This sounds harsh but not everyone deserves to be heard all of the time- myself included.
One recent example is Piers Morgan in the UK, who randomly decided to criticise Emma Raducanu, a rather likeable British teenager, who just won the US open without dropping a set (including in qualifying rounds)! I can't understand why he would do that, other than to stir up some controversy, and get himself back in the public eye. Either way, it worked.
This can be seen on websites like: https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/rammjaeger/monthly Picture: https://i.imgur.com/poc1QcE.png
Edit: when it comes to Piers Morgan, it does not seem to have been worth it. The last bump of followers happened in March.
Reference: https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/piersmorgan/monthly Picture: https://i.imgur.com/s7145UK.png
"I think when I was younger I wanted to tell everybody everything, because I thought I was so damn interesting. Then I heard the snoring."
The exact same rules don't quite apply to real life, but they make for a nice comparison: in a small group of people (say, 4-5 people) no formal rules are needed. Generally, everyone will have a chance to speak and be heard. Imagine a a much larger group, say, 300 people. There's no way everyone can meaningfully be heard. In the real world no one goes into a group of 300 people to communicate with those 300 people. Usually there is a speaker or performer communicating them as an audience. Even if those 300 people wanted to set aside the time to listen to every audience member, it'd be meaningless: no one would remember anything meaningful from most of the 300 different speakers.
In any case, it should be obvious that group dynamics and the need for structure are modified by group size. A very large online community can never be intimate, and perfectly healthy communities can be irreparably damaged simply be in influx of people.
* Of course, there are exceptions, and I actually use hnreplies.com to get emails when someone replies to me, but there's enough of a delay that I usually am able to avoid getting caught up in a back-and-forth argument. Especially since, by the time I see the replies, someone else has already clarified my position :)
I get it though, there are mental tiers I know where I am. Thankfully I can at least make a decent living/do my own thing.
I'm also aware of effort too. Looking into something/asking.
Engagement stats and views are the wrong KPIs to focus on for social media aites and most of us know it yet Product Managers are just trying to stay n their jobs and collect checks.
If you want to really succeed in creating a community like HN that lasts much longer than a cheap start up like ClubHouse, the key is to stay local, dedicated to a niche, keep ads controlled carefully, and be happy with smaller-scale operations rather than trying to dominate the world. Dominating the world is a very risky and high overhead venture meant only for those who can ask for a small million dollar loan from their father.
There can be automated systems to fix that - to rank contributions, with the aim to boost the signal and reduce the noise, with the final aim to facilitate a lean and productive debate and information sharing; and also to connect contributions, to reduce dispersion, etc.
Such systems to rank contributions are related to the theory of voting systems (quantitative ranking of voters and options).
The aim of many big "social networks" is not «to facilitate a lean and productive debate and information sharing».
No automated system is going to fix eternal September style problems. And before you suggest that I could simply follow the groups I'm interested in, that's still not the same thing because the people in those groups will still be engaging with/distracted by the people I'm not following.
When you upvote an item - you connect stronger to people who upvoted that same item.
When you downvote an item - you connection to those who upvoted it becomes weaker.
The content is ranked based on how strongly you are connected to people you upvoted each item.
That way when a lot of clueless/uninformed people come in and start upvoting useless to you content - they don't create noise in your personalized content list.
The content you see comes from people who have proven to find useful content for you.
This is how my hobby project https://linklonk.com works.
I did a Show HN a week ago and that post has more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28405659
No, absolutely not. Voters can be categorized, clusterized and ranked, already as part of voting systems theory (one single example in the latter: election of electors), and more beyond it.
> No automated system is going to fix eternal September style problems
And why not. One example: views filtering contribution by score.
> people in those groups will still be engaging with/distracted by
Not necessarily, if they are given the option to avoid that.
Most social media platforms are simply to big to moderate in any meaningful way, in my opinion. AI has so far show to be ineffective, as show by comments and open letters from Facebooks human moderation staff.
I could be wrong, I hope I am wrong.
Do we want to live in a sophisticated democracy as opposed to a naïve democracy? Some would.
Would you like to be part of an information exchange and debate platform using sophisticated systems as opposed to an open billboard? Some would.
It is very doable. It was done in history and it can be done technically in many ways.
Take for example HN: before you can downvote, you must have consolidated your position as contributor. Very simple - yet affecting the result, the "experience". Much more sophisticated techniques can be used.
Malicious parties could attack a system exploiting its weaknesses: yes, this is why take precautions like testing systems theoretically and practically, and implement defence systems.
> automating moderating
The point is not to automate moderation - it is not about the work of DanG. It is about reducing the noise generated by users "in development" and boosting the signal donated by "developed" users.
In the area of "ranking according to the favouring of favoured users, recursively" is a way to implement it.
It was a thread about an application correcting for some aspects of ADHD. With ADHD persons there is already an information filtering disorder of variable degree; specifically an inability to separate ones-self from a context of conversation, subject matter, or even the logical distance therein. This means that under an extreme case it only takes a single person to mimic the effects of a social network echo chamber of heightened sensitivity. That thread was bizarre in that many comment replies were wildly on a tangent from their respective GP comment and the emotion expressed was completely off the chart for HN.
It really was too much to self-moderate your way through. The volume was just too much. As well, you couldn't sort through the trash to find the pearls.
The volume was a trickle compared to volume today. I don't have a source for this assertion, but I think it is reasonable.
I mean, it’s still better than closed source SDKs with bugs unfixed for years and books written about working around them, but that would be a pretty low bar anyway.
> fauxpen source
> Etymology: a term invented by Phil Marsosudiro at a dinner party in North Carolina
> Date: 2 May 2009
> A description of software that claims to be open source, but lacks the full freedoms required by the Open Source Definition. http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
> synonyms: see open core, neo-proprietary
> antonyms: see Linux kernel, Apache, OpenNMS
> We can conceive of all but the simplest societies as comprising three levels of social relations. The first level consists of highly personal or primary relations, notably the family. The third level contains relations inclusive of the whole population, notably the state. The second level comprises all intermediate relations, notably the local community, voluntary association, and occupational group.
Etc., the argument being that much of the socially important parts and ills of industrialization, urbanization, and the ensuing mass society are reducible to the dissolution of the second level and the transferral of its customary characteristics and behaviours (strong attachment, group identity, and so on) to the third.
But that’s mostly me channelling my history teachers, not original thought, so maybe someone who actually knows this stuff can say more.
Lest this be perceived as doomsaying, let me mention that Russian-language LiveJournal seemed to retain that small-town feel up until the very end (early 2010s) despite the considerable number of readers and commenters (thousands of readers for the most popular post on a slow day—much less than on Facebook, much more than you could ever possibly know). Possibly that’s because the number of writers (worth following) was much smaller, due to the higher effort required for long-form posts.
Again, people with more experience in older online communities should know more about this, as that was the only thriving one I experienced personally.
There are little consequences when the pool of people you have access to is massive; and there remains no reason to become emotionally invested in a certain "core" of people, when you can easily jump to another if that "core" is not perfect.
This leads to a feedback loop that stunts relationship "depth."
Or further: when you have options, the default modus operandi is to not become completely invested into any single one -- you can always "jump" to another, and are always on the lookout for "greener pastures."
People have more options than they used to.
As much as I craved these "second level" (and even "first level") social relations, over the years I've become assimilated and contribute to the aforementioned feedback loop.
The "ills" of modern life have been exponentially increasing, but for the future generations they are simply "life."
In my opinion, it's good to have options. It's good not to have an X-or-bust social investment in a particular community because, as the 20th century has demonstrated, communities don't last forever. They change, they warp, they include, they exclude, they rise ,and they disappear. Societies are built to serve an instrumental function. When a society fails to provide that function in any meaningful way, people will vote with their feet when they can find another goal that suits their purposes. Even if such a goal is outside their current limits. This his been the way of humanity for thousands of years, so I don't understand why should we stop people from having options. I don't see a reason why people risk sinking with a ship they no longer have an interest being aboard.
Ideally one would have an arrangement that mimics the Viennese Cafe societies. Strict but fair rules on conduct, but ultimately leaving personal agency to oneself and one's confidants .
It is banal, at least the largest portion of social media is. Originally, I could see the usefulness of FB with connecting with friends near & far, sharing, planning, etc. All sounds useful, but then FB turned it creepy with their method of monetizing their products and algos to pull the strings to make it as addicting as possible. Insta, TikTok, etc has pretty much fully embraced the dark side of social. LOOK AT ME!!! LIKE ME!!! FOLLOW ME!!! Again, with the tweaking of the algos to up the addiction factor. All in the name of "engagement".
YouTube already made me nervous, but there's definitely some people creating content there that is not about that at all so I don't lump them in with the others.
honestly I would love social networks that was just that but as it is now i actively avoid most social media outside of small niche communities (certain subreddits that relate to fairly narrow interest fan communities for a couple of authors that sort of thing [i don't fallow any default subs], hacker news, and a couple of small discord servers for open source projects and small podcasts)
but everything for talking to friends and family and keeping up on there lives is either been turned into a politically toxic battleground or monetized into unusability.
When I used FB, I used it as a non-professional LinkedIn. Like, networking, but for people outside of your professional network.
Being connected to people who are not so close that you shared your cell number, but still wanted to stay connected.
(Email isn't big where I live)
I'm a bit split about spreading the word about Scuttlebutt, I don't want to ruin it since it's already so great. But felt it was very related to what you were writing, so here goes nothing :)
In case you wanna join: https://scuttlebutt.nz/
The client I'm using is https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork
Where's the "awful"?
eta: Exactly what we today refer to as "water cooler chatter/gossip"
Also, never try archery as some people might try to use the word "prickshaft" towards you. The horror.
The ideas of requiring engagement, and mixing the groups, are interesting, but I'm not sure how they'd work. I've seen the "You must engage" idea applied elsewhere without success, so it needs a little more work.
Even so, I think your ideas have promise.
i have this nagging feeling that nothing good ever comes out when there is a large group of people involved. and that the most successful communities, teams or groups are small. i have seen small communities ruined when they got big or niche communities wrecked when they went mainstream. time and again. but we keep pushing for larger groups, larger teams, more networking, more friends, etc...
This made me think of the quote from Men in Black:
> A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
I think there's some major exceptions but they require heavy-handed moderation. Notable among these is the AskHistorians subreddit. You could argue though they're the exception that proves the rule.
I will say though, I'm a frequent participant in a few topic-specific forum, and I think if anything the concentration to places like Reddit, Facebook groups, and Discord has helped these places quite a bit in the exact way you suggest. They've been insulated because they're too obscure now and that has allowed them all to largely have reasonable organic growth, rather than explosive "hug of death" style sudden growth. I just hope that lasts.
Management is everything: creating an environment and systems that facilitate the best allocation of resources.
Of course if your small team of three already contains "the masters", the result can be e.g. the CBM C64. And, they say, "in ancient Athens democracy was easier". But the small team did great thing because of the quality of its members, and a small community is facilitated by a reduced noise. Quality of members and noise control are the problem of management.
A similar one that I used to get wrong all the time is empanada. No ñ in that either, but I always said em-puh-NYAH-duh. Then one day I noticed it was just a regular n and it is pronouced em-puh-NAH-duh.
Now for a really embarrassing one. This was back in the day when I was working with my friend and colleague Alan Cooper (of interaction design fame) on what became Visual Basic. We were on a phone call and I said something about a zhuh-NAIR of music. Alan asked "what's that?" I explained that it was like a category or a particular style. He said "do you mean ZHAHN-ruh?"
It's funny how these embarrassing moments stick in your brain. I could tell you exactly where I was, and even which direction I was facing when we had that conversation.
But I was grateful that Alan corrected me and I won't sound like a fool any more when I talk about a genre.
I had one friend who would never gracefully accept a correction like that. One time he told me about a neighbor who "took his dog to the pond." I said "that's nice, does the dog like to go swimming?" He said "no, the POND, the place where they put dogs to sleep."
He went through his whole life mispronouncing "dog pound", and many, many other words.
One of our cats thinks she is my girlfriend! When I go to bed, she immediately jumps on the bed next to me and places herself right where my hand is, so I can scratch her back and tummy.
No cat peeling here!
"I could care less" vs "I could not care less"
The amount of people who defend the former with their own head-canon is frightening. Ones I have heard are "It's sarcastic" and "I care so little that I won't put the extra effort into caring less"
https://www.google.com/search?q=steven+pinker+i+could+care+l...
From Pinker's book The Language Instinct (p.377 or 389 depending on the edition):
> A tin ear for prosody (stress and intonation) and an obliviousness to the principles of discourse and rhetoric are important tools for the language maven. Consider an alleged atrocity committed by today's youth: the expression I could care less. The teenagers are trying to express disdain, the adults note, in which case they should be saying I couldn't care less. If they could care less than they do, that means that they really do care, the opposite of what they are trying to say. But if these dudes would stop ragging on teenagers and scope out the construction, they would see that their argument is bogus. Listen to how the two versions are pronounced:
[If viewing on mobile, turn your device sideways to avoid wrapping.]
------------------------
COULDN'T care
LE
ESS.
i
------------------------
I
CARE
LE
ESS.
could
------------------------
But I hear you and sympathize with your point of view. I have been there myself. It didn't make sense to me that people would use a word or phrase in any meaning other than its literal one.
Especially a word like "literally", right?
Merriam-Webster has a article on that. It's literally the best article ever written!
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...
> From Alexander the grammarian: to avoid fault-finding and not to censure in a carping spirit any who employ an exotic phrase, a solecism, or harsh expression, but oneself to use, neatly and precisely, the correct phrase, by way of answer or confirmation or handling of the actual question—the thing, not its verbal expression—or by some other equally happy reminder.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Meditations_of_the_Empero...
In any case, "empañada" is a real word, it mean's "foggy", but used for glasses, not for the weather itself. For example, "tengo las gafas empañadas" -> "my glasses are foggy"
"Old-timer's disease" (Alzheimer's)
"Valentime's Day"
Too late to correct him now! May he rest in peace.
(In fact I see that it is mentioned at the beginning of that article!)
Niche subreddits could have been the solution. It is the specific implementation suck, not the idea of openness of a subgroup to new comers e.g., there can be a feeling community while participating in an open source project even if anybody may join.
You need such a stream of newcomers that within their first, say, 500 contributions they get savvy enough to fit in and carry the momentum. You also need enough people who understand and tend to the spirit of the community so they can successfully oppose a famed veteran who may suddenly go renegade.
The relationship appears to be : destroy classes & traditional relationships -> produce masses & the mob -> totalitarianism arises out of the masses' anxiety and the mob's despotic idiocy.
Something like how too many chickens in a big barn can't form hierarchies and so live in a perpetual panic, except along comes a Big Chicken who makes everyone feel better because they finally know their place again.
I hope something different and less awful happens. But the early results are worrying.
Can we just pull the plug on this experiment, please?
When I put it that way it feels banal, but like, you know the “fast-growing subreddits” list on Reddit? There were meetings! Someone worked on that! People literally sat in a room and said effectively, “Hey Fatimeh, what is the status of the ‘make subreddits suck faster’ feature? Management is very interested in delivering that in Q3.” Right? Like this connection from global to personal is just automatically assumed, nobody spends a waking moment thinking it could be anything but that way.