JA WestenbergFeb 17, 2025

I write this as someone who spent years engaging in online debates.

I have the screenshots of "victories" to prove it. I can craft the perfect quote tweet, deploy the devastating counterexample, and unleash the clever analogy that leaves opponents speechless.

And I'm dumber for all of it.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/you-will-never-win-an-argument-on-the-internet-heres-why/

You Will Never Win an Argument On the Internet—Here's Why

The Internet promised us a renaissance of discourse. Armed with instant access to all human knowledge and the ability to connect with brilliant minds worldwide, we imagined our online debates would elevate human understanding to unprecedented heights.  But two decades later, we scroll through our choice of social poison, watching

westenberg.
Show threadGharbeia, ⒶFeb 17, 2025

@Daojoan I was reflecting on my interactions on Reddit during the past year and reached the same conclusions, even though I never elaborated them as well as you do.

For one thing. I was thinking that platforms should give more weight to discussions that extend over several exchanges/comments and longer spans of time, rather than rewarding only up-/downvotes.

Show threadDavid LabanFeb 19, 2025

@gharbeia @Daojoan

I have been pondering the "And the house always fucking wins" part of the post. I wonder if we could encode a set of heuristics onto a bsky feed.

Thread length might be a good start. What else might we put in there to help us reward consensus building and punish outrage farming?

Show threadGharbeia, ⒶFeb 21, 2025
@alsuren @Daojoan Span of time over which a conversation extends, between the original parties or those engaging soon after its beginning, with a cut-off-limit.
Rationale: If you keep getting back to a conversation, it means you've been thinking, rather than deterrence by "easy dunks".
Show threadDavid Laban

@gharbeia @Daojoan My fear with these metrics is that if you make a feed of long and thoughtful conversation threads from across the network, the consumers of this feed will have to remain voyeurs, or risk derailing the good conversation.

If we limit ourselves to only surfacing easy-to-engage-with top level posts and boosts and first/second level replies, how could we reward consensus farming and punish outrage farming? How do we reward people who build consensus outside their filter bubbles?

Feb 21, 2025 at 9:57amWeb
Show threadDavid LabanFeb 21, 2025

@gharbeia @Daojoan I think that one piece of the puzzle is being able to detect dunks. Probably using sentiment analysis?

I really like the idea from pol.is of finding voting cliques and then identifying posts that gain positive consensus from multiple cliques. I don't know how well that would translate to bsky though, because you need to decide what a "vote" looks like.

Show threadGharbeia, ⒶMar 4, 2025
@alsuren @Daojoan
Speaking of discussions on the web, do you know Kialo.com?
Show threadDavid LabanMar 4, 2025
@gharbeia I had not heard of kialo.com. Looking at the featured topics on the homepage, it feels like people are being incentivised to rage-bait. From a cursory glance, there doesn't seem to be any effort to reward people for boosting claims on both sides of the argument, or surfacing claims that are favoured by people who are mostly boosting the opposing position. They probably have enough data to build this though, if you know where one might suggest this kind of thing.
Show threadGharbeia, ⒶMar 5, 2025
@alsuren there are no regwards of any form. No karma is handed out. It assumes that people are willing to engage in conversation. It's a fairly complicated tool to use, which drives away basic trolls.