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HN is a strongly self-selected group of people, with rules against bad-faith arguments. But you can find groups like that in real life too. The special thing a
by tlb 4y ago
HN is a strongly self-selected group of people, with rules against bad-faith arguments. But you can find groups like that in real life too.
The special thing about online is that when an obscure topic comes up, someone from the 0.0001% of people with deep knowledge of that subject can chime in. That dynamic basically never happens IRL, because you need a million eyeballs.
Like, outside of NASA, where would you encounter such a cluster of people with specific knowledge as in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31136285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31136285 ?
- otterley 4y ago> HN is a strongly self-selected group of people, with rules against bad-faith arguments I'd love to see those rules enforced someday. There are plenty of examples of such arguments to be found here.
- tlb 4y agoPlease downvote or flag them.
- the_only_law 4y agoI’ll try, but there’s no way if the core argument expresses a sentiment a large enough portion of the thread participants agree with. I think there’s very little traditional trolling on HN (you likely won’t hardly ever see it without showdead on). The problem is when you open a thread that blatantly off topic (but it’s ok because nowadays we play really loose with submission guidelines, and use more general guidelines to invalidate more specific ones) The problem is these make it onto the front page, and it’s just disingenuous flamewarring all the way down. You’ll never beat that.
- dang 4y agohttps://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=likeliest%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- otterley 4y agoI meant for real, Dan - like bring down the ban hammer more forcefully. Let's get serious about cleaning up this place.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoAgressivenes in moderation (hah) can be counterproductive. Also, everyone has a bad day once in a while.
- throwawayboise 4y agoIt's a bit of a balancing act. If you're too ban-happy you'll get an echo chamber (some would say that HN already is one) and if anything goes the trolls drive out serious participants. I think it's remarkable that the discussion here is as good as it is, compared to e.g. reddit or other forums. There has to be a little room for jokes and sarcasm and "devil's advocacy," as that's part of how real people talk about things.
- ethbr0 4y agoExactly. The only people you should really be banning in an online community are repeat offenders who understand the rules and continue to disobey them in a way egregious enough to be harmful to the community. That's a far smaller set than "people who post bad / stupid / annoying things."
- otterley 4y agoIt depends on your goal. If you want to make a community in which you minimize the number of people who post bad, stupid, or annoying things, you would run it differently than one where you welcome that sort of conversation.
- dang 4y agoYou seem to be assuming that we don't enforce HN's rules. We do enforce the rules, but only on the posts we see. We don't see every post—there are too many. You, or anyone, can help by flagging posts that break the site guidelines, and in egregious cases by emailing hn@ycombinator.com.
- MathCodeLove 4y agoI very rarely see a bad faith argument gain any traction and not get immediately shot down here. Not to say it doesn't happen, but IME it's more common that a bad faith argument gets called out and flagged than it is that the bad faith argument gets support and stands.
- Lammy 4y agoOther peoples' intent is fundamentally unknowable. Labeling someone's speech as "bad-faith" is repackaging an individual's subjective dislike of certain arguments into a justification for denying everyone else the ability to evaluate that argument and make their own individual judgement.
- lazide 4y agoWhich, if there is enough consensus, is generally pretty accurate and saves everyone a whole lot of brain processing. Only so many things can be evaluated and judged a day per person.
- otterley 4y agoFirst of all, we have to make reasonable inferences of intent all the time. Being able to do so lies at the heart of criminal law (see mens rea). We'll never be able to probe into the subjective heart of someone, but we do our best based on available evidence and tolerate the errors, while always trying to converge closer to objective truth. There are plenty of interesting things to talk about in this world. Not all comments are worth publishing or reading; some are deemed more valuable than others. Editorial discretion is one of the distinguishing characteristics of different discussion fora. Just like you could read a different newspaper if you disagreed with the editorial bent of one, a great thing about the Internet is that you can always start your own forum if you disagree with the editorial choices of an existing forum owner. And the startup costs are a whole lot lower, too.
- puffoflogic 4y agoThe only bad faith argument I've ever seen on HN is calling any argument you disagree with and can't refute a "bad-faith argument".
- skinnymuch 4y agoKeep in mind, many times people making bad faith arguments don’t even realize it.
- puffoflogic 4y agoI think that demonstrates that the meaning of "bad-faith" is, well, in bad faith. A correct definition of "bad faith" makes it a question of the speaker's state of mind. Not only can the speaker always judge this for himself, but he is the only one who can judge it. The only way a speaker could fail to realize his argument is in bad faith is if that is a question not of his own state of mind but of the listener's opinion.
- the_only_law 4y agoYou clearly haven’t been reading then.