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> Curiously, authors that receive no feedback, are more likely to leave the community entirely. Ding ding ding. I think, aside from the issues with downvoting

> Curiously, authors that receive no feedback, are more likely to leave the community entirely. Ding ding ding. I think, aside from the issues with downvoting, upvoting by nature slowly creates hivemind, circle jerk communities that quickly start to lack any real critical thinking. Go check out just about any subreddit and it becomes very apparent what illogical silly ideas dominate. If you are logical but uncontroversial you'll get ignored which is just as bad as the controversial opinions which get downvoted to hell. You start to wonder if the confirmation bias we are all building towards is more dangerous than just being uninformed. There's lots of research on voting behavior in political science, I'm slightly surprised more hasn't been down with it.

balls187 12y ago
Why go to a different site? You can see the "hivemind, circle jerk communities" phenomenon right here. I'm not trying to be cynical but HN certainly displays the same criticism you levy on reddit (as does apparently any community that allows voting).
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  Absolutely. But if I had said that I wouldn't be getting sweet Internet points right now. I joke. Reddit is the best example, I think because of how subreddits usually follow a very specific cycle of creation to focus on a specific topic, then the upvoting dynamic creates a strong hivemind, then the dissenters leave and create their own even more narrowly focused community (see /r/politics to /r/conservative), and then it starts over. It's destructive. HN is a little better because there are actually some limits on democracy if you will (thresholds, flagging, etc), which goes back to the heart of my mention of political science. Different political philosophers have been discussing the dangers of overly simple voting scheme since Plato or earlier.
  - rancur 12y ago
    what it comes down to is people here don't present easily dismissible notions for my above average intelligence to ignore; those on reddit do. Not having a downvote is valuable. Limiting max score is valuable. but people still abuse overrated/troll/flamebait on Slashdot. the core of the problem is that truly intelligent people have moved on to greater aspirations than internet posting. Also, the dumb people on forums these days are a lot dumber than they were 15 years ago when I was getting started. And no, that's not just my perception in hindsight. The noise has gotten bad enough that I just don't participate in them. People don't see clearly like they used to, so it's not worth pointing.
    - balls187 12y ago
      > Also, the dumb people on forums these days are a lot dumber than they were 15 years ago when I was getting started Probably correlated with more internet connectivity than 15 years ago.
      - rancur 12y ago
        but AOL?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - maratd 12y ago
    > But if I had said that I wouldn't be getting sweet Internet points right now. Yes, you would. Criticizing and complaining about HN is popular on HN. I think you nailed it though, it's the "points" thing. You're creating an incentive for people to desperately say witty things to get more points, but when people forcefully try to be witty or helpful they end up being formulaic in the worst way ... they find patterns that people almost always approve of and use that. I wonder what would happen if you actually hide all the numbers ... all karma/etc is still there, just not visible to the user.
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      >I wonder what would happen if you actually hide all the numbers ... all karma/etc is still there, just not visible to the user. That's a pretty interesting idea. I like it. I don't know of any community that has tried this.
      - jrs235 12y ago
        What if you were only allotted a certain (small) number of upvotes and downvotes per day or HN submission? I wonder what effect that would have.
        jnbiche 12y ago
        I think for one thing it would cut down on the phenonenom I've noticed here where slightly controversial comments are immediately downvoted, but which then are upvoted back to full visibility. There seems to be a dedicated core of HNers who zealously and frequently downvote any comment that's not directly related to hard-core technology issues (there may be other motives, I've not examined the patterns carefully). These quick dowvotes are often enough to cause some feelings of ill-will that persist through the rest of the exchange. I think limiting the number of available downvotes would drastically reduce these quick downvotes, which would be a good thing.
        ctdonath 12y ago
        How about downvotes costing you karma? Warm fuzzy upvotes wherever you like (limited only by how long you want to spend doing so), but harming someone else via downvote only available if you're committed enough to lose a karma point of your own. The "pile on the crappy post" is easy when it's free, but sometimes downvoting is personally important enough to do even if it costs something.
- deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
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- jnbiche 12y ago
  Can you point out some "hive mind" ideologies here on HN? I think we actually strike a pretty good balance. There are clearly large contingents of Apple, Google, and Microsoft fans/employees, all of whom tend to balance each other out. Then there is a large group of younger civil libertarians/libertarians as well as a large group of liberals. And then there is a large group of older, traditional "MIT-style" hackers. I guess that there is some technophile group think that goes on, and it's true that among the SV contingent, there's a certain amount of ignorance about the state of the country outside of Silicon Valley. But all in all, I think there are enough counterbalancing ideologies and interests here on HN that the hive mind tends not to occur to the same extent as on subreddits, which are by definition single-interest groups.
  - deleted 12y ago
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  - manticore_alpha 12y ago
    This is the funniest thing I've read in WEEKS. Thank you.
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      I'm not sure why you say that. I see that a few comments you made about the paleo diet were probably unfairly downvoted. But some of your more controversial comments, like on H1Bs, were rigorously debated, with lots of people on either side. Why would you make a comment like that seeking to make fun of what I wrote? It definitely doesn't further the conversation. Are you hoping to shut it down? And if you disagree so strongly, tell me why. I'd like to know. Edit: Seriously, what are you laughing at? My criticism of Silicon Valley or my defense of HN's relative balance?
  - balls187 12y ago
    > Can you point out some "hive mind" ideologies here on HN? Sure. See any comments relating to "idea guy" vs "hacker" or "founder" vs "employee." The hivemind attitude that I see on HN could be summarized by "People who can write code should be given preferential treatment." Which makes sense, given by and large, people who participate here have some sort of coding capabilities, so that mentality is clearly self serving. But hardly makes this balanced, and not hive-minded.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> I think, aside from the issues with downvoting, upvoting by nature slowly creates hivemind, circle jerk communities that quickly start to lack any real critical thinking. I don't think voting has anything to do with it. I think that people's natural tendency to (1) imitate others that they respond to positively, and (2) seek out communities where there are people they respond to positively and where people respond to them positively, and avoid other communities, tends to lead to communities of likethinkers, especially when the cost to leave or join communities is low the way it is online.
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  This is certainly true, but it is exacerbated by how these systems are designed. Flat text forums, which have problems of their own, don't specifically discourage you (your post sinks to the bottom) if you have an opinion which doesn't fit the community's "correct" mindset.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    It doesn't happen mechanically, but I think you get about equivalent social behavior - for example Metafilters orders posts by time rather than popularity but there's a great deal of social policing that goes on there and piles upon opinions that are at variance with community norms.
taigeair 12y ago
There was a research paper about how being ignored is worse than an argument. Can't remember the details at the moment.
- Alex3917 12y ago
  This is showing exactly that, from 2006: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00033.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006....
- donatj 12y ago
  Lol, so this is why I say ridiculous hyperbole - the attention.
RivieraKid 12y ago
Yep, definitely noticed that on reddit and here. I'd say having votes is positive overall for bigger communities but when everyone's optimizing for votes, it subtly changes the nature of the comments. That's not neccessarily negative but it sometimes seems to have a similar effect as when people are in front of a camera. I visit one community website about linux (non-english) that doesn't have voting and I really like the natural, down-to-earth discussions and arguments (usually about current issues, politics, etc.).

balls187 12y ago

Why go to a different site? You can see the "hivemind, circle jerk communities" phenomenon right here. I'm not trying to be cynical but HN certainly displays the same criticism you levy on reddit (as does apparently any community that allows voting).

aaron-lebo 12y ago
Absolutely. But if I had said that I wouldn't be getting sweet Internet points right now. I joke. Reddit is the best example, I think because of how subreddits usually follow a very specific cycle of creation to focus on a specific topic, then the upvoting dynamic creates a strong hivemind, then the dissenters leave and create their own even more narrowly focused community (see /r/politics to /r/conservative), and then it starts over. It's destructive. HN is a little better because there are actually some limits on democracy if you will (thresholds, flagging, etc), which goes back to the heart of my mention of political science. Different political philosophers have been discussing the dangers of overly simple voting scheme since Plato or earlier.
- rancur 12y ago
  what it comes down to is people here don't present easily dismissible notions for my above average intelligence to ignore; those on reddit do. Not having a downvote is valuable. Limiting max score is valuable. but people still abuse overrated/troll/flamebait on Slashdot. the core of the problem is that truly intelligent people have moved on to greater aspirations than internet posting. Also, the dumb people on forums these days are a lot dumber than they were 15 years ago when I was getting started. And no, that's not just my perception in hindsight. The noise has gotten bad enough that I just don't participate in them. People don't see clearly like they used to, so it's not worth pointing.
  - balls187 12y ago
    > Also, the dumb people on forums these days are a lot dumber than they were 15 years ago when I was getting started Probably correlated with more internet connectivity than 15 years ago.
    - rancur 12y ago
      but AOL?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- maratd 12y ago
  > But if I had said that I wouldn't be getting sweet Internet points right now. Yes, you would. Criticizing and complaining about HN is popular on HN. I think you nailed it though, it's the "points" thing. You're creating an incentive for people to desperately say witty things to get more points, but when people forcefully try to be witty or helpful they end up being formulaic in the worst way ... they find patterns that people almost always approve of and use that. I wonder what would happen if you actually hide all the numbers ... all karma/etc is still there, just not visible to the user.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    >I wonder what would happen if you actually hide all the numbers ... all karma/etc is still there, just not visible to the user. That's a pretty interesting idea. I like it. I don't know of any community that has tried this.
    - jrs235 12y ago
      What if you were only allotted a certain (small) number of upvotes and downvotes per day or HN submission? I wonder what effect that would have.
      - jnbiche 12y ago
        I think for one thing it would cut down on the phenonenom I've noticed here where slightly controversial comments are immediately downvoted, but which then are upvoted back to full visibility. There seems to be a dedicated core of HNers who zealously and frequently downvote any comment that's not directly related to hard-core technology issues (there may be other motives, I've not examined the patterns carefully). These quick dowvotes are often enough to cause some feelings of ill-will that persist through the rest of the exchange. I think limiting the number of available downvotes would drastically reduce these quick downvotes, which would be a good thing.
      - ctdonath 12y ago
        How about downvotes costing you karma? Warm fuzzy upvotes wherever you like (limited only by how long you want to spend doing so), but harming someone else via downvote only available if you're committed enough to lose a karma point of your own. The "pile on the crappy post" is easy when it's free, but sometimes downvoting is personally important enough to do even if it costs something.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jnbiche 12y ago
Can you point out some "hive mind" ideologies here on HN? I think we actually strike a pretty good balance. There are clearly large contingents of Apple, Google, and Microsoft fans/employees, all of whom tend to balance each other out. Then there is a large group of younger civil libertarians/libertarians as well as a large group of liberals. And then there is a large group of older, traditional "MIT-style" hackers. I guess that there is some technophile group think that goes on, and it's true that among the SV contingent, there's a certain amount of ignorance about the state of the country outside of Silicon Valley. But all in all, I think there are enough counterbalancing ideologies and interests here on HN that the hive mind tends not to occur to the same extent as on subreddits, which are by definition single-interest groups.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- manticore_alpha 12y ago
  This is the funniest thing I've read in WEEKS. Thank you.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    I'm not sure why you say that. I see that a few comments you made about the paleo diet were probably unfairly downvoted. But some of your more controversial comments, like on H1Bs, were rigorously debated, with lots of people on either side. Why would you make a comment like that seeking to make fun of what I wrote? It definitely doesn't further the conversation. Are you hoping to shut it down? And if you disagree so strongly, tell me why. I'd like to know. Edit: Seriously, what are you laughing at? My criticism of Silicon Valley or my defense of HN's relative balance?
- balls187 12y ago
  > Can you point out some "hive mind" ideologies here on HN? Sure. See any comments relating to "idea guy" vs "hacker" or "founder" vs "employee." The hivemind attitude that I see on HN could be summarized by "People who can write code should be given preferential treatment." Which makes sense, given by and large, people who participate here have some sort of coding capabilities, so that mentality is clearly self serving. But hardly makes this balanced, and not hive-minded.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> I think, aside from the issues with downvoting, upvoting by nature slowly creates hivemind, circle jerk communities that quickly start to lack any real critical thinking. I don't think voting has anything to do with it. I think that people's natural tendency to (1) imitate others that they respond to positively, and (2) seek out communities where there are people they respond to positively and where people respond to them positively, and avoid other communities, tends to lead to communities of likethinkers, especially when the cost to leave or join communities is low the way it is online.

aaron-lebo 12y ago
This is certainly true, but it is exacerbated by how these systems are designed. Flat text forums, which have problems of their own, don't specifically discourage you (your post sinks to the bottom) if you have an opinion which doesn't fit the community's "correct" mindset.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  It doesn't happen mechanically, but I think you get about equivalent social behavior - for example Metafilters orders posts by time rather than popularity but there's a great deal of social policing that goes on there and piles upon opinions that are at variance with community norms.

taigeair 12y ago

There was a research paper about how being ignored is worse than an argument. Can't remember the details at the moment.

Alex3917 12y ago
This is showing exactly that, from 2006: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00033.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006....
donatj 12y ago
Lol, so this is why I say ridiculous hyperbole - the attention.

RivieraKid 12y ago

Yep, definitely noticed that on reddit and here. I'd say having votes is positive overall for bigger communities but when everyone's optimizing for votes, it subtly changes the nature of the comments. That's not neccessarily negative but it sometimes seems to have a similar effect as when people are in front of a camera. I visit one community website about linux (non-english) that doesn't have voting and I really like the natural, down-to-earth discussions and arguments (usually about current issues, politics, etc.).