[thetechimist]

A forum is not anything like social media. People think that any internet site where UGC is posible is social media? Not.

HN, for instance, is not based on finding friends, creating glamorous profiles, posting daily and weekly updates about one’s life, or reading other’s posts. It has no images, hashtags, auto playing videos, or your cousin and high school sweetheart arguing in the comments of your post about your luncheon at the Hilton if you should be even at the Hilton because of your or their political views.

No, HN is just a topical forum. The only shadow of social media on it is when people post links to YouTube, which I don’t get or understand why it’s allowed. Why not post all the links to YouTube every day? If O wanted to watch videos about Perl, I’d go to YouTube.

[dcow]

I suspect there may be two or three different definitions of “social media”. What happens in the comment threads on internet forums is definitely social and writing is a form of media. People receive karma for posting good content just like people get likes, shares, and retweets on other sites. We may not use our real names but we all still have an identity. It may be more similar than you realize. I totally agree we’re anything but the type of basic crap you describe. But we’re not anti-social, either.