[bleepblorp]

We're on different sides of the disinformation control debate but I completely agree with your take on the toxicity of HN.

This place is much worse than most of non-ideological Reddit.

Serious discussion of matters at the intersection of tech and policy, is not possible on HN when the downvote and flag tools are routinely used to suppress posts for ideological heresy rather than low effort, irrelevance, or bad faith argumentation.

Community moderation is incompatible with a community culture that values ideological conformity over respect for good faith argumentation.

An upvote-only karma system would be much more appropriate for tech policy threads.

[cannedslime]

The way the site is shaped right now just leads to amplification of conformity. I don't even know how you even get downvote rights, and even if I had it I wouldn't use it as a tool in the debate out of principle. I guess some people just don't have principles worth two sacks of donkey dung.

[effingwewt]

Yup, I know I will never hit 500 or whatever karma it is to be able to downvote, because most of my comments go against what HN has become.

It used to be a place I came for the discussions but more and more often it's just downvotes to oblivion for stepping out of the echo chamber.

So often I see correct information dead and flagged for again no reason I can see but the echo chamber.

Many of the old commenters I used to enjoy perspective from (whether or not it was against mine) are no longer here or post very sparingly.

I know dang comes in every time to say thats not true, every year someone complains the site has jumped the shark, but just because people come back to the site doesn't mean it hasn't gotten objectively worse.

What they forget is that it only takes one of those people to be right.

Years ago I was disappointed in the selfishness of HN. Seemed like the people trying to get rich took over. Then it was everyone wanting to be a founder. Dark patterns and growth hacking weren't seen as fraud but as necessary startup skills.

I still come here, but only until something better comes along, the bar for which gets lowered the worse HN becomes.

The privilege stinks so bad now I have to hold my nose, it's 10x since Covid

[effingwewt]

I wish dang could see your comment. Many times I've thought 'I cant downvote and that's fine, if I disagree I can say why.'

This should be site-wide. No need for bullshit numbers just discussion.

Hackers used to be the outliers, the nerds, the outcasts. We came together and became a community (not here, this was 80s).

But now it feels as co-opted as everything else. Its cool and hip to be nerdy, we now have things like brogrammers.

I once had a journalism professor insist to me that hackers were people who knew things about computers, and could get illegal unrestricted access. I tried to explain about phone phreaking and such, social engineering, black and white hats, and direct him to the Wikipedia articles. I was told I was being disruptive

Maybe I was but I gave real information instead of tv tropes.

HN is starting to feel like that. People less and less want information, they just want to feel good.