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Comment by dizzystar | Hacker News Reader

>> While I know a lot of people by their online handles, I also know their real name,

This can't possibly be true. I easily interact with 100+ people on various platforms. I don't know any of their names. I consider them "friends" in a way, but their real names are wholly irrelevant to me.

>> if you're talking to your friends via YouTube

No... You are having a discussion about the video. This is certainly not your friends.

You can argue this, but if everyone is friends talking to each other, why are there still so many people willing to blatantly troll people they obviously don't know?

I'm not sure what world you are painting, but this does not reflect any reality I am aware of.

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I define friend as someone I'd invite over to my house. Those are the people I interact with on social networking sites and send YouTube links to.

Discussion forums are, socially, a very different thing than hanging out with friends, even though they both involve people and saying things. That's what I think HN collectively misses when talking about Google+ or Facebook; they think those are Internet Discussion Forums when they are actually something for closer friends.

You have to understand that very few people are willing to write this much on the Internet for public consumption by total strangers -- we are very unusual people, and most online services aren't designed for us. That's why we're typing hundreds of words into a Web 1.0 GUI written in a custom programming language, rather than using Facebook or G+ or Snapchat or whatever.

> You have to understand that very few people are willing to write this much on the Internet for public consumption by total strangers -- we are very unusual people

Seems you're a bit out of touch with "usual people" - or at least "usual people" under the age of 35. I do agree HNers are unusual, but if anything I would say they are more likely to be concerned with what they share publicly, not less.

You've missed the point entirely. That comment was about the nature of the content posted. Facebook, snapchat, et al are essentially click-click-clicking through pages heavy on visual stimulation and interacting through short bursts of text, now video and images too. HN is about reading and formulating arguments and exchanging walls of text in an environment completely free of visual distraction.

The type of person who tends towards HN will be different from the type of person who tends towards something like Snapchat on the above grounds.

Check the stats on reddit. There are a ton of people who want topic-focused discussion with strangers on the internet.

G+ seems to be trying to be both a public discussion forum and a hangout for existing friends at the same time. This is part of what makes it often unpleasant.

>> This can't possibly be true.

I would not be so sure. I know at least the first name of most of the people I communicate with exclusively over the internet. Easily over 50 people. Regarding real names being wholly irrelevant, it is true you can get by without knowing somebody's name, but I find that people respond more easily and you can have a more honest, personal conversation if you at least exchange first names.

>> No...

Now maybe I'm a minority here, but most of the things on YouTube I find worthy of a comment have either been uploaded by a friend or commented on by a friend. If I am using it for communication, I'm very likely not wasting my time calling out a random stranger because of their opinion of some random video or adding mine to the mix of comment spam.

I'm guessing you know my first name along most every person here on Hacker News? Color me skeptical. I consider my interactions here semi-personal. The interactions I have in other places are quite personal. There is a gift of anonymity, and that gift is the allowance to be a only a small part of your real person for a few fleeting moments.

There are many honest reasons I don't want my real name associated with everything I do. Sure, I have my real name posted in various places, but that is because it is my personal and strategic choice, not a point of coercion from a company. Choice is very important to me.

Just imagine this: suppose you wanted to blog about something that could possibly be embarrassing or things that you aren't even talking to your wife, parents, or best friends about. I'm not talking about murder or anything, but things about yourself that are deeply personal and you have nowhere to turn to vent or get advice. The fact is that you are not willing to be vulnerable to people in your real life, but you'd like an outlet and opinions from others about your situation. Believe me, I've posted things in forums and other places about myself that are deeply embarrassing and disturbing. I don't want my next girlfriend to know and I certainly don't want my next employer to know about this stuff.

There is a certain class of people that don't want their entire lives spread across the internet. Heck, I'd venture to guess that your email is not jason@_____.com, and if by some early-adapting miracle it is, most people you interact with is not.

Suppose you wanted to create a G+ account to talk about your frustrations with anything. Would you be willing to be honest and forthcoming if you had to use your real name? Would it be at all entertaining or useful to other people going through the same things you are?

By most of the people, I mean almost the entirety of my contacts that I talk with via IM, email, or Steam, and excluding the 5 or so people I've responded to on HN.

And regarding wanting to blog about something that could possibly be embarrassing . . . well, I am very open about things. Why should I be ashamed of my opinion or a particular circumstance? I think there is no reason to be ashamed unless it is directly my fault, least of all my opinion. If it is something I have done wrong, I should own up to it or talk about what I have learned. Sickness, addiction, emotions, opinions . . . these are all things I should be able to talk about or proud of, not things I need to hide behind a username to open up about.

I realize this is probably not indicative of how the majority of people feel in this situation.

> I would not be so sure. I know at least the first name of most of the people I communicate with exclusively over the internet. Easily over 50 people

Then it means you're really not communicating that much over the Internet. Just to give you my personal example (and I'm generally an introvert), when it comes to "Internet discussion" I'm more or less actively involved in: a tramspotting forum, /r/soccer, /r/the_name_of_my_country, some urban development blogs and of course HN. I think I only know the first name of 3 or 4 people out of the hundreds (tens of thousands, if you include /r/soccer) of people involved in these communities.

You don't know the usernames of the tens of thousands of people you "communicated" with in those communities either.

You're of course right (with a few exceptions), but I thought that was what made the web so great?! Granted, this are changing as we speak.

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