So nothing social going on here, just weird/interesting discussions between persons x, y, z, i, j and k.
Edit: I just noticed that some usernames are green. I don't know what that signifies and I do not want to know.
OK, let's call it a discussion forum instead. I'd still argue that is a subcategory of social media. The general shape of these things has been around since at least the BBS days.
These terms, however, don't seem to capture the difference I posited between identity-based and topic-based social-discussion-service thingies, and I don't think there exists a standard terminology to make this distinction at this time.
So I both agree with you and disagree with you. Our terminology is lacking for sure. And I agree that this is _more_ of a discussion forum, but not just simply that. But I wouldn't classify a discussion forum as a subcategory of social media. Maybe the other way around.
So it seems like what can make social media a positive or a negative in a person's life is pretty complex. What each person brings to their interactions with the media varies a lot and the ways mechanics are used in the different sites and apps vary a lot.
So it seems like a lot social is going on here on this site. The social group here is responsible for all of the content, I think? Right? It wouldn't be the same if it were posts selected by an elite group and we were just allowed to comment on them.
So I think the article's suggestion to "quit social media" is too simplistic and lacks the nuance it would need to be helpful advice.
It is possible to see someone's profile, posts and comments. I wonder how many users do this to form opinions about others.
Discussions are social interactions. HNs format just makes them very shallow because they start from zero each time.
New user.
>I do not want to know
Too bad :)
but it's also definitely beneficial in places like Stack Overflow, where there's a logical reason to assume that the most popular answer might have any correlation at all with the best answer.
the best answer will always be at or near the top in a place like Stack Overflow. so the upvote mechanism is useful there. but the most racist answer will always be at or near the top in a forum where racist people just share opinions.
and this malicious example is just chosen for clarity. even in a more innocuous context, if there is no absolute correct answer and nobody is testing the answers for accuracy, upvotes often do more harm than good, and upvote sites are almost by definition groupthink factories, when they don't pertain to verifiable claims that are quickly tested (which is what makes upvotes helpful on a site like Stack Overflow).
Sure, there's correlation but the correlation always breaks down whenever anyone needs it most.
If you ask an easy question you could have just googled or read the man pages to get a decent answer is what's upvoted. But few people really need help answering those questions.
If you ask a hard question potentially involving nuances and situational constraints or if you ask a very specific question requiring expertise you will get the same naive surface level answers highly up-voted and the one guy who actually knows your question has his answer downvoted to oblivion by the people who know just enough to be dangerous.
If you aren't familiar with the subject matter in question it's even worse because a guy who knows what he's talking about answering your hard question and getting downvoted for it is indistinguishable from a guy who has no idea what he's talking about giving a wrong answer to an easy question.
Of course the end result is that everyone who knows WTF they're talking about contributes minimally if at all.
Stack Overflow is better than most subreddits because you can link a man page or doc but the more a subject requires subjective judgement the more it displays the pattern I described above.
This has the effect, however, of making it clear that the forum itself is mostly racist, rather than masquerading as not being that.
> but it's also definitely beneficial in places like Stack Overflow, where there's a logical reason to assume that the most popular answer might have any correlation at all with the best answer.
> the best answer will always be at or near the top in a place like Stack Overflow. so the upvote mechanism is useful there. but the most racist answer will always be at or near the top in a forum where racist people just share opinions.
The obvious answer to this however is not to remove the very useful upvote button everywhere but to
- stop frequenting racist forums,
- if they are actually racist, tell law enforcement (where applicable)
isn't it?
For example: https://www.report-it.org.uk/reporting_internet_hate_crime
Consider both:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_laws_of_the_United_Sta...
Topic based forums are a thing. I'm a member of a paid (gasp!) forum for high-performance building methods.
but I would like to see how an established standard could be set for what should or shouldn't be upvoted?
The way I've started to look at it is that all social media has some harmful and some beneficial aspects, but the nexus of identity-based (vs topic-based like HN) social media with upvote/like functionality is the most problematic for people struggling with identity and self worth. Even as someone established enough not to struggle with self-worth, I avoid that type of social media completely.
Topic based social media with clear and enforced guidelines for content seems to have the least bad trade-off between the harmful and the beneficial.
Of course no social media property is exclusively one or the other, but the design and operation of the service strongly influences the direction in which it goes.