sankalpb

Thanks for this, can you tell me more 'if you can filter those out'? what does that look like in practice, based on your own experience?

Thanks, I'm fascinated that you bring up the 'inability...to have civil and productive conversation about things that matter, and like as not, politics does matter', what makes this the case here at HN, in your perspective? Also, can you say more about the how 'this community has the pretense of holding itself to a standard of intellectual merit and civility above the internet mainstream'? How do you think the this 'pretense' came to be held? why 'intellectual merit and civility'? and makes you say it is 'above' the internet mainstream?

thanks, can you say more about what you think makes a member of an online community, in this instance HN, a 'jerk' ?

thanks, will you tell me more about the 'astroturfing' at HN?

thanks, can you say more about this? which aspects of the HN demographic do you see as being important to consider here?

hey, thanks! would you be willing to say more about your experience of the 'reply thread spiraling out of control'?

Thanks, I'm intrigued that you mention going to another online community to learn what people think of this online community - can you say more about this? are these people HN members?

Thanks for this reply, I'm interested in the 'down-voting' you are describing, do think that type of HN member behavior is related or not related to the 'defensiveness' and 'techno-utopian ideals' you feel characterizes the HN community? For you, does 'increasingly political and divisive' signal whether an online community, in this case HN, is 'particularly healthy'?

Thanks, can you tell me more about the 'bikeshedding' at HN?

Would you be willing to say more about this bit?: "But I was always an outsider looking in who never really got to benefit from that strong sense of community (in fact, it arguably did me a lot of harm)." I'm interested in this outside/insider dynamic, and how those correspond to a member's sense of community (leaving aside for the moment whether HN is a community), as well as the experiences of harm that members have had because of those dynamics.

Thank you for clarifying this, and I'm sorry that I misunderstood what you were saying. I appreciate the distinction you have made between platforms, forums, subgroups, and communities. I am also interested in the social dynamics you refer to (i.e. above a certain size, sense of community does not really compute) as well. I'm going to reply to your comments where I have questions!

Thanks for raising this point - what makes you say that 'technical' and 'social' are separable as it relates to the problem of 'group-think' and 'sorting content by vote count'?

Thanks, I appreciate the different examples you gave! Can you tell me more about what makes you believe that what makes a 'community' is its size, instead of say, for example, its coherence, or its norms, or its duration of existence?

I'm really interested in the point that you are making about 'there's no coming back' at the level of the community (i.e. ratio of 'those folks : total users) and the level of its members (i.e. deciding to leave) - do you think they both register with members/community in the same way, as either are happening? As in, other members in the HN community may not be aware if another member decides on 'not coming back' at any one point in time, whereas it could be the case that all members of some certain relation to the community (i.e. 10 years of membership or longer) knows when the HN community is not what it was once.

By contrast, is there a case to make for when 'an un-informed, un-thoughtful, un-pleasant person decides they're not going to post anymore'? If so, what would you say that tells us about an online community?

thanks for bringing this up. I'm interested by the way you characterize this 'vicious cycle', and wonder whether you see 'dialing back' to be as much of 'contribution' to the dynamic you're articulating since you are also suggesting that people doing so, 'stop contributing'. I'm also wondering whether you would be willing to share more about the how it was that the shared experiences you heard offline (i.e. IRL tech community that you respect) shaped your decisions as a member as to whether to or to not engage as much with HN, as an online community?