Computer Scientists and Google+: Something Interesting is Happening | Hacker News Reader

Computer Scientists and Google+: Something Interesting is Happening

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109 pointsyarapavan85 comments

I would really be interested to know how many of those computer scientists are also google employees.

Somebody asked me this question earlier. So I went and counted; it was under 10% (sample of around 100).

I find it interesting that whenever there's a post on HN that's supportive of Google+, the community collectively reacts with extreme skepticism. Just... interesting, that's all.

I'm not sure I read pork's comment as skepticism, necessarily. Rather, I'm more curious as to why, if such a forum is an unmet need, an alternative hasn't managed to gain traction while Google+, at least in the author's opinion, has.

I wonder if Google, having a fair number of CS researchers, might be able to get past critical mass / escape velocity / choice analogy by simply starting with its internal users and growing organically from there. You have to have something for the community to nucleate around.

I suspect it has to do with farmville. I can't say for sure, but I hazard to guess that CS researchers don't play farmville and probably prefer not to mingle with those who do.

It isn't as satisfying as arguing about vi vs. emacs or K&R vs the One True bracing style.

I don't like reading articles on Google+. The typography is unpleasant.

And it's not the pseudonyms that lead to incivilities, it's the lack of a good moderator system. Google seems to hope to not have to develop such a system if they enforce real names, but bad people don't care about their reputation.

Here are CS researchers blogging partially anonymously. http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2011/12/what-is-brea... . Similar nastiness can be found on Scott Aaronson's blog.

Is it strange that almost all of the nasty comments are anonymous?

As an honest researcher, you can't just delete the criticism, even if it's unproductive, hostile, and borderline trolling.

To be fair, there is some nastiness from people who post their real names. But I don't think that moderation is the solution.

Why can't an honest researcher delete unproductive and hostile criticism? If their criticism really needs to be read, they can go and post it on their own blog. Comments are a way to allow participation, but nothing requires them to be a free for all.

I'm curious what you don't think is good from the moderation system in Google+? You can block/report any one, report any comment, and remove any comment from your own posts.

Building an online community is difficult. If anyone has good research papers that have analyzed online communities and has successfully predicted the culture of an online community at its inception, please let me know..

Online communities are the future, but no truly knows how to build one... or build a culture. Sure, you can have privacy settings, a good brand, and video chat, but those are all indirect contributors to what the community will become. None of them dictate (1) who will use it (2) how people will use it (3) and which audience will be attracted to the community.

She's not precisely on point, but if you're curious start by reading danah boyd's work: http://www.danah.org/papers/ . The stuff at the top mostly deals with teenagers, but her older papers deal with online communities in general.

Again: she's a good place to start, not finish.

As well as danah boyd, Clay Shirky's classic A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy is another good starting place: http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

I've also noticed that very few of my CS academic colleagues are on anything social other than Google+.

The biggest feature it needs is LaTeX escape formatting. I'm sick of seeing "$\mapsto$" in posts instead of a nice arrow.

Is it too much to ask LaTeX aficionados to use ASCII symbols where LaTeX isn't supported, or does using "$\mapsto$" instead of "-->" give the writer more academic street cred?

Or just use Unicode, as in →

Probably not too much to ask, but more difficult than you'd expect. LaTeX is one of the best, most expressive ways to type mathematical expressions... and once you've spent several years in grad school doing so, it becomes second nature. You actually have to think about ascii-fying it instead of just typing $...$ expressions. :-)

Extensions exist that convert LaTeX to images on-the-fly.

And in a lot of cases (∄ comes to mind) there's just no good ASCIIfication, so inline LaTeX is almost as good as anything else even for people without those extensions.

I can definitely see the case for ∄. You could use !E, but at that point you might as well just type out \not\exists or use Unicode.

Two reasons:

1) I'm often copy/pasting from publications, and the PDF-rendered glyphs don't turn into proper unicode either (OSX, Preview, paste to Firefox, at least)

2) There are conventional differences between the different arrows such as using a arrow with or without a superscript star versus single-bar down versus double-bar down, etc. and trying to render those in ASCII would be quite confusing for the reader and author. Each of them have semantic meanings, and putting in what is usually used as a single-step arrow in a big-step semantics because you lack the glyphs makes an experienced reader's head hurt.

The irony (from his own follow-up comment): "Guys, no more offtopic comments, even if you're only replying to existing offtopic comments. Thanks for understanding."

Isn't the whole point of publishing visibility? I can understand some intermediate discussions will benefit from team exclusivity but this is not anything IRC channels, private mailing lists or forums can't already provide.

To me, OP's post comes across as fluffing G+. Take it with a grain of salt.

So to keep perspective...

Myspace = the gehto social network

Facebook = the normal people social network

Google+ = elitist social network

I'm pretty sure facebook's pretty happy if this direction holds.

The only problem with your classification is that nerd and academic social groups do not have a high enough social standing with normal people to count as elite. Just try bragging about being a Linux kernel hacker at your next party and see how well that impresses people.

Just try bragging about being a Linux kernel hacker at your next party and see how well that impresses people.

Hypothetical method: "I write code that powers cell phones, TVs, and web sites across the planet. Chances are good you have something I made in your pocket."

Tested to work, sir. When women ask me what I do, I simply tell 'em: I'm a hacker. Or when I did online marketing: I convince old people to buy viagra.

Yours is only one way to define elitist.

Another definition of elite that doesn't tie it to social class:

a group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group

So now you just have to endow the majority of the population with the same level of curiosity and desire for open critical discourse as a computer scientist. Have fun with that.

tl;dr - Google+ is uniquely suited as a discussion forum for small groups doing original computer science research because it is private, and we should expect Google+ to gain popularity among CS researchers.

I disagree. I'm not sure Google+ is uniquely suited for anything, but I am sure I could make an equally convincing argument for mailing lists or fuller-featured discussion boards as better platforms for discussion. The article is simplistic.

This is bizarre. My post listed four factors. Your tl;dr lists one of them, and then claims that my post is simplistic.

One factor was "good timing", but there is no evidence for that - I'm not sure it's even an arguable point. One factor was "the inability to be anonymous", which is also true of mailing lists, many discussion forums, and even blogs with certain posting guidelines. One was the "share" feature which, as a feature, is pretty much intrinsic to hypertext.

Google+ trumped up the circles feature as a way to manage privacy settings. My (admittedly critical) reading of your post makes me think that's the only feature here worth discussing, and I don't think it alone is responsible for greatly improved conversations, especially when compared to the many other options for online discussion, and certainly not among computer scientists specifically.

A better explanation is Google's already pervasive presence (especially among computer scientists), and their monopolistic method of forcing Google+ on, for instance, GMail users. I'm not sure there are any technical decisions they made to support your thesis that their platform is uniquely suited for anything really.

I've noticed a simular thing in the open hardware area, especially 3D printing. I don't know if it's something unique to G+, or just that there's more early-adopter-types using it, but since I started using it a year or so ago I've been introduced to many interesting folks in the 3D printing space and had fantastically productive and focused conversations.

Hmm, something tells me L&B would be a bit peeved if all G+ ends up being is the "default medium" for "communication for actual research collaboration."

It's interesting to see how different social networks tend to heavily favor certain topics of discussion. For example, I have yet to find intellectual discussions on my Facebook friend feed...then again, that probably says more about my friends than about Facebook ;-)

It reminds me of the Friendfeed phenomenon. People related to the open science continue to be active there.

Intuitively this effect seems similar.

sales pitch?

Right, because Google needs to have its claws around another academic bottleneck.

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