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The HN Community is fascinated by the outside view of HN and eagerly gazes at the held-up mirror. One of our shared interests is emerging online social structur
by nealabq 14y ago
The HN Community is fascinated by the outside view of HN and eagerly gazes at the held-up mirror. One of our shared interests is emerging online social structure, of which we're an example.
We're also attracted to self referential expression, such as HN comments about HN self-organization, HN self-policing, and HN self-referential comments.
- lbearl 14y agoWhich really could just indicate that we all have an interest in HN being a good resource for us to read.
- pattern 14y agoI enjoy finding out what I like, and exploring why I like it. I posit that this is an inherent property of appreciation which allows one get more out of something. The "meta-HN" stuff is an incarnation of this, and shows that HN is appreciated by a critical mass of people. This is a huge boon to the community as it leads to things such as people using Markdown syntax for clarity, proper spelling/punctuation, well thought-out comments, and often (but not always) a positive and constructive viewpoint aimed at advancing the discussion.
- Centigonal 14y agoPeople generally seem to be drawn in by meta-content, self-reference, recursion and the like. Remember how people went crazy about the central premise of "Inception?" Self-referential comments do, however, have a tendency to derail conversation from that which is being discussed. In a threaded comment system, that tends to garner frustration after the initial novelty of the ideas has worn off. Case in point: Reddit has a weird attitude toward self-reference. Over the last year or so, there's been a (personally perceived) decline in self-referential memes, and redditors seem to see it as derivative now.