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0 pointsTeMPOraL11y ago0 comments

This is unrealistic and won't work in practice. If all posts are equal then all posts are equally worthless. It's a sad but basic truth that we need identity and ability to accumulate reputation to be able to hold a meaningful, informative conversation. If everyone is fully anonymous (in a stateless sense), then everyone is basically a "random internet dude".

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amirmc11y ago

> "It's a sad but basic truth that we need identity and ability to accumulate reputation to be able to hold a meaningful, informative conversation."

Not true. We do not need to accumulate reputation to have a meaningful conversation. For example, I've seen informative conversations on Secret with the only identity mechanism being the icon they're assigned (presumably at random per thread).

Edit: I also don't recall usenet having a mechanism that 'kept score'. Slightly before my time so I may be wrong about this.

TeMPOraLOP11y ago

But you have an identity mechanism; even if it is per thread, it allows you to attribute a collection of writings to a single author.

I'm not talking about "keeping score" in a system. I'm talking about the ways human handle identity and associate properties with objects. I may not see your karma, but I see your nick. I don't know your name, or anything about your life, but I know your nick is a reference a person somewhere. If I keep seeing comments written by user amirmc that stand out because of their clear argumentation and reasonable tone, I start to recognize the author and accumulate a feeling of respect. So the next time user amirmc disagrees with me, I treat the arguments with little more care and consideration than usual, because I recognize author as a reasonable person.

This is a natural mechanism of human interaction. My point is that if we reject the entire concept of identity, we will lose a lot of information vital to evaluating an argument.

chipsy11y ago

Think of books, though. They're the best available counterpoint to what you're saying. People don't necessarily care about the author of a book, but they do care about the content of the book and its ability to piece together a larger idea.

Within forum post culture there's a built-in tendency for content to be fast and disposable. This makes identity relatively more valuable, because it allows a stream of posts to be put in context, just like with a book.

andrewflnr11y ago

On the other hand, I might well not bother with a book unless I know the author of good. I'll almost certainly prefer a book with a known good author over one without. This is just to prevent my time from being wasted, to maintain a decent signal to noise ratio.

TeMPOraLOP11y ago

Not really. I might not know the author, but I rarely read completely random books. Most of the times I read things recommended by other people. The context is not in the book, it's in the way I found out about it.

k__11y ago

The problem of pages like HN and SO is the artificial interaction, which the voting generates.

Yes, they probably can't find out that the 10k-karma-guy is Jack Miller, but all readers of his posts will be influenced by the 10k-karma.

HN hides the karma mostly. But SO shoves it right in your face, that some gold-20k-guy wrote an answer.

Also people will vote stuff up because they like it. This may be because it's high quality, but it doesn't have to.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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amirmc11y ago

> "It's a sad but basic truth that we need identity and ability to accumulate reputation to be able to hold a meaningful, informative conversation."

Edit: I also don't recall usenet having a mechanism that 'kept score'. Slightly before my time so I may be wrong about this.

TeMPOraLOP11y ago

But you have an identity mechanism; even if it is per thread, it allows you to attribute a collection of writings to a single author.

This is a natural mechanism of human interaction. My point is that if we reject the entire concept of identity, we will lose a lot of information vital to evaluating an argument.

chipsy11y ago

andrewflnr11y ago

TeMPOraLOP11y ago

k__11y ago

The problem of pages like HN and SO is the artificial interaction, which the voting generates.

Yes, they probably can't find out that the 10k-karma-guy is Jack Miller, but all readers of his posts will be influenced by the 10k-karma.

HN hides the karma mostly. But SO shoves it right in your face, that some gold-20k-guy wrote an answer.

Also people will vote stuff up because they like it. This may be because it's high quality, but it doesn't have to.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse