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
The barriers only seem low to those people who've already passed them.

But I remember teenage me, over 20 years ago, being very reserved about writing online because I considered my grammar too bad and I didn't want to embarrass myself.

And back then there wasn't even anything social media, where blunders like that could lead straight back to "real" me, the whole idea still made me anxious.

Can't even begin to imagine how teenagers these days must feel with social media being literally everywhere and recording pretty much everything they write for the foreseeable future.

At least nowadays they have access to some pretty good grammar correction tools ;)

>>freefl+8d
I know of some friends who are lurking on HN, but feel like the have nothing valuable to contribute to most discussions. So they just read the comments without feeling comfortable enough to interact with them.

Maybe out of fear of saying something wrong and getting debated on it - though it's quite civilized here. They might have seen too much of other websites where things turn less civil :)