

Ask HN: A more open-minded and less judgmental community? - briantakita

I like the level of detail with HN discussions, but I find that there are many people who act in judgmental &amp; close minded ways.<p>This includes:<p>* ego driven discussions<p>* witch hunts on everyone who makes a public mistake<p>* downvoting opinions that are different from theirs, even when well expressed<p>Are there any technical&#x2F;business&#x2F;culture forums out there that have people with open minds &amp; relatively free of judgement? If yes, are there cultural and&#x2F;or technological safeguards to keep that vibe?<p>---<p>Edit: I&#x27;d like the opposite of homogeneity. Rather, novel perspectives should be more visible.<p>I&#x27;m thinking along the terms to respect for all opinions and highlighting all of the different perspectives on the topics. It would be great to see all of the perspectives &amp; related concepts laid out somehow, to increase conceptual awareness.
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krapp
I believe it is impossible to engineer civility. You can, to a degree, force a
bias to express itself through the use of filters, swift moderation, and
selective invitation, but even relatively homogeneous and technical
communities can find themselves subject to infighting, politics, ego-driven
discussion and elitism.

As these things go, however, I find Hacker News to be far more civil than one
would expect for an internet forum with no real barrier to entry. You can't
let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

~~~
briantakita
I'd like the opposite of homogeneity. Rather, novel perspectives should be
more visible.

I'm thinking along the terms to respect for all opinions and highlighting all
of the different perspectives on the topics. It would be great to see all of
the perspectives & related concepts laid out somehow, to increase conceptual
awareness.

I would think that grouping similar perspectives together would give novel
perspectives more attention. I'd also like to embrace divergent thinking. It
leads to more information.

Of course, disrespectful discourse should be tagged and grouped together
somehow. Such discourse would still valuable insight into the perspectives of
some of the participants.

~~~
krapp
However, novelty and disrespect can be moving targets, and if it is
subjective, then the solution would need to be user-driven and not site
driven.

I have thought that Hacker News could use more personal filters, or tags, or
things to let users customize the content they see. While this wouldn't
increase civility per se, it might give users with less tolerance for certain
topics or certain points of view the ability to create bubbles around
themselves if they want.

I agree with you though - I've read some very interesting and thought
provoking content here, particularly from people whose views I would
personally vehemently disagree with, because this community values
articulating a point of view more than most.

------
brudgers
There are times when having an open mind is bad. In the technical realm, some
things are just facts and their opposite is just wrong. Haskell has strong
static typing, Java is garbage collected. There is nothing to keep an open
mind about except the possibility of fallibility and then only always for edge
cases.

There are times when being judgemental is absolutely right - there aren't two
sides to genocide or sex slavery. Likewise, downvoting nonsense is perfectly
fine regardless of the form in which it is presented. Indeed it is one of the
cornerstones of Western moral traditions [see Plato's _Giorgias_ and consider
in light of Socrates crimes and trial].
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1672](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1672)

How we disagree matters, but it also matters what we disagree over. Sure HN
could be better. But it pretending that all opinions merit equal consideration
is horseshit. One If the biggest problems with the internet is contrarianism
for the sake of contrarianism.

------
ScottWhigham
The problem with questions like this is that, if you actually _did_ get people
sharing quality responses of where to go (and there are good alternatives),
there's no way to filter who sees those links. In other words, the people who
you consider "undesirable" will most certainly see those links, follow them,
and some will create accounts at those new places thus bringing the same
"problem" to the new site. Are there boards/communities that do what you want?
Absolutely! But the members who are cognizant of how "special" that community
is will protect it. A lot of people learned how to do this after what happened
to the various sites that became popular (like HN). Were things different five
years ago? Damn straight. But it happens - sites become popular, people move
on, and the cycle either starts over or people lose interest.

------
AnimalMuppet
Yeah, actually. It's called Hacker News. You may have heard of it.

Could it be better? Yes, certainly. But it's much better than Slashdot or (so
I hear) Reddit. It's even better than The Economist, which until recently was
my gold standard for a mature, non-judgmental board.

~~~
ScottWhigham
_Yeah, actually. It 's called Hacker News. You may have heard of it._

What an absolute snot-nose way to talk to people, not just as an opening
sentence but in general. There's no need for that here or elsewhere.

