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0 pointsBarrin926y ago0 comments

>What's the distinction?

persistent identity and status, that is to say the 'social' part. A lot of damage of social networks arguably is rooted in the competition for status and attention that you get when you get twitter likes and people complementing you, and the horror when you end up in a shitstorm and your reputation is suddenly ruined. It's also what makes it addictive.

Most people on HN just seem to post more or less anonymously. The upvote or downvote mechanisms aren't even particularly visible.

The worst thing you get here is 4 downvotes and a heated discussion. This is not like twitter where your career and face is on the line.

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ntsplnkv26y ago· 2 in thread

Anonymity is a major key why older forums were much, much better than our social media of today.

Most forums were based around a hobby or a particular subject, and communities formed around that. Sure, you'd have arguments, or someone stepping out of line, easily solved by a moderator. Sometimes moderators got to powerful and people left and joined another or did something else.

Most of my forum days were based on PC building or video games. Most of them had a bunch of boards with varying topics - and possibly a politics one. You could always separate it out easily because it wasn't visible by default.

Social media today everything is visible by default without anonymity. There is no effective way to filter content - only people, or profiles.

danans6y ago

> Anonymity is a major key why older forums were much, much better than our social media of today.

I really doubt this. The mask of anonymity completely removes accountability on forums. Pseudonomity is a better approach, along with moderation, and ultimately, a community committed to civil discourse. But the quality of commentary on any forum is a fragile balance, as the evolution of HN has demonstrated.

ntsplnkv26y ago

> The mask of anonymity completely removes accountability on forums.

Accountable to whom? What accountability? Why was this necessary? Accountability wasn't necessary, as most forums were never big enough to really matter. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter are now forces of nature, especially in politics and matters of public opinion.

> Pseudonomity

This has varying degrees of anonymity - you need to further express what you mean by this, because on its own you could support anonymity through pseudonyms.

> and ultimately, a community committed to civil discourse. But the quality of commentary on any forum is a fragile balance, as the evolution of HN has demonstrated.

Yep, something much easier to do on the old forums of yesteryear - they were much smaller, much easier to moderate, and much easier to remediate if they were unfairly moderated.

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