3 ms·

With the utmost respect, the above post is ironic because it's exactly the sort of shallow, snappy internet post (I make them too) that's the opposite of what g

With the utmost respect, the above post is ironic because it's exactly the sort of shallow, snappy internet post (I make them too) that's the opposite of what good "public square" social media discourse should look like, and it ends up as the top post. It's the incentive structure that's inherent in social media that means it's doomed to fail as a method of intelligent discussion from day 1. Maybe this is what "the medium is the message" means, I never really understood it.

zozbot234 4y ago
In my view a terse, mildly irritated comment is an entirely appropriate response to the sort of aimless rambling we see in pieces like the OP. I'm sympathetic to those who think a "public square" should strive for a good balance, but length is just not a meaningful correlate to "intelligent discussion".
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  Historically „public squares” are used for lots of things - trade, speech, politics, taxes, faires, revolutions and public executions all come to mind. The square usually remains unchanged even as people do all sorts of things. If that’s what we take that phrase for, then anything goes - both mildly irritated comments and aimless rambling pieces. Moderation too.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Brevity is the soul of wit. We all have a limited amount of time. For most topics, I'd rather read a quick, witty "hot take" than a longform article or an exhaustively comprehensive academic paper, even if those forms contain the details and nuance required to fully understand the topic.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    I'll take a proper academic paper because it ought to have an abstract in the beginning with the compressed summary. Long-form articles rarely do that.
    - version_five 4y ago
      Yes. I hate reading something that's going to take 20 minutes and starts with an anecdote about Jimmy noticing something funny on a hike 20 years ago and you've got to read for 10 min to understand what it's about. If you're reading an established author that you know to be interesting, maybe. For a random internet article, I want to know what it's about. I don't know why more people don't include abstracts or summaries at the start
      - antod 4y ago
        > Yes. I hate reading something that's going to take 20 minutes and starts with an anecdote about Jimmy noticing something funny on a hike 20 years ago and you've got to read for 10 min to understand what it's about. But A/B testing proves that sort of content has the highest engagement stats! /s (Maybe they should be measuring how often someone comes back afterwards instead)
        nine_k 4y ago
        They can't track your coming back or not, because your browser brushes off teacking attempts! Poor them don't know... /s
LarryMullins 4y ago
> Maybe this is what "the medium is the message" means, I never really understood it. I think you get it. The nature of the medium itself changes people, not just the sort of content that is being delivered through that medium. TV puts people into couch potato trances. Karma-oriented commenting systems have people alter their beliefs to align with the popular majority. Anonymous commenting systems have people act bolder and ruder, etc.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  HN is strange viewed in those terms - there is a bit of karma but also somewhat relative anonymity.
jstarfish 4y ago
Time theft of the future will involve couching a simple concept (that could be explained in a single sentence) in paragraphs of ChatGPT vomit, just to make it look more substantive and "intelligent." SEO has worked this way for years. It helps nobody.
worldsayshi 4y ago
What if each user gets a fixed number of vote points per month? You can vote as many times you like but the more you vote the less each vote weight. This can be an example of how social media incentive structure can be iterated on. The main problem is that social media gets very few iterations on the fundamental stuff because you have to build a new audience for each attempt, or risk loosing the one that has already bought into your existing algorithm. What if a social media platform could be built where "the algorithms" were user created plug-ins that users could subscribe to? Each "subreddit" with their own set of algorithms.
- nine_k 4y ago
  > vote as many times you like but the more you vote the less each vote weight. With that, single-issue voters, preferably in a form of gangs, get the most power. I like the idea of iterating on algorithms within small social media niches / segments, like subreddits. The key is that it can be opt-in this way. But who is going to work on implementing all that, and why? Developer time costs a lot :(
  - pbronez 4y ago
    I bet it wouldn’t be too hard to fork Lemmy [0] to experiment with different voting schemes. [0] https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/index.html https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/index.html
  - lonk11 4y ago
    The feed ranking algorithm I implemented for LinkLonk does reduce the weight of your vote the more you vote. If I upvote what you upvoted then your votes get more weight for me. This incentivizes each user to upvote what they truly found useful for themselves as opposed to the current incentives of social media which makes you upvote/like the stuff you want others to see. Details of the algorithm: https://linklonk.com/item/3292763817660940288 https://linklonk.com/item/3292763817660940288
- phailhaus 4y ago
  > What if a social media platform could be built where "the algorithms" were user created plug-ins that users could subscribe to? Each "subreddit" with their own set of algorithms. I think this goes too broad, like asking "what if we there was one tool that could be turned into any tool?" Well, it wouldn't really be good at any of them. We have enough data now to understand how different social media designs affect behavior, we should be able to propose changes to disincentivize certain ones. For example, reputation systems tilt towards well-mannered behavior. It's not perfect, but it's about nudges and pokes to subtly shape culture. One of the most egregious offenders is still Facebook, whose comment and reply system actively boosts toxic content since the platform is only capable of measuring "engagement." Tons of angry reacts? Straight to the top! And the lack of proper comment threading means that everyone just kind of yells in each other's general direction, with no way to follow anyone's conversation.
epistemer 4y ago
I am pretty sure that is exactly what the medium is the message means. The medium itself brings its own bias and manner of operation. Social media and a real public square are completely different. A social media post is never going to be the same as public speaking in front of large groups of people. The latter acts as a huge filter on who is going to speak. The village idiot would be filtered out from tending to not want to be shown to be the village idiot in front of the crowd. That to me is why social media is exactly doomed to fail. It is exactly giving voice to the village idiot who would be filtered out otherwise. To have large scale intelligent discussion most people need to be on mute. To me, it is a very strange conflation between everyone's vote counting in elections and everyone's opinion about basically everything mattering. The latter is obviously ridiculous.

zozbot234 4y ago

In my view a terse, mildly irritated comment is an entirely appropriate response to the sort of aimless rambling we see in pieces like the OP. I'm sympathetic to those who think a "public square" should strive for a good balance, but length is just not a meaningful correlate to "intelligent discussion".

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
Historically „public squares” are used for lots of things - trade, speech, politics, taxes, faires, revolutions and public executions all come to mind. The square usually remains unchanged even as people do all sorts of things. If that’s what we take that phrase for, then anything goes - both mildly irritated comments and aimless rambling pieces. Moderation too.
ryandrake 4y ago
Brevity is the soul of wit. We all have a limited amount of time. For most topics, I'd rather read a quick, witty "hot take" than a longform article or an exhaustively comprehensive academic paper, even if those forms contain the details and nuance required to fully understand the topic.
- nine_k 4y ago
  I'll take a proper academic paper because it ought to have an abstract in the beginning with the compressed summary. Long-form articles rarely do that.
  - version_five 4y ago
    Yes. I hate reading something that's going to take 20 minutes and starts with an anecdote about Jimmy noticing something funny on a hike 20 years ago and you've got to read for 10 min to understand what it's about. If you're reading an established author that you know to be interesting, maybe. For a random internet article, I want to know what it's about. I don't know why more people don't include abstracts or summaries at the start
    - antod 4y ago
      > Yes. I hate reading something that's going to take 20 minutes and starts with an anecdote about Jimmy noticing something funny on a hike 20 years ago and you've got to read for 10 min to understand what it's about. But A/B testing proves that sort of content has the highest engagement stats! /s (Maybe they should be measuring how often someone comes back afterwards instead)
      - nine_k 4y ago
        They can't track your coming back or not, because your browser brushes off teacking attempts! Poor them don't know... /s

LarryMullins 4y ago

> Maybe this is what "the medium is the message" means, I never really understood it. I think you get it. The nature of the medium itself changes people, not just the sort of content that is being delivered through that medium. TV puts people into couch potato trances. Karma-oriented commenting systems have people alter their beliefs to align with the popular majority. Anonymous commenting systems have people act bolder and ruder, etc.

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
HN is strange viewed in those terms - there is a bit of karma but also somewhat relative anonymity.

jstarfish 4y ago

Time theft of the future will involve couching a simple concept (that could be explained in a single sentence) in paragraphs of ChatGPT vomit, just to make it look more substantive and "intelligent." SEO has worked this way for years. It helps nobody.

worldsayshi 4y ago

What if each user gets a fixed number of vote points per month? You can vote as many times you like but the more you vote the less each vote weight. This can be an example of how social media incentive structure can be iterated on. The main problem is that social media gets very few iterations on the fundamental stuff because you have to build a new audience for each attempt, or risk loosing the one that has already bought into your existing algorithm. What if a social media platform could be built where "the algorithms" were user created plug-ins that users could subscribe to? Each "subreddit" with their own set of algorithms.

nine_k 4y ago
> vote as many times you like but the more you vote the less each vote weight. With that, single-issue voters, preferably in a form of gangs, get the most power. I like the idea of iterating on algorithms within small social media niches / segments, like subreddits. The key is that it can be opt-in this way. But who is going to work on implementing all that, and why? Developer time costs a lot :(
- pbronez 4y ago
  I bet it wouldn’t be too hard to fork Lemmy [0] to experiment with different voting schemes. [0] https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/index.html https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/index.html
- lonk11 4y ago
  The feed ranking algorithm I implemented for LinkLonk does reduce the weight of your vote the more you vote. If I upvote what you upvoted then your votes get more weight for me. This incentivizes each user to upvote what they truly found useful for themselves as opposed to the current incentives of social media which makes you upvote/like the stuff you want others to see. Details of the algorithm: https://linklonk.com/item/3292763817660940288 https://linklonk.com/item/3292763817660940288
phailhaus 4y ago
> What if a social media platform could be built where "the algorithms" were user created plug-ins that users could subscribe to? Each "subreddit" with their own set of algorithms. I think this goes too broad, like asking "what if we there was one tool that could be turned into any tool?" Well, it wouldn't really be good at any of them. We have enough data now to understand how different social media designs affect behavior, we should be able to propose changes to disincentivize certain ones. For example, reputation systems tilt towards well-mannered behavior. It's not perfect, but it's about nudges and pokes to subtly shape culture. One of the most egregious offenders is still Facebook, whose comment and reply system actively boosts toxic content since the platform is only capable of measuring "engagement." Tons of angry reacts? Straight to the top! And the lack of proper comment threading means that everyone just kind of yells in each other's general direction, with no way to follow anyone's conversation.

epistemer 4y ago

I am pretty sure that is exactly what the medium is the message means. The medium itself brings its own bias and manner of operation. Social media and a real public square are completely different. A social media post is never going to be the same as public speaking in front of large groups of people. The latter acts as a huge filter on who is going to speak. The village idiot would be filtered out from tending to not want to be shown to be the village idiot in front of the crowd. That to me is why social media is exactly doomed to fail. It is exactly giving voice to the village idiot who would be filtered out otherwise. To have large scale intelligent discussion most people need to be on mute. To me, it is a very strange conflation between everyone's vote counting in elections and everyone's opinion about basically everything mattering. The latter is obviously ridiculous.