> HN doesn't get enough credit for the tight rope they walk maintaining this community
You sure? Let me just check -theoretically- if you wanted to build a system to reinforce bubble thinking... how would it look different than this? There is hiding disagreeable posts, invisible moderation, and a magic karma system where 1 vote is not always 1 point.
Typically this isn’t a problem, but you aren’t paying attention if you think this isn’t by design and doesn’t exactly lead to a diverse spectrum of opinions here.
Okay, so how would you design it differently and achieve better results? Or point to examples that do it better? If not, the criticism is highly unwarranted.
Depends what you mean by “better”. I believe this is supposed to be a bubble. The issue specifically in HN case is most people don’t realize that.
If you mean, how would I present a variety of ideas but not let it get out of control with an extreme one way or another that puts common people off... easy.
Remove the score system. That little number in the corner is cancer.
Keep the vote system but only highlight when “many” people agree or disagree. Otherwise post are presented neutrally and the merit of the content must be evaluated. Even keep they grey out system but not at 4 people disagree, at 10 or so. It’s easy enough to find 4 people here that will want to hide the fact the WHO has dropped many balls during covid including faking that video interview dropout to not address that Taiwan is its own country and not an “area of China” - doesn’t mean it’s not true.
The thing that might not be clear here is that I do think this is all intentional and you used the right word “community”... but I think the danger is even long time users don’t know this, and think their ideas are “just right”, not that they are being cultivated into the same bubble they themselves are cultivating. Is everyone aware the “community” is not entirely natural?
The easy way to think about this is to steelman a topic you know a lot about. If you were to argue the other side of a topic, how would it be presented on this site? (Example, argue some debatable aspect against anthropogenic climate change) The answer to that is most likely hidden and downvoted into oblivion, so much so that it creates a chilling effect for anyone that would disagree in the future. That is wrong imo.
Edit: if you need proof there is a bubble with chilling effect, these posts are being hidden by anonymous disagreement :D
You sure? Let me just check -theoretically- if you wanted to build a system to reinforce bubble thinking... how would it look different than this? There is hiding disagreeable posts, invisible moderation, and a magic karma system where 1 vote is not always 1 point.
Typically this isn’t a problem, but you aren’t paying attention if you think this isn’t by design and doesn’t exactly lead to a diverse spectrum of opinions here.