hipadev23

Very well then. I’m going to create a better product to accelerate that gravitational collapse.

See some of you on the other side but it won’t be here. I’m out.

Votes are a far bigger problem than flagging because it takes a pavlovian approach to what ideas are allowed. Flagging is important to remove spam and wholly inappropriate content. And if you revoke the ability of users who flag content based on a personal disagreement, that user simply loses that ability.

Then we remove upvotes and downvote entirely. Web2.0 online discourse (visibility is controlled by recommendation algos keyed on upvotes/downvotes) is fundamentally broken.

Make it public. Upvotes/downvotes/flagging should have usernames attached to it.

It 100% absolutely is, you're just too deep to recognize it.

It's what's happened across Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook over the past decade. You've all built platforms intended for social discourse but instead built extremely brittle systems subject to gamified manipulation by showing people which opinions reward and punish them. And those are then manipulated at-large by outside groups responsible for elevating a particular way of thinking about a given topic.

Conversations do not need a algorithmic popularity mechanism.

I think you need to admit HN is failing due to how easy it is to manipulate what content and comments are shown. Allows a single determined group to literally control the narrative. Eliminate upvotes/downvotes. Keep flagging but make it public record. And revoke privileges for those who abuse it.

> > I feel like HN is decidedly less awful than most other discussion boards

I agree, but that's unfortunately a very low bar these days.

If we got rid of upvotes/downvotes (keep flagging privileges, but make it public record, and abuse-it-you-lose-it) the variety of thought and ideas on HN would 100x overnight.

Yes.

No, it doesn't.

>ultimately your job is to serve whichever politician is in power

No they don't? They a take an oath to the constitution. "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"

The president is temporary. The constitution endures.

[flagged]

Agreed. But that's why I said nazi bar. It doesn't mean everyone.

Also due to the upvote/downvote/flag system, entire narratives are controlled with a small number of accounts. It's a fundamentally broken approach to online discussions. We need to get rid of upvote/downvotes completely. Retain flagging for vetted users, and punish those who are flagging material that should not be flagged.

This is headline news stuff for the past two weeks. Nobody needs to cite it.

Probably because the Biden admin wasn’t attempting to rewrite history?

That’s precisely the plan. So when we have crop problems this summer due to lack of available labor they can instead point to “irresponsible water management by California”

PMG’s take on Roblox is woefully misinformed and full of inaccuracies.

I see you also have met zuck

Uber you guys need to delete this, the quality of this post is absolutely embarrassing.

aannnd it's gone

I really think discussion platforms like HN need:

1) Remove upvotes/downvotes entirely. It does nothing for discussion except create groupthink and open itself to manipulation by unscrupulous actors.

2) Retain flagging access by long-time contributing accounts, but if you're found to flag something in bad faith, those privileges are revoked.

3) Flagging itself needs to be a public record so we can see exactly which accounts are doing so.

aws glue/athena has the most absurd setup process. duckdb and clickhouse is “select * from s3(…)”

If you think crypto is only with STEM you're woefully out of touch. I'd wager the adoption and continued interest in crypto is actually lower among STEM than many other professional circles.

Keep their jobs if they kiss the ring

No? A majority of couples today first meet via online dating.

> because that's just not how purchasing decisions in gaming are made.

Illusion of choice. Think about how Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, iOS Appstore, Google Play Store, and even your example -- Steam -- provide recommendation to users. The overwhelming majority of people are already letting an algorithm make decisions for them. Acting like this is where people will suddenly draw the line is amusing.

"Play a new action movie that I'll enjoy" -- "Taken 4 now playing..."

Credit card companies will simply add another bullet point to their zero liability protection offerings: "You are not liable for unintended purchases made by Agentic AI systems".

OpenAI will subsidize banks to offer that safety-net for users of Operator. If Chase says you're 100% not on the hook for purchase mistakes made by OpenAI's Operator -- are you going to take the risk (as you pointed out, it's financial, it matters to people) with Perplexity Pro or Siri?

> The "right" thing would be to just expose that API directly

100%. You absolutely get it, and also the implications, and also the outcome.

Humans will more and more rely on their AI assistants to take care of mundane things for them. If your site is difficult for an AI assistant to use (due to anti-bot behavior, or an overly complex flow that confuses LLMs, or whatever) your business will suffer. It's gonna be glorious if every retailer starts publishing a swagger API to facilitate automated transactions.

You're moving the goalposts now. You brought up an anti-bot system. I explained to you that sites which implement an anti-bot system will negatively impact their sales BECAUSE TRANSACTIONS WILL MORE AND MORE COME IN VIA BOTS.

If your site doesn't support/allow agentic bots, it will be similar to not accepting Visa or Mastercard. Yes, cash-only business is a thing. But it's suicide to make that your only payment option for most retail businesses.

Turnstile is an anti-bot measure. I’m saying users will flock to using bots because it’s easier. Which means sites that require human-at-keyboard will lose business over time by restricting the “easier” route.

Exactly how e-commerce killed off so many holdouts that insisted on in-store/catalog/phone purchases when the internet was growing.

How certain are you that the source itself is trustworthy? Tripadvisor, yelp, and amazon are filled with fake/paid reviews along with the absence of negative reviews which premium members have paid to remove.