> It is weirdos and neurotics that are most disposed to spending all their time posting online
This is not true. Every single human being has multiple different sides/personas depending on the context in which they engage.
For example, many people think "Trolls" are some mythical category of assholes they will never run into in real life, but the thing is, everyone can act like a troll depending on the circumstance. This is why Twitter can't fix the spam problem. Because they think the goal is to eradicate this mythical group of people. But the reality is everyone on Twitter is in one way or another annoying to someone else, without even them realizing.
I am probably much much busier person than OP in real life, but I still have time to post on HN. I am definitely not a weirdo and neurotic who has nothing better to do. I probably spend less time posting online than the OP spend time watch TV shows.
The reason I say this is because without understanding WHO exactly "trolls" are, you will always lose. When you understand trolls are just ordinary people like yourself, only then you can find a way to deal with them.
p.s.
I have acted like a neurotic person on certain forums when I was in a desperate situation, and I am perfectly aware of that. That doesn't mean I am a weirdo who has nothing better to do. Anyone in those situations would probably behave that way too. Knowing that doesn't make it any less annoying, but my point is that I can sympathize, and I know that these people are not all weirdos.
When they he says neurotic the author is probably not talking about people like you who occasionally take internet slapfights too seriously. They're probably talking about people like that dude on 4chan who wrote a 97 page document about another poster
> everyone ... is in one way or another annoying to someone else
One popular way to fix this is to allow or encourage users to cocoon themselves in intellectual bubbles. This solves the annoyance problem but discourages the discovery of new ideas, stunting the development of the individual, and thereby the utility of the forum.
Is it true that a bunch of people cocooning in intellectual bubbles discourages the discovery of new ideas?
University students, especially those who go on to complete a PhD, progress by studying more and more about less and less.
Also, practising a religion certainly isn't a liberal arts major in comparative religious studies, in the same way neither is joining a political party.
And yet here we are with all this progress regardless.
This is all tangential. Are you saying that weirdos and neurotics, people less successful in the real world, do not have more chance of being online all the time?
I agree that it's effective, but I don't know that they're "respectful". I think three keys with these responses are keeping them free of any emotion, being very consistent with tone and also presenting a very narrow front - not over-explaining things (the more you say, the more someone may find something to argue).
Perhaps this is the reason that Dungeons and Dragons DM advice is so detailed and exhaustive that it would take hours to prepare each session, while actual D&D games with very little DM prep are usually still fun.
I got the "I must shoot 10,000 free throws to be prepared" attitude about becoming a developer -- must know Linux, concurrency, all interview questions, salary negotiation, and so on. It was daunting but ultimately correct, I got the kind of job I wanted and doubt I could have done it without being neurotic about it.
Or maybe I would have been fine and I'm still being neurotic and overdoing it. This article's perspective is helpful because "Remember that all this advice is coming from neurotics" was not something I took into account.
Really interesting topic, I read the intro and the end. But the last paragraph seems to underline it: most of the people haven't seen a Psychologist or talked to anyone.
I'm quite convinced that online communication is really Lo-Fi. Though I'm still wondering whether it does more harm than it does good. I can only speak for myself, over the last 10 years I decreased my online life a lot and I recommend others to do the same. (Apart from work, but I mean that's just coding stuff and mostly researching. ;)) Ironically there's a global trend in the last 10 years making "online" cool and most people spend many hours socializing online.
Having both been on the Something Awful forums and read some of the major stories there about the low points of the site's history and community dramas, this article makes sense to me. The reason why many forums, even "normal" ones about mothers, have mass social dysfunction because they're self-selecting communities.
This was a big cause of the death of CampusNetwork, which in 2004-5 was a credible competitor to Facebook. Because it encouraged for campus-wide conversation -- rather than just conversation with your immediate contacts -- it gravitated towards politically extreme conversation that dissuaded mainstream participation. Which is a shame, because it did act as a good way to meet new people, which isn't Facebook's forte.
Yeah, the thing that has to be understood, IMO, is that everyone will say they want to be part of a brave new forum where interesting ideas are discussed and there is a lot of intellectual stimulation.
This is a complete and utter lie. People routinely tell it to themselves without realizing its blatant falsity.
Most people find conflict unsettling and can handle it only in the smallest doses. People identify their ideas with themselves and take attacks or criticisms of them as personal slights. In written media like online discussion, these responses are amplified because there is little room for tone or other dampening/mitigating signals from the speaker, and the written form makes the harsh words seem more final and official. A slighted person will often feel the need to respond on the record, whereas in person they may have been more likely to dismiss the remark.
Cognitive dissonance creates a powerful feeling of unease. When that signal is received, the common interpretation is to make some passing attempt to rebut, like "You know, it's not even worth the time", so that you feel like you won, and then to never return to the place that caused bad feelings.
The reason that reddit has always been a big echo chamber and unable to really get mainstream adoption is because it has a fixed front page. This doesn't account for the differing mainstream tastes. reddit has a steady supply of atheistic young men because that's the audience that they appeal to when you load up reddit.com.
Despite the lies they tell themselves so they can feel noble and open-minded, people DO NOT want to be challenged. They want their egos stroked.
If confronted with an idea that seems contradictory to something important to their self-conception, they will immediately become defensive; this is true even among friends when it can sometimes be recovered, but strangers online have zero social capital to deploy to absorb this hit. For most, taking a position in a discussion is nothing more than a way to signal allegiance to a tribe. If your users do not have a way to ensure their experiences aligns with their tribal values and preferences, they will leave.
This is important for tech entrepreneurs and people seeking to "bridge the gap". It's bigger than many people realize, and much bigger than people will willingly admit. Efforts in this direction must be baby steps, and no one should expect to perform a great reconciliation.
> the thing that has to be understood, IMO, is that everyone will say ...
> ... a complete and utter lie
I'd say that's an overly broad generalization, if it wasn' for "IMO" and the following
> People identify their ideas with themselves
Which is an obvious self-reference. I would on occasion say "you" to mean "one", but actually mean "me" in an hypothetical fashion.
But then comes the offensive attack:
> Despite the lies they tell themselves so they can feel noble and open-minded, people DO NOT want to be challenged. They want their egos stroked.
This is an informal accusation that would upset people because its unfounded. See, I can write an informal accusation all the same, but I don't expect you to like it. I can't really write a formal argument about it, because I lack training in formal rhethorics.
>Which is an obvious self-reference. I would on occasion say "you" to mean "one", but actually mean "me" in an hypothetical fashion.
I don't think it's [just] me. Identity politics is based on attempting to program this impulse.
>This is an informal accusation that would upset people because its unfounded.
I think the evidence is abundant. It upsets people because it trivializes their behaviors and makes them feel unimportant and predictable (that is, it fails to stroke their egos). People like things that make them feel in control and important. Commentary around psychological realities rarely does this because psychology itself is about analyzing and generalizing human behavior.
Hasn't Facebook been gravitating towards politically extreme conversation ever since people started posting ideological memes on Newsfeeds and writing comments?
All brilliantly stated. I would only add that it's not "all" participants in communities (on and offline), but archetypes, legends and hierarchies spring up espousing the "ultimate", perfect or essential ways of performing the activity...
almost no one can or does live up to them. That confuses neophytes.... so don't be stymied by sage advice!
Bland neuroticism makes itself viral. The threads are easy to come up with and everyone can chip in. The OP gets an anonymous confessional and the rest get to feel better about themselves.
Those kinds of forums are top results because they minimize distress. Google having solid advice for every little thing would drive people neurotic.
If you’re a talented artist, you probably spend your time actually making art rather than discussing technique online. Top amateur athletes are too busy actually training and playing to spend five hours a day on a forum for their hobby.
Is this always true?
I mean, of course it's true at the extremes; if someone literally spends _all_ their waking hours posting on forums about X, they're probably not getting very much X done.
But discussion and polemic is more complementary to some occupations and disciplines than others, one must acknowledge—as this article seemingly doesn't. Publishing academics spend a lot of time on rigourous and structured rebuttals of each other's theories, a kind of highly professional and esoteric Reddit with long bibliographies. They probably partake of some informal channels to soft-trial some of their positions and hone some of the thorny bits before pushing to production, so to speak. They might spend a lot of time on that.
Attorneys learn how to write more eloquent and persuasive pleadings and briefs by way of practice. A lot of practice. Surely some of them chisel the background knowledge and social skills required to operate in their world online. If that's a serious learning tool, you're probably using it more than 15 minutes/day. You might even have a senior badge on some PHPBB legal board.
A lot of skills can be learned or improved on the Internet by reading and participating in sometimes contentious discussions about them. The strong religion in motorcycle repair and boating forums isn't all puffery and neurotic wheel-spinning; a lot of the commentators are quite well-informed about the range of available componentry and DIY techniques, even if they sometimes bite each other's heads off in arguments about the One True Way to overhaul a marine toilet or which ape hangers are the best.
The hours developers spend arguing about React vs. Angular on HN aren't necessarily wasted; some of the discussions are rich, vibrant and informative, and make both the writers and the readers better developers or technical managers.
I myself learned a great deal about history and politics in high school by arguing heatedly with informed people online. If I were an aspiring politician or writer, expository writing in support of a particular ideological conviction would have legitimate value and relevance as a skill set, and this kind of exercise helps to hone it.
It takes a certain kind of personality to devote a lot of energy to online discussions. Some people don't like to think and argue about methodology or meta- issues, or otherwise engage their analytical faculties very much when socialising. They just do. Good for them. However, this is a difference of style rather than substance. Everyone has to have "continuing education" of some description to remain fluent in their field. And yes, of course there's a limit beyond which pure theory and no practice lies for simple reasons of time and economics, but it just depends.
So, I don't disagree with the fundamental premise, but as is so often the case, this article paints the online world with a broad brush.
I totally agree that engaging with the community is immensely valuable in technical pursuits like law and coding. I'm sure a lesser amount of engagement is also beneficial for skills that are somewhat more subjective, like art. These are great ways to stay apprised of the state of the art and to keep a pulse on the zeitgeist.
However, I think that the author is correct that a lot of fansites/forums/groups for [what are normally considered] casual interests are full of very obsessive people whose advice and opinions are not worth taking seriously. In some cases, these people may be completely non-functional and detached from reality.
It's really important that we step back and allow ourselves to see and enjoy the whole picture, instead of allowing the bubble of our online hangouts to color perceptions too much. The big picture is usually much wider, much less exclusive, and much less angry, and it's really healthy to appreciate that, especially when a community starts piling on.
I think this could be extended to the mass media in general. Where do we get our information from? Journalists. What do journalists do? They write news articles. They don't actually do any of the things they write about, they only write. We very seldom (in comparison) get perspective from the people who are doing things - because they are too busy doing them to talk about it.
You're getting downvoted here, but what you seem to be trying to refer to here is more commonly known as the Gell-Man Amnesia Effect. [1]
It states that whenever the press writes about something we know well, we scoff at how wrong they get it. Then we turn the page to a new story about something in which we lack expertise and believe every word of it.
It is written by PR people, wire services and politicos. The journalist simply assembles the ready-made components into the lowest energy configuration.
A lot of the time, it's not even sent to the journalist in question. It's just 'someone else reported on something, so every site in the same niche rewrites the story in their own words'.
That's why every single 'controversy' and news story ends up on every media site under the sun.
Yes, it's definitely the case for a large amount of stories. Paul Graham has written on the phenomenon and how taking advantage of it helped ViaWeb. [0]
Journalists talk to those supposedly "too busy" people. You'll find plenty of experts quoted in your average news article.
Plenty of journalists have experience in the fields they cover (check out the SCOTUSblog's publisher's bio, for example: http://www.scotusblog.com/author/tom-goldstein/) and the longer they cover a particular beat the more info they get about the field they're covering.
This is not true. Every single human being has multiple different sides/personas depending on the context in which they engage.
For example, many people think "Trolls" are some mythical category of assholes they will never run into in real life, but the thing is, everyone can act like a troll depending on the circumstance. This is why Twitter can't fix the spam problem. Because they think the goal is to eradicate this mythical group of people. But the reality is everyone on Twitter is in one way or another annoying to someone else, without even them realizing.
I am probably much much busier person than OP in real life, but I still have time to post on HN. I am definitely not a weirdo and neurotic who has nothing better to do. I probably spend less time posting online than the OP spend time watch TV shows.
The reason I say this is because without understanding WHO exactly "trolls" are, you will always lose. When you understand trolls are just ordinary people like yourself, only then you can find a way to deal with them.
p.s.
I have acted like a neurotic person on certain forums when I was in a desperate situation, and I am perfectly aware of that. That doesn't mean I am a weirdo who has nothing better to do. Anyone in those situations would probably behave that way too. Knowing that doesn't make it any less annoying, but my point is that I can sympathize, and I know that these people are not all weirdos.