[jancsika]

Sometimes when I lurk on Reddit it appears that "the internet" is giving helpful and respectful comments to someone who, say, alleges that her husband had been sexually assaulting her.

When I start digging down into the lower quality comments those comments are obviously lower quality. But here's the thing-- within the lower quality comments is the OP responding to the low quality comments!

In other words, an OP (probably like many OPs) has a limited amount of time to get feedback on Reddit about a pressing problem. And mods/downvoters cannot react quickly enough in that period of time to appropriately moderate the responses.

Imagine OP's "Reddit time" (let's say an hour) as a rectangle in a video game that starts at 100% and drains to 0%. Let's say those dregs comments drained 15% of the OP's total time or energy participating on Reddit.

Now, suppose a lurker reads the thread later when the mods/downvoters have caught up with all their work. The lurker's default view is only the quality comments. This misleads the lurker by hiding the 15% time-or-energy hit the OP had from interacting with the dregs. The lurker likely assumes that participating on Reddit requires less time or energy that it does in reality.

Now the lurker tries out posting for the first time and starts to experience the 15% time-or-energy hit from the dregs comments. The more impatient OP is about reading comments, the more likely OP is to increase that wasted time-or-energy by interacting with the dregs.

Worse, that 15% time-or-energy hit includes content that would be beyond the pale for in-person social interactions-- it's mindless trolling or misanthropy which nearly no one would utter face to face. Some of it-- like accusations that the OP is an imposter-- is unique to social media.

Worst of all, that poster probably started as a lurker. So their decision to post in the first place was based on a view of Reddit that radically downplays the costs of interacting. I mean, I don't see any clear warnings on first post that let the poster know "shit will roll in" faster than the mods can flush it.

The obvious solution is to throttle all posting activity so that participating on Reddit slows to a level approaching those tree people from Lord of the Rings. (The larger time slices would actually get rid of whole class of problems, like the internet sleuthing BS that happened after the Boston bombing.) But I'm sure Reddit wants to encourage OPs to increase their # of responses for maximum buzz, so I don't really see any non-manipulative practical solution to this problem.

[debacle]

These days it feels more and more like <50% of the downvoted comments are trolls/jerks, and the majority are just people who might disagree with the hivemind.

[jancsika]

That could be, and the same logic applies.

The upshot of my comment was something like this: lurkers likely interpret a post as the OP being on some sort of mountaintop. In this view the moderators and voters are spread out along the mountainside, helping some hikers reach the top and hindering others from getting there. Thus, it looks to the lurkers like the mountaintop is a place where "unwanted" commenters have been stopped from climbing up and only "desirable" discussion occurs. (For whatever definition of "unwanted"-- it doesn't matter and we'll come back to that.)

To the OP, however, the experience is much more like a parking lot where anyone who wants to can walk up and interact with OP. Later the mods and voters come in and "clean up" the lot so that it appears to onlookers that there were no "unwanted" interactions with OP-- only "desirable" discussion.

Now, let's assume 100% of downvoted comments are actually good faith actors who happen not to agree with what you call the "hivemind."

Because of the manipulative design of Reddit, here's what will happen:

* people who agree with the hivemind point of view and don't want dissenting opinions will overestimate how good Reddit is at facilitating "desirable" discussion. They will do this because the OP's interaction with dissidents is hidden from them.

* people who disagree with the hivemind point of view will underestimate how much interaction OP had with dissident points of view. They will do this because OP's interaction with dissenting opinions is hidden from them.

Hivemind peeps lose because they want OP to have what they consider a pleasant discussion when in reality OP is expending considerable energy having what they would consider an unpleasant discussion.

Non-hivemind peeps lose because they develop an exaggerated sense of the problem of dissidents not being heard. They were heard by the OP, but the non-hivemind peeps don't see that interaction.

OP loses because the hivemind peeps consider the discussion a success and overlook the problem of OP (and many others) expending energy on the more adversarial interactions. But OP loses again because OP's adversaries don't credit OP for interacting with dissidents!