to delete what they say, it's much easier to reach the level of harassment and exclusion. There isn't a much stronger tool for harassment and exclusion than moderation tools used improperly.
  - rectang 4y ago
    > I wonder how often you have made comments that others would consider "low grade harassment" and exclusionary I'm quite certain that I have done so on this very thread. I'm seeking an environment (a private forum) where certain lines of debate are less ubiquitous (because I believe those lines of debate drive away people I would like to engage with). Some people are surely interpreting that as exclusionary and discriminatory, and perhaps some see it as low-grade-harassment trying to get them to leave. There's a important distinction to be made between immutable characteristics and identity tied to ideas, but that doesn't mean that they aren't experiencing those feelings. > There isn't a much stronger tool for harassment and exclusion than moderation tools used improperly. A forum's promise of open exploration of ideas is worthless for those people who have left. What I like about the RadioPaper approach is that it enhances freedom of association. Perhaps in practice that may actually lead to a more enriching exchange of ideas than a "free-speech" shouting contest. (I still think that the comment-approval mechanism is best used to audition new contributors for unlimited participation, though.)
- kortilla 4y ago
  > pervasive low-grade harassment Stupid people consider comments that disagree with anything they say “low-grade harassment”. This is visible all of the time when you look at people repeating falsehoods even about mundane things (not even hot button political issues). They become defensive about “being called out”. We absolutely should not be encouraging any “conversation” systems that let people just hide any comment that they don’t pre-approve.
- YATA1 4y ago
afro88 4y ago
It makes each thread owner a moderator, which is kind of nice. Just like forums and social networks, thread authors may gain a reputation for one sided echo chambers, or comprehensive and educational conversation. Radiopaper doesn't force you to censor other opinions, or encourage you to do so.
- alimov 4y ago
  I hadn’t considered the reputation bit. I do think of that is a mechanism that would come into play then it would only be knowable by people that are frequently engaging on the platform. Do you think this would pose issues for new users (assuming some threshold is of active users is met and there is a ton of conversations happening)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DoItToMe81 4y ago
I don't know how to phrase this without seeming rude, but this idea at its very core seems terrible and short lived. The only way I can possibly see this ending is with an aggressive echo chamber culture that drives off everyone else. I've seen forum cliques and mass blocking kill off many sites back in the day, and this design would empower this attitude in such a way that it could never be changed.

alimov 4y ago

I completely agree

rectang 4y ago

Frankly, I'm so tired of the pervasive low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion of disenfranchised communities on HN, that I've been looking for an alternative for a long time. Innovation is desperately needed in this space. I've experienced a similar commenting system to RadioPaper in use on the Gawker properties, and it's not bad. It is siloed. But just because there's a single silo at HN doesn't mean everybody sticks around in that silo.

alimov 4y ago
> “Frankly, I'm so tired of the pervasive low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion of disenfranchised communities on HN…” Would you care to elaborate? I am genuinely interested, in part because of curiosity and also because I haven’t experienced this personally.
- rectang 4y ago
  See for example: https://melissamcewen.medium.com/a-guide-to-hacker-news-for-people-who-arent-men-5737bc3e68a https://melissamcewen.medium.com/a-guide-to-hacker-news-for-... That author advocates that HN stay how it is — or rather, she advocates changing it from within. But I don't think it's possible — I believe that the "assume good faith" proposition leads to toleration of unlimited low-grade hostility that does not rise above the threshold of flagging. The result is that outgroups flee the platform. Have you not noticed the gender imbalance around here? From what I can see it's pick your poison: * "Assume good faith" — outgroups don't participate. Exclusion may not be the intent, but it is the de facto result. * Siloed: outgroups can and will meaningfully participate, but debate is more constrained.
  - gsinclair 4y ago
    I was interested but not particularly moved by that example.
    - rectang 4y ago
      Yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, the ridiculous gender imbalance here doesn't bother a lot of those who have stayed. It's a vicious cycle — the people who it bothers leave, and since those are disproportionately women, the imbalance gets worse.
      - sitkack 4y ago
        FWIW I agree with you. That this and your other post are both light gray kinda proves your point. Neither post ‘contribute nothing to the discussion’
        rectang 4y ago
        Well, the HN guidelines for downvoting consider disagreement a legitimate criteria. I take the downvotes as connoting mostly disagreement rather than a judgment that I was commenting in bad faith or posting something substance-free. The disagreement may be unsurprising, but I'd rather be persuasive. I'm not chasing "heretic" cred.
      - smsm42 4y ago
        I think it looks more like people interested in gender and identity based activism leave, and people interested in signal-to-noise ratio stay. I literally have no idea about gender of any person but a handful of "celebrities" on HN - and it never occurred to me to account for it in reading or writing comments (excluding, of course, ones directly discussing gender issues of a specific person, which are thankfully rare). But of course, I am aware of demographics of the tech community, and there's a place to discuss it. It's just it doesn't have to be the only - or the primary - thing to discuss on HN. For me. I guess for people that think otherwise there might be other venues they may prefer, and it's fine too. There's absolutely no problem in existence of the multiple forums with diverse set of focal topics. One doesn't even have to "leave" HN to be able to discuss gender issues in other places.
- robocat 4y ago
  I think Yishan (ex-CEO of Reddit) explains it well: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1514938507407421440.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1514938507407421440.html Everyone feels like they are targeted and disenfranchised, as a side effect of the nature of social media. All my left-wing woke friends are CONVINCED that the social media platforms uphold the white supremacist misogynistic patriarchy, and they have plenty of screenshots and evidence ... All my alt/center-right/libertarian friends are CONVINCED the social media platforms uphold the woke BLM/Marxist/LGBTQ agenda and they ALSO have plenty of screenshots and evidence of times when...
  - rectang 4y ago
    Yishan is bothsides-ing. It's a cop-out. I do not believe or claim that dang is personally biased against "my side". I think he tries incredibly hard and is rigorously driven to avoid bias because of the grand social experiment he's shepherding. It's our privilege to participate in that experiment. What I claim is that the policy of "assume good faith" has an inevitable, unavoidable side effect of driving away outgroups. On reflection it wouldn't be just left-affiliated outgroups either — the mechanism is that leniency in moderation means that low-grade hostility is tolerated — BUT that hostility could be directed against the outgroups of any forum, and who the outgroups are is variable and forum-specific.
  - smsm42 4y ago
    The fact that both sides make similar claims does not necessarily means both of them are wrong. One can be just mistaken - or lying, and another telling the truth. An aggressor frequently claims the victim started it - but that doesn't mean aggressors and victims do not exist. You can see that the people that control moderation on most social networks are political left, and aren't shy about discussing it. You can see that the political support from the social media workers leans to the left (I think over 99% of all political donations from twitter goes to the left). You see that these people routinely proclaim support for leftist political causes in their personal social media. Do you think there's a chance this influences their decisions? Now, we've been told a lot about implicit biases and how people that think they are even handed may be still prejudiced even if they don't realize it, and need to take deliberate actions to ensure this bias does not influence their work. Do you think this also relates to people controlling social media, or they are unique caste of saints untainted by biases the rest of humanity suffers from? Or, more likely, they don't think they need to any take such actions, because they live in 99% agreement bubble? Do you think the existence of 99% agreement bubbles hinders their ability to evaluate their biases and enact measures to reduce their impact on their work?
version_five 4y ago
> Frankly, I'm so tired of the pervasive low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion of disenfranchised communities on HN You mean exclusion of moderate to right leaning opinions right? That's my experience. If not (or even if so), I've seen lots of discussion on HN where everyone thinks their pet viewpoint is getting unduly picked on. That's probably as good a sign of neutrality as one can find (not that I think HN reader moderation is neutral) Edit: maybe I'm misunderstanding the replies but my point is that many people seems to feel like the overall forum sentiment is against them. I'm not saying HN has a demonstrable left-wing bias. People seem to be trying to refute that for some reason
- rectang 4y ago
  Well, I would like it if I could participate in a forum where "women are genetically predisposed to be less ambitious than men" is not a constant theme of debate. Having that debate drives away women. I don't know if that's the kind of "right-leaning opinion" you're talking about, but if it is, I would rather that we were divided into two silos: one silo where people talk about how women are not ambitious, and one silo with women.
  - sacrosancty 4y ago
    I think there are plenty of forums where vulnerable people are shielded from uncomfortable ideas. And there are plenty where open exploration of ideas happens. The internet is decentralized enough that everyone can be satisfied already. I don't see what needs fixing. I wonder, are there predominantly female areas of society where members often worry about how their rules drive away men? Are nurses afraid to talk about men's propensity to not be caring in case it scares them off?
    - rectang 4y ago
      A lot of the most provocative conversations I've read have been in siloed forums, where people are not constantly getting shouted down and interrupted and can actually string together coherent lines of thought. I would like it very much if Radiopaper's approach, or some variant of it, made it possible to actually have a more enriching exploration of ideas.
namecheapTA 4y ago
I'm basically an expert in retail automobiles being heavily involved in car racing, selling cars for Audi Porsche for over a decade, and have a mechanical engineering degree. The amount of misinformation I see on Jalopnik articles, and the comments, is staggering. I attempted to post civil replies and corrections countless times. I was never 'ungrayed'. Not only did I eventually stop using the site, I can only imagine the thousands of people that missed out on useful knowledge.
- version_five 4y ago
  I have found that I'm always most disappointed in the comments in areas that I know something about, and I rarely comment on such article (luckily it doesn't happen that often). To be fair though I don't see HN as some kind of authoritative information source, it's just a place for somewhat like minded people to come and shoot the shit about stuff. So people have some dumb opinions about cars, they just want to talk about it, they're not writing legislation or something. It's like overhearing a conversation in a coffee shop, you can walk over and tell the people they're wrong, but my experience is that rarely leads to any kind of comeaderie. Better to just take part in the conversation and not worry if people are wrong (not that I'm good at following my own advice)
  - User23 4y ago
    This sounds like Gell-Mann amnesia for forums.
  - namecheapTA 4y ago
    That's a totally rational point about general coffee shop etiquette. But for an automotive website to have a comments section where only approved people can comment, and someone clearly posting well thought out details can't even get approved to post... Has a problem.
    - rectang 4y ago
      Over the years I've left a couple hundred comments on Jezebel and TheRoot. I'd say a third or so have gotten ungreyed — almost exclusively replies on existing threads that have been either approved or replied to by the author of the parent comment, in the same mechanism as RadioPaper. Gawker staff used to participate in the comments, but those days are long gone. That means that a top-level comment by anybody who isn't already pre-approved will almost certainly remain in the greys. I miss the way it was, but the Gawker properties have gone through multiple wringers. So I agree that the Gawker properties have serious problems, but I think that the commenting mechanism actually yields some pretty great results. It would be fab if Radiopaper could iterate and improve on that model!
LightHugger 4y ago
I wonder how often you have made comments that others would consider "low grade harassment" and exclusionary without realizing it, and thus would have those comments removed by someone, somewhere, if they had their way. It's a lot more frequent than you might realize. One thing i fail to understand about this viewpoint is why the relationship between the removal of replies and comments and "low-grade harassment and de facto exclusion" isn't more prominent. Someone might say something one doesn't like, but the one has very little real power over the someone just with a reply. But if they have the power to delete what they say, it's much easier to reach the level of harassment and exclusion. There isn't a much stronger tool for harassment and exclusion than moderation tools used improperly.
- rectang 4y ago
  > I wonder how often you have made comments that others would consider "low grade harassment" and exclusionary I'm quite certain that I have done so on this very thread. I'm seeking an environment (a private forum) where certain lines of debate are less ubiquitous (because I believe those lines of debate drive away people I would like to engage with). Some people are surely interpreting that as exclusionary and discriminatory, and perhaps some see it as low-grade-harassment trying to get them to leave. There's a important distinction to be made between immutable characteristics and identity tied to ideas, but that doesn't mean that they aren't experiencing those feelings. > There isn't a much stronger tool for harassment and exclusion than moderation tools used improperly. A forum's promise of open exploration of ideas is worthless for those people who have left. What I like about the RadioPaper approach is that it enhances freedom of association. Perhaps in practice that may actually lead to a more enriching exchange of ideas than a "free-speech" shouting contest. (I still think that the comment-approval mechanism is best used to audition new contributors for unlimited participation, though.)
kortilla 4y ago
> pervasive low-grade harassment Stupid people consider comments that disagree with anything they say “low-grade harassment”. This is visible all of the time when you look at people repeating falsehoods even about mundane things (not even hot button political issues). They become defensive about “being called out”. We absolutely should not be encouraging any “conversation” systems that let people just hide any comment that they don’t pre-approve.
YATA1 4y ago

afro88 4y ago

It makes each thread owner a moderator, which is kind of nice. Just like forums and social networks, thread authors may gain a reputation for one sided echo chambers, or comprehensive and educational conversation. Radiopaper doesn't force you to censor other opinions, or encourage you to do so.

alimov 4y ago
I hadn’t considered the reputation bit. I do think of that is a mechanism that would come into play then it would only be knowable by people that are frequently engaging on the platform. Do you think this would pose issues for new users (assuming some threshold is of active users is met and there is a ton of conversations happening)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

DoItToMe81 4y ago

I don't know how to phrase this without seeming rude, but this idea at its very core seems terrible and short lived. The only way I can possibly see this ending is with an aggressive echo chamber culture that drives off everyone else. I've seen forum cliques and mass blocking kill off many sites back in the day, and this design would empower this attitude in such a way that it could never be changed.