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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

> I'd love to see a product/social network that confront their users with opposite point of views.

It has dawned on me over time that HN is like this, mainly because there's a single common non-siloed site, i.e. no subreddits into which people silo themselves. That means that on any divisive topic, anyone who feels strongly has comments in their face that they strongly dislike, and vice versa. (I wrote more about this downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12003205).

This is not an entirely good thing. It's responsible for most of the conflict that happens here.

View on HN

I would definitely not describe HN as a place I come to get opposite points of view. I'm actually really very surprised anyone would see it that way, can you elaborate at all on why you do?

Dang is speaking about scenarios where there is no /r/ForHillary or /r/The_Donald to intermingle yourself with. You get both sides in one thread and are confronted with ideas that you may not agree with - or that you vehemently disagree with. Not that people "come to HN to see opposing views". Rather that they must see opposing views when browsing a thread. Then you get a bunch of conflict from both sides.

As an example, HN often has socially-related posts that hit the front page, such as today's Voice Modulation in the Interview Process (not actual title). This gets people from two very different sides that are informally split, depending on who you ask, as "overly politically correct regressives" and "stupid racist [___]phobic bigots". A bunch of conflict that detracts from the study/topic happens when those two groups butt heads.

You're assuming that there's a very wide range of people that visit HN, you can't get viewpoints from people that don't visit the site. I'd be surprised if a highly tech focused site called "hacker news" didn't have a strong bias towards certain demographics and viewpoints.

You'd be surprised.

If only there were some kind of survey mechanism on the site to test the various hypotheses. ;-)

Well I've just checked the front page and it seems extremely focused on a small range of issues. So I'm currently unsurprised.

Is there an article about the huge benefit of for-profit journals? How abortion is an affront to God? How ISIS is trying to do some good in an area?

Are you really suggesting there's really no bias towards certain demographics or viewpoints?

Are you two disagreeing about something, by any chance? :)

You could add articles against drug legalization, articles from a conservative (i.e. not libertarian or liberal) basis, articles against increasing city density, articles in favor of cars and suburban living, articles in favor of strong intellectual property laws, articles on the religious ideas and uses of technology, etc.

There's a definite demographic that posts here, and it is very much an echo chamber.

Here is an example of what I claim is not the case. We see angry arguments about all of those topics on HN. They're not even infrequent.

My claim is that you (I don't mean you personally, but all of us in your position) perceive HN as an 'echo chamber' on such issues precisely because it isn't. I imagine there are small biases on some of them, but people exaggerate this into "groupthink", "bubble", "echo chamber", etc., not because that's how it is but because that's how it feels.

It is an echo chamber for some of the threads, for other - people agree to disagree.

> Well I've just checked the front page and it seems extremely focused on a small range of issues.

This is by "design". These are almost the only things that are on-topic here and we mostly like it this way. I'm sure you know.

> Are you really suggesting there's really no bias towards certain demographics or viewpoints?

No one's suggesting that, but the fact that you had to pick those odd examples to make your point is evidence that on many common issues (which I hesitate to name because even naming them makes sparks fly) this community is deeply divided. And when people complain about HN being biased against their view, it isn't ISIS or abortion they're thinking of.

Almost always the top reply critiques the article and it's top reply critiques it. We're an opinionated bunch, it makes sense to me.

I got a few updates on my thoughts just a few minutes ago.

I value rational corrections even if I just think parts of it is correct; in some cases I've also come to changed my views somewhat.

What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't know it. Instead, you would feel yourself surrounded by enemies. Why? Because we notice what we dislike more strongly than what we like. We remember painful experiences more than pleasurable ones, and it's painful to read comments opposing our strongly held X's. So people feel like the community is biased whether it is or not. Unfortunately they feel this the most about the most divisive topics.

I arrived at this view because I have a different perspective than most users. It's my job to monitor the site overall, plus pay attention to the complaints people make about it. From such a position one quickly notices how many complaints about HN contradict each another. For example, for any political X, some people are certain that HN is overwhelmingly X. But those claims can't all be true, so there has to be some distortion at work here.

Edit: here's an example I just ran across: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990458. (I'm not mentioning that to single one user out; it's a common phenomenon, and this is just the first example I saw after writing the above.)

> What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't know it. Instead, you would feel yourself surrounded by enemies. Why? Because we notice and remember painful experiences more than pleasurable ones, and it's painful to read comments against one's strongly held X's. So people feel like the community is biased whether it is or not.

This doesn't actually address the issue I feel there is in that HN is a fairly small group of people from a particular demographic. A site called "hacker news" with a heavy focus on technology and startups is surely likely to have some bias compared to a random sampling of the general population.

Any post added gets voted on and only a small number of the posts that get posted will get any real traction, do you feel there's no bias in the type of things that get to the front page?

As a quick example, how many of the frontpage articles do you really disagree with? Which ones are strongly against what you actually believe? I've just had a look and honestly there are none. Everything fits very comfortably with my general beliefs.

I have never felt like I was surrounded by enemies here.

It isn't that HN is a random sample of the population, but that on most divisive issues (e.g. politics or programming languages) it's much more divided than people think it is.

Re disagreements and conflict, I'm talking about the comment threads, not the articles. I don't think articles really excite agreement or disagreement at themselves (except about whether they should be on HN in the first place—another divisive topic), so much as provoke it in the threads.

Re not feeling surrounded by enemies: that's great, but note that the "feel strongly about" qualifier is a necessary condition for this effect.

I think it helps that HN has a common factor to bind us together. Professional Techies may be able to disagree in a less flamboyant style in most situations because at the end of the day politics is mainly seen in the light of how it affects the tech industry as a whole.

While there are also some folks that are undoubtedly passionate about their particular political views, they mainly get well thought out replies as to the argument they are presenting for and against... even if some people get a bit passive aggressive with the down voting.

If you get complaints from both side then you're doing OK.

I believe that this has shifted over time. It used to be that people had to put up with opinions that they didn't like from neutral sources. Now more people live in media bubbles, so honest disagreement is extremely jarring.

That's my belief as well. And I doubt that we appreciate the extent to which this has happened.

I'm disheartened but not surprised to have learned that what HN is today conforms to your vision of a robust, multi-faceted debate. I, and nobody I know, would hold up HN as an example of vibrant debate, unless the subject of the debate is purely technical.

Frankly, I think you discount the extent to which people avoid or abandon comments out of an expectation that they'll be downvoted. If you don't already have them in place, analytics would go a long way in letting you know how often that happens.

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Edit: might've been unnecessarily personal

If you think I'm satisfied with HN, I wonder what other areas your model may be off base in, because that is far from true.

What I said is that because there's a single front page and set of threads, people reading comments on a divisive topic inevitably encounter comments they strongly dislike, and this affects their impressions of HN.

I know it's counterintuitive; that's why I brought it up. I find it interesting and far from obvious, something I only realized slowly over several years.

When I first joined I think that may have been how I saw it. However once I started commenting I was surprised to see how often myself or colleagues would be upvoted for supposedly controversial opinions.

HN is not what I would describe as true multifaceted debate, but I doubt any forum can achieve that as there always seem to be large groups with well formed opinions on the matter who do not wish to participate.

Discerning the reasons for participation or non participation is my go-to for understanding a topic, despite it always being almost impossible by definition.

I think, rather, that HN has a dominant point of view which tolerates small differences but otherwise will downvote and [EDIT: hellban doesn't work like I thought] anyone who isn't circumspect enough in voicing their different opinions. I definitely couch a lot of my comments in sarcasm or careful disclaimers to try and avoid getting downvoted, as I've seen what can happen if you say The Wrong Opinion too plainly.

I used to feel the same way about HN, as being an echo chamber, but my feelings have shifted somewhat. This community does not like negativity, especially towards others. If you come up with a positive sentiment that expresses your opinion, it is much more likely to be voted up. Of course, not all things can be dressed up in positivity, but many online forums suffer from an excess of needless negativity, and HN is a breath of fresh air in that respect.

Agree. I feel respected on HN although my opinions are somewhat unusual in a number of cases. There are sometimes where I get a number of initial downvotes, but tell myself it probably mostly newcomers from reddit who just got their downvote button.

I chalk it down to HN being positive (and me being polite and not needlessly provocative), and I also try to help others who have been targeted by the downvote & flag squad as long as what they have said is somehow reasonable.

If you suggest that HN has low levels of negativity compared to others sites, I should just avoid most other sites. I used to read reddit regularly and at one point the level of negativity was just too much for me and I've been happier since I have left the site for good.

For a long time, I've been an avid HN reader. However, one day, months ago, I noticed that majority of posts in most threads I was reading on HN started with a variant of "You are wrong". It may be in some form that does not make it immediately apparent but once I noticed the pattern, it was hard to unsee it. After this, I just stop reading threads which have a lot of this and in general, I've found that the few threads that remain make for (relatively) pleasant reading.

I haven't yet found something better than HN though. So, I chose to stick around for now.

You're not wrong ;)

But in a discussion where you have an upvote button, there are basically only two follow-ups to an assertion which remain on topic: "you're wrong", or "you're right, and also". Anyone who wants to +1 will just click the upvote button.

Case and point: You're right and also...

"Me too" posts aren't worth posting so if I have nothing to add I'll +1 the comment I agree most with/is most accurate to my knowledge and leave it at that. The result being I have a lot more "You're wrong, here's why..." or "I disagree with [something said]" than I have posts saying "You're right, and also..." since I don't always have something to add. It makes me seem really negative - since nobody can see all the comments I've +1'd. Multiply that by every user on the site and things look more negative than they are.

I use "-1" for "You're horribly wrong and I don't have time to correct you (though sometimes I have time and will)" and "Trolling/Vapid posts". If someone is "a little wrong" I don't -1 them and will just post a minor correction.

HN doesn't "hellban" (or ban at all) people over opinions. Moreover, the two positions Dan singles out as uniformly against the prevailing sentiment on HN (anti-Snowden, pro-CFAA) happen to be positions I'm not too far from holding, and while I get downvotes for earnest comments about those topics, things generally level out pretty quickly.

If you have a belief that can't survive HN downvotes, to the point where you'll hide it simply to avoid those votes, you should consider how sincerely you hold those beliefs.

> If you have a belief that can't survive HN downvotes, to the point where you'll hide it simply to avoid those votes,

People with less karma need to avoid downvotes and flags because it affects how they can use the site - it affects the rate limiting they get.

(And because they don't know that they can email dang if they think they've been unfairly flagged.)

I thought you'd end up "dead" (hellbanned) if you get consistently voted down to negative scores. I don't know a lot about actual mechanisms of how karma and voting work on this site, though, so if I'm wrong about that I apologize and retract the "hellbanned" part of my earlier comment.

No, that's not at all how it works.

"Hellbanning" is a form of banning where the site takes steps to avoid tipping you off that you've been banned. It's ostensibly a defense against spammers and trolls, who will create new accounts after being banned.

For the past couple years, bans on HN are announced publicly. They're not automatic; the moderators do it directly. It's not based on your karma.

> bans on HN are announced publicly

For the most part. We don't do so for spammers or (sometimes) serial trolls.

Hellbanning exists in a subtler form, though. For instance, my account.

Top-level comments that are literally seconds old are typically posted about 2/3 down the page. None of my votes appear to actually count. It's been this way for several months.

I'm used to it, but it's still very annoying and I wish HN would actually acknowledge they do this.

> If you have a belief that can't survive HN downvotes, to the point where you'll hide it simply to avoid those votes, you should consider how sincerely you hold those beliefs.

I'm pretty sure that's not it at all[1]. I can see (and personally do these days) avoid[2] certain types of conversations because of all the down votes. It has nothing to do with not sincerely holding the belief, and it has everything to do with not wanting to expend the energy on comments that aren't actually going to be seen[3]. As you know, as a comment is down voted it turn grayer and grayer. Plus, if you're not as articulate as you wish you were, you are just going to feel frustrated that you couldn't get your point across.

This board, for most, takes up free time, and people tend to want to enjoy their free time.

1) in fact, that statement does rankle the feathers a bit - I've heard a variation that was meant to silence people

2) not very successfully at times

"HN has a dominant point of view"

I have difficulties thinking of HN in the singular - from what I can tell it is a group of people with pretty different views on most things. I don't think people get downvoted for expressing different views - pretty sure the times I have been downvoted it is because I've said something crass, irrelevant or just plain wrong!

> I have difficulties thinking of HN in the singular - from what I can tell it is a group of people with pretty different views on most things

It's such a relief to read this! Seems so obvious, but the trope of anthropomorphizing the community grows like weeds.

Sometimes I feel one needs to add <sarcasm> ... </sarcasm> because people just don't see it and will downvote you anyway.

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