[HN Gopher] Why You Need a Community: Opportunity Exposure and t...
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Why You Need a Community: Opportunity Exposure and the Internet
Echo Chamber
Author : wporr
Score : 45 points
Date : 2020-07-15 19:21 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (liamp.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (liamp.substack.com)
| rmellow wrote:
| In times of Covid, I've found that serendipity can be found in
| online parties - I'm specifically referring to
| https://spatial.chat (no affiliation). This is able to mimic in-
| person social interactions in a way that it's not 10 people
| speaking one at a time.
|
| Instead, you can organically form smaller groups according to
| their camera/avatar X,Y position (volume is inverse to distance).
|
| In these "parties" I can meet friends of friends, who I wouldn't
| normally meet by myself or online. There's enough social pressure
| to actually listen to someone I don't know that might end up
| being very interesting.
| wporr wrote:
| I didnt have time to talk about it, but I think that the COVID
| crisis could be helpful for maturing this part of the internet.
| Its not that I dont think its possible for serendipity to be
| found online, but that we still need to develop a framework
| that is able to mimic it well
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The only online communities I've found valuable are the ones that
| mirror my real-world network. People I have met in person, former
| coworkers, friends of friends, or at least people in the same
| tight-knit industry or hobby niche.
|
| The problem with the public communities is that it doesn't take
| long before they're dominated by those who have the most free
| time on their hands. Free time to post, free time to respond,
| free time to upvote/downvote and direct the discussion. Generally
| speaking, the people who have the most free time to be online all
| day, every day are not the same people who are out there getting
| things done, doing interesting work, and otherwise having a good
| time in the real world. That's fine if you're looking to waste
| time clicking around on Reddit or Twitter, but it's not often
| conducive to forming real friendships, relationships, or
| communities. Obviously there are exceptions, but the more public
| and noisy the community, the more time you have to invest to
| filter through to the weak signal in all of that noise.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Another issue I've found with online communities is that they
| generally focus on a single thing.
|
| It's great when you just want to talk about that one thing, but
| I don't think it's a great way to make friends.
|
| Twitter is interesting to me because it's a network rather than
| a community, but there often seems to be a weird power dynamic
| between people which would also stifle friendships.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > The problem with the public communities is that it doesn't
| take long before they're dominated by those who have the most
| free time on their hands.
|
| In both online and offline communities you can partially
| mitigate this issue by employing people to be full-time
| caretakers of the community.
| floren wrote:
| I think he means dominated in terms of posting as much as
| dominated in terms of moderation.
| jlokier wrote:
| Perhaps we need a newsfeed that promotes people who post
| rarely, and demotes people who post often.
| wporr wrote:
| I think that more niche communities tend to be more valuable,
| but they still run the issue of intellectual isolation
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I've found a combination of transparency and a liberal ban
| policy to be helpful.
| thoraway1010 wrote:
| This exactly, and I'd add another thing - online only
| communities can become dominated by the folks with the absolute
| strongest feelings / opinions. Most offensive or most offended,
| most absolute in their thinking. It tends to drive the folks
| I'm interested in hearing from out. In a social group they'd
| quickly just not be invited to stuff, or might value other
| aspects of a relationship and so dial back a bit. Online - not
| so much.
|
| There's also very little consequence for blowing things up into
| bigger / click-bait style headlining.
|
| If community is bouncing ideas around, thoughts, etc, then that
| is much harder online.
|
| I've found getting off social media helps HUGELY in naturally
| helping get other communities going.
| mc32 wrote:
| I agree. Sometimes the more reasonable people lose control to
| the more acerbic folks because the latter are a bit better at
| dealing with moderation issues (or are willing to take it in)
| However the bad side is by their nature these people can
| exercise strong opinions and dismiss other people's input and
| they end up shaping the community into their image rather
| than the if the group. To add to that they'll violate the
| principles they set up and use to moderate often without
| consequence.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| The extremists types need to be controlled both online and in
| real world: the same way as you kick out THAT guy from a
| party who is trying to convince everybody for the 25th time
| that the earth is flat, the online platform would have to do
| the same. I had a few warnings on HN for the way some of my
| post were written and while initially not quite satisfied
| about it, I did reflect on it and it made me realise that
| these rules do make HN better.
| Funes- wrote:
| Alright, from my own experience, being part of thriving
| communities composed of people geographically close to oneself
| seems to be hugely benefitial. What about an online platform that
| facilitates _offline_ encounters with like-minded people? Perhaps
| a free, more casual and decentralized version of Meetup?
| wporr wrote:
| This could work, but people would need to embrace it for it to
| work. These things tend to turn into hookup sites or platforms
| for other unintended interaction.
| roldie wrote:
| To me the most important part of that blog post is the bit about
| serendipity. Serendipity or spontaneous interaction is one of the
| biggest factors that determines relationships. I'm not sure if
| there's an official name for this theory, but I remember studying
| it in grad school. The gist of the study was that increased
| frequency in unplanned/spontaneous interactions was correlated
| with increased likelihood of a relationship (or maybe the
| correlation was with a stronger relationship).
|
| Your friends from school are your friends because you had the
| opportunity to see and interact with each other every day, and
| get to know each other.
|
| Same thing with romantic relationships. If you keep running into
| that cute girl or guy you kinda know, you'll have more chances to
| talk and to get to know them well enough to ask them out.
|
| I think this is partly why dating apps have been such a crapshoot
| for so many people, they don't get the chance to interact past
| the initial swipe or chat. This is also partly why it's difficult
| to make friends as adults. You simply don't have as many
| opportunities to meet new people. And you don't have as many
| opportunities to turn those new people into familiar people and
| eventually friends.
|
| Spontaneous encounters can only occur if you put yourself in a
| place for that serendipity to occur. So if you join a community
| like the blog post encourages, then you set yourself up to have
| more of those spontaneous interacts with the same people.
| wporr wrote:
| I agree that this is the most important part of the post, and
| it should probably be emphasized even more. I'm probably going
| to write a post about this in itself.
|
| Curious about the studies you mention. Have any names or links?
| goalieca wrote:
| We need to do away with the downvote button. A simple reporting
| button for trolling suffices.
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