In Praise of Online Obscurity | Hacker News Reader

In Praise of Online Obscurity

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34 pointscisforcody7 comments

"People who suddenly find themselves with really huge audiences often start writing more cautiously, like politicians."

This happens way to much, and it causes an echo-chamber of mediocre ideas to be propagated across the web. This is why I don't always trust the wisdom of crowds. Just because 10,000 retweeted an article, doesn't make it interesting. The same goes if X thousand people bought a book. But they'll get exposure, and more reads/sales.

Another area where the "wisdom of crowds" can perform poorly is in democracy, for example where a majority takes rights away from some other minority.

I've been accutely aware of this as my reader base has expanded over the last several months to several thousand readers and 10s of thousands of page views. My goal is to stay honest and still be willing to make a fool of myself.

The main difference now, as I prepare myself and my writing to share things I find uncomfortable to share, is that I'm aware that it's possible that my grandmother will see it.

My strategy in dealing with that isn't to be more cautious. Instead, it's to level with my grandmother. Because of the strange dynamic of the net there are things I'm okay sharing with the anonymous masses that I'd be pretty upset if my grandmother or my kids found out. So I'm going through the process of making sure my grandmother and kids know everything there is to know.

That's scary and difficult. But in the end, I think it's positive.

" . . . in democracy, for example where a majority takes rights away from some other minority."

That's the Tyranny of the Majority. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

A very interesting problem. How do we solve it?

The chances that someone will see a potential benefit in being exposed to information on a topic of interest for zero-investment cost is fairly high.

Stick to niche subjects and you'll get a niche audience. Everybody eats, most people cook to some capacity.

Start a twitter account about "The Archaeological Assessments of Classic Models of Sociopolitical Types in Oceania" and I guarantee it'll feel like a close-knit community for nigh onto infinity.

Facebook has hard limits on friend counts, and not just to piss off twits like Scoble.

One way is to do more of your discussion in less-networked communities, and think of ways to support them. If you chat in an IRC channel with 50 regulars, the chances that you'll suddenly become a celebrity with 5000 people lurking in that channel to hear your next word are pretty close to zero. Same with posting in most forums.

I'm not sure IRC or webforums in particular are the future---to a certain extent they're canonical 90s and early 2000s past---but I think looking back towards communities and away from everyone-networked-into-one-huge-community-the-size-of-the-internet might be the way to go.

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