Comment by 1970-01-01
3 days ago
A 45/65 balance feels like it's at the optimal balance for interesting. Users are expected to continually upvote more and more boring posts if the user pool grows with noise. If the system stabilizes to 50/50, the content would trend toward mediocre but harmless.. Ergo, HN really is a cut above social media.
This totally matches my experience and is good way of describing OP's negative subreddit filtering.
R/weightlifting used to be total cesspool of rumors and gossip about athletes and coaches, but at some point the sub course corrected and got more heavily moderated. The result is a completely uninteresting feed of technique videos that are actually just kids showing off their latest PR.
However, the sub also aggressively reenforces that mediocrity. I posted what I thought was an interesting video of Lebron James doing a weightlifting drill, (with much lighter weight than a competitive lifter) and commenters jumped all the way up my ass about it being off topic, but also how Lebron has terrible weightlifting technique. No compelling discussion about weightlifting for elite athletes in other sports was had...