Not sure if you've actually read it. What's the point of calling out bullshit on crap "reporting" and hype? Nothing. The rant. Giving people a chance to vent, call it names, when they just don't get what it's about. Reading comprehension is at an all-time low, so such pieces are necessary.
Didn't mean it was you, I meant it for whoever has. Not that I care that much for "karma", just can't stand the silent downvoters. You have at least voiced your concern. Downvoting is fine, as long as one also responds.
OK, I'm doing the same here thst I usually "preach" against. So here's the TL;DR:
I find the usual "karma", reputation or any similar system basically pointless (not only here), for some very simple reasons:
* To gain karma, one has to post some popular links. You don't need to generate content, but only find it. One can posts few popular links and immediately feel validated. This one is HN specific and could easily be fixed: E.g. if links that get upvotd would not increase karma only by one or two points. Links would retain the upvotes, not users. Users themselves would gain karma through comments, or other text-based contribution. (Of course this goes against HN's busniess interest: Engagement is easier generated when it's an easy source of meaningless rewards.)
* Upvoting anonymously has the potential to turn the site into a hype-aggregator. Hive mind decides, there is no justification. This makes the usual "popular content" (hype) even more popular (overhype), while anything meaningful becomes increasingly hard to find on the internet. (There are several resources available on what makes a post/article popular, it is rarely the amount of though or critical thinking applied to writing it. And I'm not even talking about cat-videos.) Fortunately HN is not like this, not yet, but there's a lot of "debris" that gets upvoted for whatever reason. (Still, a lot of good stuff, so there is hope. Personally, I think that is due to people commenting quite actively.)
* Down-voting anonymously carries the risk to create a toxic environment. It's the simplest form of trolling: No face, no name, no reason, no justification, just press a button. But even when there is, toxicity can take over. StackOverflow suffers from the same [1].
One obvious (part-)solution would be to both of the above, to only allow up/down-voting via comments. This would still enable the more determined troll/hype-seeker, but many would be discouraged when they would actually have to voice whatever concern/enthusiasm they have about whatever they like/dislike. Obviously this is once again counterproductive in terms of total engagement, and such sites value that more than meaningful engagement, so it cannot be fixed.
The bottom-line is, the whole karma/reputation/upvote/like/clap system is a good idea in an ideal environment. It's designed to give an opportunuty to democratically decide what's allowed to float. But both the design and its users are less-than-ideal:
* The design itself does not encourage meaningful debate, it rather discourages it, although this differs from site to site. (Even where it's encouraged, the diversity of allowed opinions is curbed by the hive-mind of the site in question).
* The users themselves often use it for a way of self-validation, narcissistic self-indulgence, or just plain old attention seeking and hoarding, etc.
I guess the real story is that Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will use X.org by default, rather than Wayland [1]. Canonical "pretending Mir never existed" is just click bait. Personally, I found Unity not half-bad, and am not looking forward to gnome-shell from what little I know, eg. for its wasteful menu-per-window attachment rather than Mac OS style global menus alone.
Click-bait, precisely to illustrate a point. The real story comes after. Did you actually read it? It has nothing to do with which DE Ubuntu chooses to favour ATM.
For those, who still find it challenging, see here:
> "But apparently everybody either forgets or disregards the fact that Canonical is partly responsible for Wayland being nowhere near production grade after 10 years."
Then the article goes on to state that wasting time and resources on a never finished and casually abandoned project (Mir) has a lot to do with Wayland not being production grade after a decade.
Come on, it's really not a difficult read. Although some of the subtext of the article seems to be proven by the comments here...
The time and resources spent on Mir have nothing to do with Wayland not being ready for production. It was wasted not doing other things at Canonical; who had, and still have, no obligation to make Wayland better.
(And complaining that nobody gets your article says more about you than them.)
Oh, many people get my article, only the few who don't are most vocal on HN, which is nothing new. Probably says a lot about HN too.
E.g. you don't seem to get the article, as it's about hype and lack of interest in anything more than "oh my god latest tech trend", which is as sad as your above statement.
Obligation? Who talked about obligation? What obligation? You really cannot put two and two together? If Canonical didn't go the vanity route and contributed upstream to other projects instead (as responsible companies tend to do), Wayland would be a lot closer to production grade today. Mir meant no interest in Wayland. If there was no Mir, there would probably have been. So you're wrong, it is direct cause and effect. Even if you don't get it.
13 comments
[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 39.2 ms ] threadI find the usual "karma", reputation or any similar system basically pointless (not only here), for some very simple reasons:
* To gain karma, one has to post some popular links. You don't need to generate content, but only find it. One can posts few popular links and immediately feel validated. This one is HN specific and could easily be fixed: E.g. if links that get upvotd would not increase karma only by one or two points. Links would retain the upvotes, not users. Users themselves would gain karma through comments, or other text-based contribution. (Of course this goes against HN's busniess interest: Engagement is easier generated when it's an easy source of meaningless rewards.)
* Upvoting anonymously has the potential to turn the site into a hype-aggregator. Hive mind decides, there is no justification. This makes the usual "popular content" (hype) even more popular (overhype), while anything meaningful becomes increasingly hard to find on the internet. (There are several resources available on what makes a post/article popular, it is rarely the amount of though or critical thinking applied to writing it. And I'm not even talking about cat-videos.) Fortunately HN is not like this, not yet, but there's a lot of "debris" that gets upvoted for whatever reason. (Still, a lot of good stuff, so there is hope. Personally, I think that is due to people commenting quite actively.)
* Down-voting anonymously carries the risk to create a toxic environment. It's the simplest form of trolling: No face, no name, no reason, no justification, just press a button. But even when there is, toxicity can take over. StackOverflow suffers from the same [1].
One obvious (part-)solution would be to both of the above, to only allow up/down-voting via comments. This would still enable the more determined troll/hype-seeker, but many would be discouraged when they would actually have to voice whatever concern/enthusiasm they have about whatever they like/dislike. Obviously this is once again counterproductive in terms of total engagement, and such sites value that more than meaningful engagement, so it cannot be fixed.
The bottom-line is, the whole karma/reputation/upvote/like/clap system is a good idea in an ideal environment. It's designed to give an opportunuty to democratically decide what's allowed to float. But both the design and its users are less-than-ideal:
* The design itself does not encourage meaningful debate, it rather discourages it, although this differs from site to site. (Even where it's encouraged, the diversity of allowed opinions is curbed by the hive-mind of the site in question).
* The users themselves often use it for a way of self-validation, narcissistic self-indulgence, or just plain old attention seeking and hoarding, etc.
So that is why.
[1] http://archive.is/kTKqG
[1]: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2018/01/26/bionic-beaver-18-04-l...
> "But apparently everybody either forgets or disregards the fact that Canonical is partly responsible for Wayland being nowhere near production grade after 10 years."
Then the article goes on to state that wasting time and resources on a never finished and casually abandoned project (Mir) has a lot to do with Wayland not being production grade after a decade.
Come on, it's really not a difficult read. Although some of the subtext of the article seems to be proven by the comments here...
(And complaining that nobody gets your article says more about you than them.)
E.g. you don't seem to get the article, as it's about hype and lack of interest in anything more than "oh my god latest tech trend", which is as sad as your above statement.
Obligation? Who talked about obligation? What obligation? You really cannot put two and two together? If Canonical didn't go the vanity route and contributed upstream to other projects instead (as responsible companies tend to do), Wayland would be a lot closer to production grade today. Mir meant no interest in Wayland. If there was no Mir, there would probably have been. So you're wrong, it is direct cause and effect. Even if you don't get it.