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You don’t consider HN social media?

solardev 2y ago
I guess it's a gray area? It's more like a forum to me, of the pre-Facebook sort, more like Slashdot than reddit. And there's extremely strong moderation here that does the opposite of Facebook: It optimizes against controversy and vitriol rather than encouraging it. We end up with a bunch of nerds mostly talking shop and sometimes complaining about the job market, but that's still far less ragebaitey than most social media.
- dotancohen 2y ago
  > And there's extremely strong moderation here that does the opposite of Facebook: It optimizes against controversy and vitriol rather than encouraging it. Well, that and hot grits you insensitive clod.
  - solardev 2y ago
    Oh god, now I feel old :P
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- randomdata 2y ago
  > It optimizes against controversy and vitriol rather than encouraging it [...] a bunch of nerds mostly talking shop Something doesn't add up here. Nerds talking shop and controversy and vitriol about the their technical preferences is the same thing. Perhaps what you're saying is that controversy and vitriol is only apparent when you're an "innocent bystander" who doesn't have a passion for the subject? Which HN avoids by usually remaining focused on a fairly narrow set of subjects, to a user base generally passionate towards those subjects, so you don't notice? That is an astute observation, if that is what you're trying to say. Indeed, if you showed your non-technical grandmother HN, she would no doubt see it the way Facebook was talked about earlier.
  - solardev 2y ago
    OK, but I think there's a pretty big difference between "Next.js is too bloated, you should use HTMX" and "so and so group of people are all _____ and they should all be ________, and oh, your mom sucks". I don't think – I hope, at least – no one is going to start a shooting war over their framework of choice. You can't say the same about much of the content circulating around social media. (Edit: You added more to your post after I replied. To your point of "Which HN avoids by usually remaining focused on a fairly narrow set of subjects", that's not just my observation, that's the actual guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We self-select into a narrow slice of nerdtalk or we end up getting downvoted or banned from the site. To me that is the big difference between an interest-based forum that generally stays a functional monoculture vs a general social media site that brings diverse strangers together into shouting wars about whatever the controversy du jour is.)
    - randomdata 2y ago
      > there's a pretty big difference between "Next.js is too bloated, you should use HTMX" and "so and so group of people are all _____ and they should all be ________, and oh, your mom sucks". Is there? Perhaps the trouble here is that your examples are too far apart to recognize how they compare? What if Facebook, instead, said "Fat workers are too bloated, you should hire skinny workers"? Or if HN said "so and so projects are all ____ and they should all be ____, and oh, your vacuum doesn't suck". I see no practical difference. It seems the only difference is that Facebook tends to talk about people, HN about tech. But that's not a significant distinction – aside from where your interests lie. Certainly tech-minded folks often find people to be uninteresting.
      - solardev 2y ago
        I think it's just the different degree of emotional attachment people to have to these topics. Yeah, people can get a bit worked up about how annoying JS development has become, but not quite to the same level as the major headlines of the day about the latest Middle East controversy/Soviet threat/identity politics thing. Oh, and my vacuum does suck just fine, thank you very much.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  And it's not just human moderation (which would be biased based on the moderator) but things like the flamewar detector which actively demotes content that is getting a lot of quick responses. This is precisely what Facebook would promote, and HN might also if they were dependent on ad revenue to fund the service. Much of what's bad about Facebook and other social media pretty much boils down to their need to show as many ads to as many eyeballs as possible.

I guess it's a gray area? It's more like a forum to me, of the pre-Facebook sort, more like Slashdot than reddit. And there's extremely strong moderation here that does the opposite of Facebook: It optimizes against controversy and vitriol rather than encouraging it. We end up with a bunch of nerds mostly talking shop and sometimes complaining about the job market, but that's still far less ragebaitey than most social media.

dotancohen 2y ago
> And there's extremely strong moderation here that does the opposite of Facebook: It optimizes against controversy and vitriol rather than encouraging it. Well, that and hot grits you insensitive clod.
- solardev 2y ago
  Oh god, now I feel old :P
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
randomdata 2y ago
> It optimizes against controversy and vitriol rather than encouraging it [...] a bunch of nerds mostly talking shop Something doesn't add up here. Nerds talking shop and controversy and vitriol about the their technical preferences is the same thing. Perhaps what you're saying is that controversy and vitriol is only apparent when you're an "innocent bystander" who doesn't have a passion for the subject? Which HN avoids by usually remaining focused on a fairly narrow set of subjects, to a user base generally passionate towards those subjects, so you don't notice? That is an astute observation, if that is what you're trying to say. Indeed, if you showed your non-technical grandmother HN, she would no doubt see it the way Facebook was talked about earlier.
- solardev 2y ago
  OK, but I think there's a pretty big difference between "Next.js is too bloated, you should use HTMX" and "so and so group of people are all _____ and they should all be ________, and oh, your mom sucks". I don't think – I hope, at least – no one is going to start a shooting war over their framework of choice. You can't say the same about much of the content circulating around social media. (Edit: You added more to your post after I replied. To your point of "Which HN avoids by usually remaining focused on a fairly narrow set of subjects", that's not just my observation, that's the actual guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We self-select into a narrow slice of nerdtalk or we end up getting downvoted or banned from the site. To me that is the big difference between an interest-based forum that generally stays a functional monoculture vs a general social media site that brings diverse strangers together into shouting wars about whatever the controversy du jour is.)
  - randomdata 2y ago
    > there's a pretty big difference between "Next.js is too bloated, you should use HTMX" and "so and so group of people are all _____ and they should all be ________, and oh, your mom sucks". Is there? Perhaps the trouble here is that your examples are too far apart to recognize how they compare? What if Facebook, instead, said "Fat workers are too bloated, you should hire skinny workers"? Or if HN said "so and so projects are all ____ and they should all be ____, and oh, your vacuum doesn't suck". I see no practical difference. It seems the only difference is that Facebook tends to talk about people, HN about tech. But that's not a significant distinction – aside from where your interests lie. Certainly tech-minded folks often find people to be uninteresting.
    - solardev 2y ago
      I think it's just the different degree of emotional attachment people to have to these topics. Yeah, people can get a bit worked up about how annoying JS development has become, but not quite to the same level as the major headlines of the day about the latest Middle East controversy/Soviet threat/identity politics thing. Oh, and my vacuum does suck just fine, thank you very much.
SoftTalker 2y ago
And it's not just human moderation (which would be biased based on the moderator) but things like the flamewar detector which actively demotes content that is getting a lot of quick responses. This is precisely what Facebook would promote, and HN might also if they were dependent on ad revenue to fund the service. Much of what's bad about Facebook and other social media pretty much boils down to their need to show as many ads to as many eyeballs as possible.