Comment by ue_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ue_ | Hacker News Reader

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>No, it lets you see a narrow slice of people's real, dark opinions. There are a whole host of opinions you'll never see on Voat because the user base is antagonistic to the basic ideas which underpin them

I don't know how it is on Voat, but on 8chan I'm a frequent user and poster of /leftypol/, titled "Leftist Politically Incorrect", which is basically the flip-side to the infamous /pol/ boards of {8,4}chan. On there people generally don't get banned for having "wrong" opinions (though it does sometimes happen). There are no votes, there are only threads on the board.

I like this a lot more. Taking 8chan as a whole, you get to see different sides. Recently there was something at 4chan's /pol/ where a janitor was removing posts of someone espousing left-wing opinions. The board moderator intervened and said that any political position is allowed on the board.

It really depends where you go, but you are right - the user base of a site is antagonistic to people with opposite views. But they can live side by side, even with an occasional 'raid'. I don't know if I can thank the founder of 8chan enough to have a place where people of my particular opinions (Marxism, socialism) can talk. I'm sure people across the spectrum say the same.

Take a look at /leftypol/ if you want and see that there are frequently debates between sides, and it's absolutely great. I wish I could say the same about /pol/. I posted a comment saying that no matter what position you are on, a vote re-count would be good for democracy. I was permanently banned for, and this is a direct quote: "defending jews". That was the reason.

Depends where you go. That's my 2c on the issue.

Even without moderation, anonymous imageboards have their own way to derail civilized discussion.

Someone could post a thread with an interesting premise, and the first response could be $racial_slur, and then the hivemind would repeat the process and spam $racial_slur indefinitely without any kind of real discussion going on. For the lulz.

This is certainly a problem, but I find it happening less on "special interest" boards. I don't think it's too far from Reddit in this respect. On /r/funny you might expect something like this to happen, with the top 2 comment threads being puns, or unenlightened comments. But on /r/EngineeringStudents or /r/compsci or /r/lisp ... (subs I vaguely remember) that's less likely to happen.

Right now on /leftypol/ there aren't many threads of what you describe. They do exist, but they aren't numerous. What you describe is more similar to 4chan's /b/, but even 4chan's /g/ has "tightened up" and is being steered more toward discussion (still with racial slurs but not entirely focussed on them). A notable exception is the "DESIGNATED SHITTING STREETS"/ "POO IN LOO" meme, though.

I don't know if these are just my experiences.

I meant more as in 4chan and /pol/. Haven't gone to 8chan or /leftypol/ but I'm always interested in quality discussion. That's why I frequent Hacker News.

I think it happens less on special interest boards because there are less posts altogether on niche boards.

/p/, /trv/ - slow boards that have their own shitposts.

I hang out a lot on /diy/ and /out/ and some on /pol/ and behavior is definitely driven by board culture not technology, as the underlying technology is obviously the same. The worst I see is on /out/ is the mora knives nuts, sure I get that you like that knife for outdoor work thanks for telling us the 10000th time now go away. The worst I see on /diy/ is, well, nothing, maybe some half-baked electrical advice sometimes, well intentioned maybe but if you're doing something weird maybe wiring your own subpanel if you have to ask /diy/ how to ground it you should probably give the job to an electrician. The worst I see on /pol/, well no point going there here on HN, but you can guess.

Aren't the chans not about your real beliefs, but simply trolling to get reactions ?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/11/terrorist-t...

This guy got articles published as radical feminist as well beyond being a fake isis terrorist, fake white nationalist, fake jewish lawyer.

I think this is a narrow position. On the boards on chans that I frequent, this isn't at all true. Yes, there are occasionally "trolls" who pretend they have positions they do not. The sarcasm may be subtle or not, depending on intention. But far more predominantly there are people who espouse their views and back them up cogently. There are also devil's advocates.

But I wouldn't say that chan culture is about this, or that there is an inextricable link between them. It's simply a common occurance by nature of being anonymous. More often than not, "bait" is called out as such, but even if you're being serious, you can ignore that.

A mixed bag, but certainly not representative. I know of many on the politics board who do sincerely hold nationalist or white supremacist views, and I have argued against them. I also know many on the left-politics board who will talk you through Marx's critique of capitalism.

There is some nuance in my opinion.

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