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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

I liked the "friends" and "foes" system that Slashdot had, though I would say generally the "foes" here just get banned which is convenient.

I also thought Slashdot's moderation system was kind of fun. I am not sure it was useful but I enjoyed the annotations (+5 Funny when serious, +5 Insightful when inciteful, etc.) Meta-moderation was also neat?

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In practice, the Slashdot moderation system was ridiculously easy to game. You could adjust your viewpoints to subtly praise Linux and denigrate Windows and be assured of a higher rating.

Because people agreed with you? Why is that a problem?

Because that leads to groupthink, which stifles critical thinking and leads to poor decision-making. Ideally we'd have honest debate instead of ignoring warning signs, dismissing alternative viewpoints, and failing to thoroughly evaluate risks. This leads to overconfidence which can cause blind spots leading to catastrophic failures. We can't adapt to new information or actually learn from our mistakes if our shared groupthink says oh that was bound to happen. We'd stop innovating entirely.

In terms of Slashdot groupthink, no one uses (used) Windows and Microsoft was about to fall, but when looking outside of that at computer sales vs counted Linux installs, the picture was and is still very different. The reverse happened on the server, but Nadella was able to see outside the groupthink bringing Azure to the success it enjoys today.

Where’d this approach to “groupthink” come from? Did you formulate this all on your own?

ETA: obligatory: /s

What a pile of meaningless buzzwords.

Slashdot's moderation system didn't lead people to think "no one used windows", the userbase just didn't like microsoft.

Beyond that, having to re-debate every single idea every single time it's brought up is inefficient to the point of uselessness. We, as individuals, don't have time to verify every single theory from first principles, so we rely on tools like "moderation" as a heuristic to make progress.

Eh, I think he brings up a pretty good point but I wouldn't say HN is any better. People here think that MacOS has high usage numbers and iPhones are the most used phone, when that's not the case. There are also a few very, very misguided ideas about software development that definitely are over-represented on HN in large part due to the (apparently, according to polls) very inexperienced nature of most HN visitors and the things they tend to work on (low-skill/low-knowledge, "high-in-their-mind"-velocity work).

HN has some very clear bubbles that probably wouldn't happen without a popularity system tied to its comments and submissions; maybe the janitorial duty of removing spam and so on is enough for a page like this. I'm not sure I see the merits of upvotes and downvotes at this point.

> What a pile of meaningless buzzwords.

I completely disagree. That was a very coherent and well articulated comment. Having a useful vocabulary is not the equivalent of using a bunch of buzzwords.

Downvoting and upvoting even if not visible can also lead to groupthink moreso on sites like Reddit than here. Points acquired here eventually let you downvote. But, really no reason to upvote or downvote comments as no one can see the points of a particular comment on this site. I am aware that after so many downvotes that the comment starts to gray out into oblivion eventually but even that promotes groupthink. Factual counterpoints, especially in political threads, are hard to discuss

> But, really no reason to upvote or downvote comments as no one can see the points of a particular comment on this site.

Voting effects the presentation order of comments, which is especially significant when there are many responses sharing an immediate parent.

That's probably a bigger impact from voting than making points publicly viewable would be

I think that supports my point. If there were no points then it would just be responses in order of posting. Points offer bias.

Yes, the point of moderation, community or otherwise, is to be a mechanism for promoting group norms.

That reinforces my point that sites like this lead to groupthink and coalescence around acceptable thought

Well, it reinforces the hypothetical argument that sites like this have a mechanisms whic promotes settling into some kind of self-reinforcing content patterns. You’d have to actually show what the common patterns were for each site (and particularly whether they were share substance of argument or shared style, or both) to make the “groupthink” argument.

(I think the best argument against the groupthing argument here is how inconsistent the positions are that are claimed to be the “groupthink” position by those claiming that.)

> (I think the best argument against the groupthing argument here is how inconsistent the positions are that are claimed to be the “groupthink” position by those claiming that

Aren’t you countering yourself by not providing the research requested above though?

I mean without objective evidence it’s all just a subjective opinion on either side

Yes, I think it is definitely a balancing act, because the rising of certain comments can certainly contribute to groupthink. However, I also think that impact of having the best comments rise to the top is very useful. The system doesn't work super great in an early and active thread, but it works very well once the thread ages a little bit

I think the problem with Slashdot was that "Funny" was higher rated than "Interesting" or "Insightful", and it made the site a clown circus.

I'm not against memes and jokes, I like them. But I also like some actual intelligent discussion in between.

And that's why right now I visit Hacker News and it's been many years since I used Slashdot.

I'm a little too young to remember Slashdot. It would be interesting to see an informal ethnography of those older discussion sites/Usenet/etc. from people who remember that stuff. Online communities deserve more study.

You talk about it as if doesn't exist anymore. If you're not aware, it still exists.

In some sense it doesn't exist anymore. At the very least, the withered corpse is a far cry from what it once was.

I always thought that moderation is a little high handed. Instead, individuals should choose what they see or don't see via a local filter that they've trained over time. I used to filter spam out of my email inbox that way, it worked pretty good.

Score 5 funnies absolutely ruined /dots discussions

Slashdot allowed you to configure scoring, so you could assign 0 or even negative points to 'funny'.

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