Is HN a form of social media?
Paul Graham has said, "he hopes to avoid the Eternal September that results in the general decline of intelligent discourse within a community" [1]. Hacker News launched 12 years ago in 2007, it's a testament to Graham, the moderators, the algorithms behind it, and the community members that HN has been able to keep its system for high quality intelligent discourse from devolving over time.
If HN doesn't resemble most other social media systems -- so much so that people have to ask -- this is why. Establishing such a system is hard to do, and even harder to maintain. So far HN has been an exception, not the rule.
Wikipedia defines social media as [1]:
Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies
that facilitate the creation and sharing of information,
ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via
virtual communities and networks.
The Internet provided the foundational infrastructure and was the prerequisite layer that made social media interaction possible. What we do with social media -- how we use it, build upon it, and optimize for it -- is yet to be determined.
For example, who would have envisioned the mobile phone as we use it today when the telephone was invented. Phones aren't just used for phone calls anymore. The iPhone changed that, but the iPhone couldn't exist in its present form until the foundation for the Internet infrastructure was laid. Today our vision of the Internet is not what it was when it was invented. It continues to evolve, as does its uses and definition. Social media will be like that too -- it's part of the next layer to build upon, and we're still learning what that is -- its definition is still being formed, and its optimal form is still to come.
It's not a social network though. There's no concept of friends. Twitter is part way between the two. It barely groks user relationships - you subscribe to someone to see their stuff in your feed and that's about as far as it goes.
"Hacker" "news" is not an open system. The source code, AFAIK, is proprietary, and the FAQ even states that votes are not counted 1:1, which implies "algorithms" and other hand-wavy stuff.
For an actual open social media system, where moderator actions and source code are public for all to review, see https://lobste.rs.
[1] Open vs Closed System (social science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_and_closed_systems_in_soc...
[2] Open System (systems theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(systems_theory)
[3] Open System (computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(computing)
[4] Open API https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_API
[5] Open Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_market
On social media you follow people, while on forums you follow topics.
From that understanding, I think HN is more of a forum, which is an online media format that predates what we define today as social media. (but it certainly similar to varying degrees, as are online media venues like Reddit).
This is a very good summary, thank you.
How about Reddit? It does have a few “celebrities” but in general it is about topics.
On reddit you at least get informed of replies to your comments, but discussions older than X are automatically closed, so that's not enough use to shift the balance for me.. I remember when a topic being locked felt like something rather grave, where either mods or users fucked up - now it's built-in. And sometimes discussion even gets substituted with clicking buttons.. which is also not about the topics, but another form of using outside force (something other than words) on words.
Although on this site, I don't think I'm alone in only downvoting posts that are flamebait or factually incorrect, rather than opinions I disagree with. There is a bit of an echo chamber effect here, but it is nowhere near as bad as Slashdot or most forums get.
Well, not in mine, in serious forums. Sure, gamer forums, and what have you.
> I have seen entirely too many "+1" posts on forums; people want to do something to show they like/agree with a poster even when they have nothing constructive to add.
They don't actually take away though, not like people downvoting, because they can't show something being incorrect, does, which I see happen all the time.
In the absence of any useful definitions I'd say it's not because few here seem attached to the name of people commenting.
Personally, you all have the same face, the same voice and are one and the same person.
Way too many people to feel anything social about it to me.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe
Think that's a no.
media definition "(Communications & Information) the means of communication that reach large numbers of people, such as television, newspapers, and radio"
and internet i would say and i would say broadcasting not necessarily interacting. now social is the means of people interacting with other so anything with like comments would fall into social media but pure social would be like chat. social media would be very forum in function but can of course be more distinct like face book though it may fall more under a social paradigm.
You really think HN has a comparable amount of clickbait to reddit?