How's muting going so far? \ stacker news ~meta

3557 sats \ 28 comments \ @elvismercury 10 Oct 2023 meta

A recent release of SN introduced muting. At first I was conflicted about using it, like it would be good for me to read comments from people I dislike in the same way that it's good for you to not get too comfortable in life. You should suffer a bit, occasionally, so that when you have no choice in the matter, you're sufficient to the challenge.

Nonetheless, I made modest use of the feature, and since then, I've been doing an informal experiment: from time to time I expand one of the muted sub-trees, and ask myself: was it a good idea to mute this?

So far, it's been 100% good. My experience on SN is better, which means that my interactions with others are better. I'm not so irritated and I'm not tempted to be any stupider than I can't help but be.

How has your muting experience been? Have you noticed anything about how you encounter the site because of it?

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894 sats \ 0 replies \ @RoundaboutStacker 10 Oct 2023

As volume has increased, so have the misleading posts. When someone posts a title with crypto in the Bitcoin feed it is an instant mute. This alone has brought the quality of reading time on SN up for me.

580 sats \ 11 replies \ @k00b 10 Oct 2023

I’ve stopped myself from muting because I kind of need to qualitatively measuring everything that’s going on.

33 sats \ 10 replies \ @elvismercury OP 10 Oct 2023

Yeah, you're like those people at Facebook who have to stare into the abyss as part of their jobs. :(

Any insights from behind the scenes on how it's going, even if you personally have to keep suffering?

53 sats \ 8 replies \ @k00b 10 Oct 2023

I've noticed off-topicness has increased as comment volume has increased.

We also have someone impersonating one specific person which is lame

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @nemo 10 Oct 2023

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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @jennann 10 Oct 2023

Tea has deep roots in Chinese history, and its trade has transformed alongside China's ever-changing landscapes. In ancient times, tea wasn't usually bought with money. Instead, goods or services were exchanged for it. One of the best examples of this is the "Tea-Horse Road," where Tibetans would trade horses with the Chinese in exchange for bricks of tea. As cities and trade networks grew, especially during the Tang and Song dynasties, specialized tea markets and shops started popping up. Here, people could pick from a range of teas, either as loose leaves or traditional tea bricks. The cost of tea wasn't static; it could vary based on its quality, origin, and form. It's tough to pin down the exact prices from those times, but it's known that high-quality teas, like the famous Dragon Well, were pretty pricey. Additionally, not all teas made it to the market. The best ones, known as "tribute teas," were reserved for the emperor and his court. These weren't bought in a typical sense but were more of a gift to win the emperor's favor. Over time, the way tea was graded and its quality assessed became more refined, with factors like leaf size, aroma, and taste coming into play. By the time of the Song dynasty, tea drinking had become a sophisticated affair, with innovations in preparation and even dedicated writings like "The Classic of Tea" by Lu Yu, making tea an integral part of Chinese culture.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 11 Oct 2023

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 10 Oct 2023

Solid point.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 10 Oct 2023

Yes :) "Oh 10 comments on the wallet fingerprints link" ... "oh none of them are about wallet fingerprints" ... This is just a sign we need DMs imo

226 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 10 Oct 2023

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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 10 Oct 2023

Life finds a way, I guess. This meta-discussion right here is another example of it.

I was thinking about asking somewhere if there's a way to hack around it and make a pseudo-DM, and send a payment to someone's SN lightning address using a 'normal' lightning wallet, and attach a message to it or something. Is that a thing?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 10 Oct 2023

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54 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 10 Oct 2023

I knew someone at google who built tooling for the abyss starers. They all had deluxe mental health benefits.

343 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 10 Oct 2023

Now I know why no one talks to me anymore.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 10 Oct 2023

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322 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 10 Oct 2023

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288 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 10 Oct 2023

I am using it very sparingly but it is useful for those accounts who post nothing I find valuable.

226 sats \ 2 replies \ @tomlaies 10 Oct 2023

I haven't muted anything so far. Seeing all kinds of opinions is valuable.

I've done so on all my internet history (despite bot-spam ads, junk mail etc ofc). People who need to mute something because they can't handle disagreeing strike me as weak and pathetic.

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 10 Oct 2023

It's less "disagreeing" and more "people being abusive assholes" but if you can wade through that and want to keep coming back, more power to you.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @tomlaies 10 Oct 2023

I guess you're right. Everything between "abusive assholes" and "despite bot-spam ads, junk mail etc" is a spectrum without a clear line to separate.

I just dislike the idea of muting someone due to disagreement or cognitive dissonance.

10 sats \ 5 replies \ @nullcount 10 Oct 2023

With very few exceptions, muted all top 21 cowboys.

More plebs in my feed. None of these accounts that are short BTC for clout.

Its funny how the same handful of accounts feel compelled to chime in on every top post. The more a user puts out, the less I want to read it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 10 Oct 2023

Makes me wonder who the exceptions are

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 10 Oct 2023

I don't know who the top 21 are, I'm going to try to check after this. Do you find that, having muted in that way, you get a mix of perspectives?

My chief gripe is that so many people are very close to zero signal -- you already know what they're going to say. Everything they say is some variant of what they've already said. Or actually, it's a variant of the median view on btc Twitter is. It's not even their own opinions they're regurgitating.

This is equally true of almost every btc podcast at this point. Whatever value there was in that is long gone for me.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @nullcount 10 Oct 2023

The biggest downside so far is that some of these cowboys are really active at sharing good links. So I miss a lot of those.

Just check SN front page once a day/week as anon to see what I missed.

I feel you on the low-signal gripe. A lot of BTC-focused media is top-of-funnel designed to help people fall down the rabbit hole, or validate their bullishness with whatever current thing is happening. But once you're a few years down the rabbit hole, it becomes quite noisy.

503 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 10 Oct 2023

I think as time passes some of the user action will probably start to form coherent clusters and sub-communities that might help with this issue. Introducing sub-reddit-like functionality, which I think @k00b said before they intend to do, will open up a lot of blue sky, I think. So much to figure out!