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Live chat is terrible if you want to build an async community where browsing is the primary thing people do. Chat doesn’t preserve anything in an easily findabl

by dchuk 4y ago

Live chat is terrible if you want to build an async community where browsing is the primary thing people do. Chat doesn’t preserve anything in an easily findable way, doesn’t organize things into topics, isn’t easy to go back to. I can’t stand the move “communities” have made to chat interfaces. It’s like if someone said “what if we replaced all libraries with just a warehouse full of people talking”. Chat communities are a significant step back in terms of knowledge transfer and creation and I think are more a highlight of how anti social the world is becoming.

antipotoad 4y ago
Wholeheartedly agree. I think it’s a great shame that so many communities are centered around Discord, closed off to search engines, and essentially just black holes for knowledge. It does indeed feel like a significant regression from the days of forums.
v3ss0n 4y ago
Well explained. Also chat platforms can't bring valuable discussion like hn . Most chat devloves to dramas and fight. Because there's no topic to follow, nobody read back original posts and it became personal.
- SyrupThinker 4y ago
  I'm going to slightly lean against this notion. For me personally the actual value of HN is the number of people that have some neat insights on niche topics, rather than it being a "good" place for discussion in comparison to chat. > Also chat platforms can't bring valuable discussion like hn . Most chat devloves to dramas and fight. This to me seems more like a function of the aforementioned people involved. I've personally had plenty of valuable discussions in random chatrooms. Even in more active ones. Meanwhile on HN, a decent portion of the comments also is drama of some kind. (rude remarks, off-hand comments, FUD spreading) Mind you, either medium has it's high's and low's, but I just think they don't differentiate themselves much in that regard. It probably depends significantly on the specific communities one engages with. > Because there's no topic to follow, nobody read back original posts and it became personal. To me this same issues exists on HN, possibly even more prevalent by virtue of being a news aggregator. People frequently do not even appear to read the article before arguing about things (mostly the title). This sometimes makes comments feel like they are done in bad faith, or out of hostility towards the topic/author. Which I don't think makes a good climate for discussion. On some topics even going slightly against status quo can result in gray or dead comments, even when the comment is well argued. Meanwhile, some hostile comments are not pushed against enough. I think the value of the discussions within a community depends far more on how much the community polices it's standards by discouraging unwanted behavior rather than the medium in which it happens. But ignoring that, the lack of notifications on replies, which is something I don't really mind, also seems antithetical to the concept of discussion. Some threads don't end by merit of their arguments but because one of the parties involved did not reply, possibly because of a lack of visibility.

by dchuk 4y ago

antipotoad 4y ago

Wholeheartedly agree. I think it’s a great shame that so many communities are centered around Discord, closed off to search engines, and essentially just black holes for knowledge. It does indeed feel like a significant regression from the days of forums.

v3ss0n 4y ago

Well explained. Also chat platforms can't bring valuable discussion like hn . Most chat devloves to dramas and fight. Because there's no topic to follow, nobody read back original posts and it became personal.

SyrupThinker 4y ago
I'm going to slightly lean against this notion. For me personally the actual value of HN is the number of people that have some neat insights on niche topics, rather than it being a "good" place for discussion in comparison to chat. > Also chat platforms can't bring valuable discussion like hn . Most chat devloves to dramas and fight. This to me seems more like a function of the aforementioned people involved. I've personally had plenty of valuable discussions in random chatrooms. Even in more active ones. Meanwhile on HN, a decent portion of the comments also is drama of some kind. (rude remarks, off-hand comments, FUD spreading) Mind you, either medium has it's high's and low's, but I just think they don't differentiate themselves much in that regard. It probably depends significantly on the specific communities one engages with. > Because there's no topic to follow, nobody read back original posts and it became personal. To me this same issues exists on HN, possibly even more prevalent by virtue of being a news aggregator. People frequently do not even appear to read the article before arguing about things (mostly the title). This sometimes makes comments feel like they are done in bad faith, or out of hostility towards the topic/author. Which I don't think makes a good climate for discussion. On some topics even going slightly against status quo can result in gray or dead comments, even when the comment is well argued. Meanwhile, some hostile comments are not pushed against enough. I think the value of the discussions within a community depends far more on how much the community polices it's standards by discouraging unwanted behavior rather than the medium in which it happens. But ignoring that, the lack of notifications on replies, which is something I don't really mind, also seems antithetical to the concept of discussion. Some threads don't end by merit of their arguments but because one of the parties involved did not reply, possibly because of a lack of visibility.