3 ms·

First sentence of top comment: > Don't get discouraged by people being a bit condescending, it's a cool discovery. But as of this moment, my reading returns z

First sentence of top comment: > Don't get discouraged by people being a bit condescending, it's a cool discovery. But as of this moment, my reading returns zero condescending comments. Probably everyone here at HN had the same experience. So what exactly is lurking deep in this horror movie of a social network? If you sort by oldest, and click to expand, you suddenly see it. First comment: > 1.75*2 = 3.5 ... with a thread of people having fun at the poster's expense. To sum up: * we outsiders from HN are greeted by a pleasant, avuncular top comment followed by enthusiastic discussions by the scientifically curios * reddit OP was greeted by a terse correction followed by a peanut gallery of asshats (all of which get collapsed and swept under the rug for us outsiders) This may seem tame, but remember this is only a benign scientific discussion. If you follow my model here and "look under the carpet" on a post about abortion or trans people, trust me you'll never want to eat at reddit again! :)

vector_spaces 3y ago
Those topics tend to be pretty upsetting here, frankly. Whenever I make the mistake of reading discussions related to that stuff here my mental health takes a nosedive
fragmede 3y ago
Turn on showdead in your profile and you probably won't want to eat here either.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  I have showdead on. It makes virtually no difference to the comments. There aren't many dead ones. Where it makes a difference is if you go to look at new article submissions.
  - jancsika 3y ago
    The pattern on HN is less nuanced. A story or thread gets a bunch of low-effort comments, possibly ones that are bigoted or conspiratorial depending on the content of the story. Then the entire story is flagged and frozen to further comments. It's like dancing in your favorite club and suddenly having a surprising number of drunk finance bros grinding on you. But the music gets cut and lights go up. Everyone is forced to leave and re-enter, and when you are let back in, no finbros, better vibe, fun times again. In contrast, Reddit is like seeing everyone on the dance-floor having a grand time, most of the time. So you finally get up the nerve to dance and are immediately surrounded by 10 tiny incels all trying to hump your leg. But everyone else on the dance floor reassures you to just keep dancing and that everything will return to normal when one of the unpaid bouncers gets back from lunch. Edit: This is all made worse by the fact that Reddit, unlike HN, has a lot of incentives for people to post very personal stories. So even though Reddit mods can and do lock comments when things get too rough, that typically only happens when there's a critical mass of nastiness. Given that most stuff on the frontpage has 1000+ comments, that leaves room for dozens of abusive comments reaching the OP and only getting moderated later. So a woman posts a story about narrowly avoiding a date rape, initially receives a few dozen personal insults to her inbox, which get modded, leaving what ultimately looks like a wall of enthusiasm and support, encouraging lurkers to post, who also get initial personal insults, and so on...
rendaw 3y ago
I might have missed something, but there's only one other person in the tree, who defends OP and asks a question about the procedure. I don't see anyone making fun or a peanut gallery. Do you have to be logged in to see some posts? This does seem very tame to me.
cipheredStones 3y ago
I guess there's a bit of a negative filter for early comments on any given post: the people who respond quickly typically won't be the people who take their time to leave thoughtful comments, and the people who see the post first will be people who spend too much of their lives on Reddit.
- jancsika 3y ago
  > and the people who see the post first will be people who spend too much of their lives on Reddit Except that every OP by default gets their inbox lit up by responses, typically unmoderated, in the order they were received. So a person lurking casually on Reddit gets the false sense that threads are typically fun and light-hearted, enticing them to post. But the moment they do they become part of the Reddit ingroup, and their inbox gets bombarded with first-post asshat comments. Later, moderators and users downvote the asshats and the backend shuttles them away from all consequent casual lurkers. It's like pre-digital hazing, except somehow even worse because there's no community bonding (or even community, really). Just unfortunate souls similar the poster below who said their mental health "takes a nose dive" when exposed to the nastier abusive comments/threads. Or even the unlucky lurker who wins the race against the moderators/downvoters of the abusive content. (None of whom are paid, btw. Yay!)

vector_spaces 3y ago

Those topics tend to be pretty upsetting here, frankly. Whenever I make the mistake of reading discussions related to that stuff here my mental health takes a nosedive

fragmede 3y ago

Turn on showdead in your profile and you probably won't want to eat here either.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
I have showdead on. It makes virtually no difference to the comments. There aren't many dead ones. Where it makes a difference is if you go to look at new article submissions.
- jancsika 3y ago
  The pattern on HN is less nuanced. A story or thread gets a bunch of low-effort comments, possibly ones that are bigoted or conspiratorial depending on the content of the story. Then the entire story is flagged and frozen to further comments. It's like dancing in your favorite club and suddenly having a surprising number of drunk finance bros grinding on you. But the music gets cut and lights go up. Everyone is forced to leave and re-enter, and when you are let back in, no finbros, better vibe, fun times again. In contrast, Reddit is like seeing everyone on the dance-floor having a grand time, most of the time. So you finally get up the nerve to dance and are immediately surrounded by 10 tiny incels all trying to hump your leg. But everyone else on the dance floor reassures you to just keep dancing and that everything will return to normal when one of the unpaid bouncers gets back from lunch. Edit: This is all made worse by the fact that Reddit, unlike HN, has a lot of incentives for people to post very personal stories. So even though Reddit mods can and do lock comments when things get too rough, that typically only happens when there's a critical mass of nastiness. Given that most stuff on the frontpage has 1000+ comments, that leaves room for dozens of abusive comments reaching the OP and only getting moderated later. So a woman posts a story about narrowly avoiding a date rape, initially receives a few dozen personal insults to her inbox, which get modded, leaving what ultimately looks like a wall of enthusiasm and support, encouraging lurkers to post, who also get initial personal insults, and so on...

rendaw 3y ago

I might have missed something, but there's only one other person in the tree, who defends OP and asks a question about the procedure. I don't see anyone making fun or a peanut gallery. Do you have to be logged in to see some posts? This does seem very tame to me.

cipheredStones 3y ago

I guess there's a bit of a negative filter for early comments on any given post: the people who respond quickly typically won't be the people who take their time to leave thoughtful comments, and the people who see the post first will be people who spend too much of their lives on Reddit.

jancsika 3y ago
> and the people who see the post first will be people who spend too much of their lives on Reddit Except that every OP by default gets their inbox lit up by responses, typically unmoderated, in the order they were received. So a person lurking casually on Reddit gets the false sense that threads are typically fun and light-hearted, enticing them to post. But the moment they do they become part of the Reddit ingroup, and their inbox gets bombarded with first-post asshat comments. Later, moderators and users downvote the asshats and the backend shuttles them away from all consequent casual lurkers. It's like pre-digital hazing, except somehow even worse because there's no community bonding (or even community, really). Just unfortunate souls similar the poster below who said their mental health "takes a nose dive" when exposed to the nastier abusive comments/threads. Or even the unlucky lurker who wins the race against the moderators/downvoters of the abusive content. (None of whom are paid, btw. Yay!)