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Comment by braindongle | Hacker News Reader

IMO, groupthink is worse here than on Reddit, or at least the subs I visit. Divergent thinking is often celebrated. Here it's more about convergence to the most defensibly informed perspective. I may be wrong, and these differences are subtle in any event. Regardless, any discussion of groupthink on HN should include some critical self-reflection. Please downvote me!

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This is exacerbated by the down-voting and flagging asymmetry by established members. I understand how it makes sense to weight those that successfully contribute more to have greater power since they (by some metric) are the community since they were here first and have successfully contributed more. However, it does create the effect that a dissenting viewpoint, if unpopular among those with power, can be effectively squashed. Exhibit A: A very cordial and constructive conversation that was flagged and buried. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17139934

Reddit has a different weighting on this stuff and as a result you get a different culture, and these even differ between sub-reddits, but have the signature of a different weighting system, and a greater ability for sock puppeting. I don't think one is better or worse, just that these trade offs are there and have to happen.

My guess is your comment (not the thread) was flagged because it contained a string of logical fallacies. Edit: This is not intended as a flame just an observation. You're free to disagree. Specifically straw man, false equivalency, conclusion doesn't follow.

Well, maybe. I obviously don't agree and would love to be corrected - hence the point of discussion. You need to see the parent comments to to get the full context of the comment. I'm probably taking a few poetic liberties in the groupings but thats not inflammatory.

It's not the only example though. In my comment history you will see another set of discussions that are essentially the same (but a few months apart) where I'm arguing that autopilot doesn't imply self driving. One was a discussion which seemed balanced by votes (I probably lost). The other descended into users calling me a "smug pedant" and a lot of bullying, about -35 karma (and ultimately my first banning). I was pretty disillusioned by the experience and couldn't really work out what was so different, and why I was banned for defending my point of view despite the other peoples behaviours.

I would never have interpreted your comment as a flame btw - such is the nature of robust discussion, but I appreciate you pointing it out. I think too often people take an intellectual assault on an idea as a personal assault. They are different, and I welcome them despite the pride I lose hopefully learning a lesson. I'm always genuinely grateful of the time a commenter takes to put me in my place, but usually it is just "pedant" and down vote.

If your topic touches YC's vulnerable underbelly in any way, they are very happy to ban you. Other sites are much less temperamental, but a good chunk of that is YC's benefactors have many skeletons in the closet.

Everyone has a different perception on that. Sure, HN is big. Reddit is huge though, with tons upon tons of subreddits. What you perceived based on subreddit X or Y someone else felt different, or they also went to subreddit Z, or solely subreddit Z.

HN serves a rather specific goal, it is basically PG/YC's playground. This community will never be allowed to deviate much from their interests. That's a given you know pretty much when you sign up though.

At the very least Reddit is far more broad. So of course you're going to find a subreddit where you feel you belong. Some just might have to search further. In a way that's an easy statement to make though akin to "If you date enough people, you'll eventually find your soulmate."

Anyway, the comparison is moot due to the size difference. Its more fair to compare subreddits or groups of subreddits (how does that work?) with HN. Such as say startup-related subreddits.

All good points. The most interesting thing about Reddit to me (again, the tiny slice of it that I see, I always come in through the front door) is civility in the presence of anonymity, in 2018. "Come for the cats, stay for the empathy" is pretty right-on.

Real Name policies have failed to increase civility. If anything, the lack of anonimity has stripped the ability to speak out from those who are least empowered.

HN is closer to a very big subreddit than anything. Some subreddits are really good some are awful

I think it would be possible to limit the use of abusive down-voting as a censorship mechanism. You'd need a list of what kinds of posts can be down-voted, and enforcement where people who moderate badly lose the ability to moderate.

It’s much worse. If you say something against the groupthink, especially about a hot button topic, dang will come and ban your account for “being inflammatory”. It’s impossible to discuss certain topics here thanks to the flagging system.

To his defense mods are more consistent than that:

AFAIK you can be punished even if you are part of the groupthink.

Which is good IMO.

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