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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

My hunch is that this very social network and its close cousin reddit are being manipulated by groups following discordian ideologies. In short, it's being manipulated for fun and "profit." ("Profit" in the form of media-manipulation capability.) In other words, it's being manipulated for the LULZ. (By people who don't know how to analyze what they read and argue cogently.)

The flavor of logic and discourse on this site has taken a definite turn for the worse. Nonsensical and somewhat juvenile reactions to my comments occur with frightening regularity.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270002

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By "Discordian," I'm thinking you mean the TAZ-theory and other stuff from RAW's other work, not so much the carefree pranksterism of the Principia Discordia, right? Either way, it's a model for which I hold such a low prior probability that it would take a lot of evidence to convince me, but the latter seems to have more internal consistency.

As for your link, people thought you were talking about the overreaching of the Tolkien estate; you were talking about what appeared to be a button taking sides in an imaginary cultural divide. Simple miscommunication.

If I was talking about the estate, why would I be mentioning Evangelion?

You did start the comment with "My reaction is: so?", a statement seemingly directed at the actual content of the article, not the (largely irrelevant in the context of the article) content of the button.

People got confused by your somewhat unclear (at least to some people), off-topic comment, and you started ranting about people not using their brains, lacking reading comprehension, being lazy and small-minded.

Wouldn't it suffice to point out that you were commenting on the content of the button, without attacking the people confused by the comment?

People got confused by your somewhat unclear (at least to some people), off-topic comment

What actually happened: People read the first line, jumped to a conclusion, and further reading/brain activity was a fail.

I think it speaks volumes when you have to comment with this level of "tl;dr" mentality in mind. I did not have to do that in days past.

I long for the days when I could simply express thoughts needing 3 or more sentences for complete expression on HN. This used to be the big advantage of commenting in text over speaking. Now, I have to treat the first line of each comment like a headline, because the pool of readers has already jumped to a conclusion.

It's up to the writer to communicate their thoughts clearly. A writer should only blame their audience for not understanding if their statements are obviously unambiguous. However, you were writing on an online forum about a topic that was only tangentially related to the subject, began your post with an inflammatory statement, never clearly stated what you were even talking about, and then blamed the lack of comprehension on the other end. If you're communicating in text to strangers, it's best to err on the side of being overly specific, especially when speaking about a different topic than the one being currently discussed.

Sorry if this comes off as harsh, but people blaming their poor communication on others is a pet peeve of mine.

However, you were writing on an online forum about a topic that was only tangentially related to the subject

The article was about a button, and what Tolkien's estate did about it. I guess you could say "only tangentially."

If you're communicating in text to strangers, it's best to err on the side of being overly specific

More specificity is fine. Specificity is not the issue here. If you knew of the contents of the button, the comment makes sense. If you read the comment, then looked at the link and the article, the comment makes sense. I draw the line at those reading only the 1st sentence and not bothering to make sense of the 2nd and 3rd sentence. How is that any different from a dog parsing an angry utterance from a human containing 'Fido'?

I don't know anything about LULZ, but given the content of the HBGary emails it's entirely possible that "personas" are deployed on this and other noteworthy forums, in accordance with their rent-a-bot business model. However, at least on HN it would be difficult for these to be "botted out", due to the usually higher quality commenting, although voting up "noisy" submissions could degrade the overall quality.

I don't know anything about LULZ, but given the content of the HBGary emails it's entirely possible that "personas" are deployed on this and other noteworthy forums

Such bot sockpuppet swarms had been around for years before HBGary Federal ever tried to sell them to corporations and the government.

on HN it would be difficult for these to be "botted out", due to the usually higher quality commenting

You don't need that much commenting to manipulate HN. Just getting karma up to the point of being able to submit on a number of accounts is enough to enable a lot of manipulation. Being able to recruit 20 or so college aged users for a several days would be enough to get you started. Increasing the speed of submissions past a certain point reduces the influence of the established population and increases the power of voting cabals.

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