Ribbonfarm Is Retiring

It seems to me that the blogosphere was not a ZIRP but rather a young Internet phenomenon. Which could exists, like usenet before it, when mere access to it was a filtering mechanism.

Once you have seven billion people with virtually no access control, you can't have a public blogosphere, and groups retreat to the cozyweb.

Either way, I enjoyed it while it lasted. Thanks for the Office series!

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

> Once you have seven billion people with virtually no access control, you can't have a public blogosphere, and groups retreat to the cozyweb.

Why can’t you? There’s a logical leap in this statement I don’t follow.

Those seven billion people aren't very good for the most part, and include a critical mass of spectacularly awful people. It turns out that public access forums calibrated for the small and self-selected community of mostly high quality internet pioneers aren't prepared to deal with 1000000x expansion of reachable audience. The Eternal September effect has been getting stronger ever since it's first been observed.

>It turns out that public access forums calibrated for the small and self-selected community of mostly high quality internet pioneers aren't prepared to deal with 1000000x expansion of reachable audience.

"Checklist for new theories purporting to prove that the social web is presently unworkable:"

...

26. The predicted conflicts still wouldn't be as bad as Usenet flamewars.

27. Your theory proves that Hackernews does not exist. <---

28. Audiences afraid of engaging with an unfamiliar interfaces weren't making websites in 1998 either.

...

This forum has been decreasing in quality since its inception, currently hovering at not-quite-reddit and that's with an organic audience of tech-adjacent posters. It would turn into a smoking hole in the ground if it somehow caught worldwide attention.

You're a fish swimming in fragile water you fail to appreciate.

There's an interesting phenomenon where any time a long time HN user says that discussion quality has been declining (something many have reported), a moderator will essentially say that people have been claiming that for as long as they've been moderating, but that it does not match their observations.

I've always found that contradiction interesting (and puzzling).