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> I was shocked by some of the stuff posted to HN Tuesday & yesterday As was I, but it got taken care of. I still wish people wouldn't have downvoted Richards'

by Udo 14y ago

> I was shocked by some of the stuff posted to HN Tuesday & yesterday As was I, but it got taken care of. I still wish people wouldn't have downvoted Richards' comments into oblivion though. However, what's really different on HN is not that sometimes bad things happen, it's that there are a lot of people here capable of considering a balanced opinion and, perhaps most importantly, willing to question the premise of things. Users on HN often did not simply fall in line behind the stereotypical camps that feed on this kind of issue, and I don't see that same capability for actual thought anywhere on Twitter. By and large we may disagree (hopefully with civility) on conclusions, and those are productive discussions to have, but we're as a community able to examine the issue as a whole. That's a pretty unique and valuable trait. I'm still marveling at how ridiculously easy it is to create fake wedge issue drama like this, and all of a sudden it's #teamadria on the one side, and creepy macho assholes on the other, without a single neocortical neuron to share between them.

untog 14y ago
Users on HN often did not simply fall in line behind the stereotypical camps that feed on this kind of issue Oh god, they do. There are certainly dissenting voices but Hacker News has proven itself time and time again to be unable to examine the issue of gender, or more tellingly, unwilling to. These posts disappearing is not a one-off, there have been numerous instances of people flagging 'difficult' posts on HN, so that we can all continue arguing about semi-colons.
- Udo 14y ago
  I must confess my knowledge into things that got unfairly flagged away is pretty limited, so you may well be correct. But as I said, the point is not that bad things happen here as well. It's that this is the only place where I actually found worthwhile opinions, whether they may be surrounded by bad ones or not. Maybe the signal-to-noise ratio is still too low, and we need to fix that, but at least it's not quickly approaching zero as is the case on, say, Twitter.
btilly 14y ago
Users on HN often did not simply fall in line behind the stereotypical camps that feed on this kind of issue, and I don't see that same capability for actual thought anywhere on Twitter. Our definition of "often did not" seems different. And the majority of the response that I saw seemed pretty knee-jerk. (Disclaimer, I actively tried to take a balanced look at the issue, and immediately got downvoted into oblivion for it. But over time people seem to be calming down.)
- lsiebert 14y ago
  On the Internet, there is no place to go drink and talk quietly with the reasonable people about complex subjects while the inpatient people, polarized to one side of a multifaceted issue, try to out shout each other. So when I don't say something in a thread that has degenerated, nobody sees me leave. I do try to leave something in such threads. But nobody is reading them for carefully considered takes on the issue.
  - jeremysmyth 14y ago
    I respectfully disagree, but that's because I'm in a couple of communities that are very, very cleverly moderated and have very rigid curation guidelines that the mods are careful about. You still get people trying to shout at each other, but they usually do so from a distance, and not within the community. I'm perfectly happy with that. HN has moderation (flags/upvotes etc.) but a much less rigid set of curation guidelines (see "Six Degrees of Hacker News"). This results in a much wider set of "well I think HN should be X", and therefore more meta-arguments about the different Xs rather than staying on topic, whatever "topic" means to each individual.
    - lsiebert 14y ago
      On reflection, you are right. I am actually in an online community that does do this, and even has a Metatalk section intended for talking about such things. I suppose I was engaging in hyperbole, born out of a sense of frustration. Thank you for pointing that out, and if you want to tell me (perhaps privately) about your communities, I'd be interested.

by Udo 14y ago

untog 14y ago

Users on HN often did not simply fall in line behind the stereotypical camps that feed on this kind of issue Oh god, they do. There are certainly dissenting voices but Hacker News has proven itself time and time again to be unable to examine the issue of gender, or more tellingly, unwilling to. These posts disappearing is not a one-off, there have been numerous instances of people flagging 'difficult' posts on HN, so that we can all continue arguing about semi-colons.

Udo 14y ago
I must confess my knowledge into things that got unfairly flagged away is pretty limited, so you may well be correct. But as I said, the point is not that bad things happen here as well. It's that this is the only place where I actually found worthwhile opinions, whether they may be surrounded by bad ones or not. Maybe the signal-to-noise ratio is still too low, and we need to fix that, but at least it's not quickly approaching zero as is the case on, say, Twitter.

btilly 14y ago

Users on HN often did not simply fall in line behind the stereotypical camps that feed on this kind of issue, and I don't see that same capability for actual thought anywhere on Twitter. Our definition of "often did not" seems different. And the majority of the response that I saw seemed pretty knee-jerk. (Disclaimer, I actively tried to take a balanced look at the issue, and immediately got downvoted into oblivion for it. But over time people seem to be calming down.)

lsiebert 14y ago
On the Internet, there is no place to go drink and talk quietly with the reasonable people about complex subjects while the inpatient people, polarized to one side of a multifaceted issue, try to out shout each other. So when I don't say something in a thread that has degenerated, nobody sees me leave. I do try to leave something in such threads. But nobody is reading them for carefully considered takes on the issue.
- jeremysmyth 14y ago
  I respectfully disagree, but that's because I'm in a couple of communities that are very, very cleverly moderated and have very rigid curation guidelines that the mods are careful about. You still get people trying to shout at each other, but they usually do so from a distance, and not within the community. I'm perfectly happy with that. HN has moderation (flags/upvotes etc.) but a much less rigid set of curation guidelines (see "Six Degrees of Hacker News"). This results in a much wider set of "well I think HN should be X", and therefore more meta-arguments about the different Xs rather than staying on topic, whatever "topic" means to each individual.
  - lsiebert 14y ago
    On reflection, you are right. I am actually in an online community that does do this, and even has a Metatalk section intended for talking about such things. I suppose I was engaging in hyperbole, born out of a sense of frustration. Thank you for pointing that out, and if you want to tell me (perhaps privately) about your communities, I'd be interested.