zlacker

>>unquot+(OP)
Yes. Most of the content you watch on TV was written and acted by outliers. The products you use and consume were crafted, marketed and even distributed by outliers.

First, when zoomed out, outliers in all possible tasks become more common — internet commenting is just a subset for silly folks like me.

Secondly, the emergent human social fabric is built to recognize and amplify outspoken and / or talented outliers, via mechanisms whereby others who {agree, can find utility, can profit} are incentivized to act as amplifiers. The cost function to repeat a message drops precipitously every time it’s repeated (influences status quo). I’m not sure it’s particularly surprising that internet social forums behave by the same rules — and are even optimized to replicate them mechanistically (upvotes).

I mean... not be dismissive, I guess it does strike me as particularly neat that the internet provides a medium for these people to productively share insight and identify new niches where they can potentially add value to the rest of the world. Where would we on HN be without, say, patio11? :)

>>keithw+d2
I still think it's surprising that there are so many lurkers who literally never engage in the discussion, considering the barriers to do so are so low.

>>chrisc+o2
I find it's mostly that posting a comment is very different from entering into discussion. There is a surprising amount of friction attached to entering into a discussion on the web, compared to just lobbing a comment onto a page (like I'm doing right now). Throw in point scoring to comments, and you've created a system that just doesn't appeal to the majority of people.

You get publicly scored on your contributions to the discussion. Most people are turned off by the idea of discussions being adversarial, point scoring, confrontational.

And in that respect, I consider the barriers to comment contribution to be very high indeed.