I joke. Reddit is the best example, I think because of how subreddits usually follow a very specific cycle of creation to focus on a specific topic, then the upvoting dynamic creates a strong hivemind, then the dissenters leave and create their own even more narrowly focused community (see /r/politics to /r/conservative), and then it starts over.
It's destructive. HN is a little better because there are actually some limits on democracy if you will (thresholds, flagging, etc), which goes back to the heart of my mention of political science. Different political philosophers have been discussing the dangers of overly simple voting scheme since Plato or earlier.
Yes, you would. Criticizing and complaining about HN is popular on HN.
I think you nailed it though, it's the "points" thing. You're creating an incentive for people to desperately say witty things to get more points, but when people forcefully try to be witty or helpful they end up being formulaic in the worst way ... they find patterns that people almost always approve of and use that.
I wonder what would happen if you actually hide all the numbers ... all karma/etc is still there, just not visible to the user.
That's a pretty interesting idea. I like it. I don't know of any community that has tried this.
I think limiting the number of available downvotes would drastically reduce these quick downvotes, which would be a good thing.
Edit: I'm new here and I still don't see the points.
Not having a downvote is valuable. Limiting max score is valuable.
but people still abuse overrated/troll/flamebait on Slashdot.
the core of the problem is that truly intelligent people have moved on to greater aspirations than internet posting. Also, the dumb people on forums these days are a lot dumber than they were 15 years ago when I was getting started. And no, that's not just my perception in hindsight. The noise has gotten bad enough that I just don't participate in them. People don't see clearly like they used to, so it's not worth pointing.
Probably correlated with more internet connectivity than 15 years ago.
I think we actually strike a pretty good balance. There are clearly large contingents of Apple, Google, and Microsoft fans/employees, all of whom tend to balance each other out. Then there is a large group of younger civil libertarians/libertarians as well as a large group of liberals. And then there is a large group of older, traditional "MIT-style" hackers.
I guess that there is some technophile group think that goes on, and it's true that among the SV contingent, there's a certain amount of ignorance about the state of the country outside of Silicon Valley. But all in all, I think there are enough counterbalancing ideologies and interests here on HN that the hive mind tends not to occur to the same extent as on subreddits, which are by definition single-interest groups.
Why would you make a comment like that seeking to make fun of what I wrote? It definitely doesn't further the conversation. Are you hoping to shut it down?
And if you disagree so strongly, tell me why. I'd like to know.
Edit: Seriously, what are you laughing at? My criticism of Silicon Valley or my defense of HN's relative balance?
Sure. See any comments relating to "idea guy" vs "hacker" or "founder" vs "employee."
The hivemind attitude that I see on HN could be summarized by "People who can write code should be given preferential treatment."
Which makes sense, given by and large, people who participate here have some sort of coding capabilities, so that mentality is clearly self serving. But hardly makes this balanced, and not hive-minded.
So yeah, guilty there.
Lets say you have two groups of people, one of which thinks you should put sugar in bread, and the other which thinks putting sugar in bread is blasphemous. On the issue of sugar in bread, you will get a rigorous debate for the affirmative and negative.
However, if someone posts something to the effect of "Humans shouldn't be eating bread", both of those groups of people will vote that comment down, regardless of the argument presented.
Apple, Google and Microsoft fans all agree that computers and software are 'good things', it is the implementation details where they disagree, so any dissenting opinion to common ground that those groups share will be prejudicially downvoted into oblivion.
It is this common ground where group think is created and reinforced.
Some trolls make you think. Some trolls only hope to destroy online communities, and they are usually very good at it. It can be very hard sometimes to differentiate between the two.
Also, it's entirely possible to make people think without trolling (and I know you weren't claiming this). For example, your response to my remark made me think without being trollish. I personally prefer to participate in communities that promote your type of provocative comment, and not in ones where trolls are given free reign. But that's just me.
So fsck you very much you guys. Every last one of you with your little down vote button. Now when I feel the urge to post here, I create a single use throwaway account, say whatever I feel like, and then log out.
HN is very much a hivemind. It's easy to see when you're not worried about your negative internet points.
As you may know, what you ran into there were two foundational ideas in HN culture, which are:
1. Don't post "trivial" comments that are common on Reddit, like "+1", "thanks for that!", "interesting article!". HN tries to maintain a very high signal to "noise" ratio by discouraging these kinds of comments, and I actually appreciate it, since reading through lots of those types of comments makes it difficult to focus on comments meant to foster further discussion, or to inform.
2. It's an official guideline not to complain about being downvoted. Your comment asking why you were downvoted may have been interpreted as complaining about being downvoted. If you were just asking why, I'm sorry you were downvoted and that no one bothered to explain.
Every online community has its quirks, and you just happened to run into two of them with your comments in that post. Personally, I've never worried too much about accumulating points on HN. I just try to post informative comments, or comments meant to provoke discussion, and things have gone well.
Again, sorry you were downvoted for asking a simple question. I'd not do that.
> HN is very much a hivemind. It's easy to see when you're not worried about your negative internet points.
The problem isn't HN and the hivemind. The problem here is you. You still care about the points (or rather the consequences of them) because you take the trouble to create a throwaway account, so that when your post is upvoted, or downvoted, you don't feel tied to it.
If you truly didn't care you would either:
1) stop posting on here altogether 2) not care about what others thought of your comments, and stop using throwaway accounts.
I have a problem with HN voting conceptually, compared to Slashdot - on Slashdot, you were supposed not to downvote a comment that you disagree with. The purpose of upvotes and downvotes was to facilitate discussion. On HN, the policy seems to be - if you agree/disagree, upvote/downvote (although I am not sure it's official, that's what I have been told, I may have been trolled :-)).