zlacker

Sure, your analysis is probably correct for moderate sized subs to smaller. But the bigger ones can't have such a narrow field of view to sect like ingroup thinking without manipulation.

I guess it is a combo of additive fake grassroots and bans.

It feels like, at some point, a point of view becomes law and all dissent disappears.

I mean three close friends in some anarchist 100-voters-in-total party don't agree as much as reddit users seems to do.

>>rightb+(OP)
> But the bigger ones can't have such a narrow field of view to sect like ingroup thinking without manipulation.

Why not? If billions of people can be in a religion then surely millions can be in a subreddit with some religion-like properties.

I think there is probably not a clear and useful line between manipulation and moderation. There's no neutral moderation, all mod policies and actions are towards a certain goal & vision for how the community should be. I'm not sure what fake grassroots would be but I think the upvotes and awards account for that: people know what will be rewarded and the rewards turn posting into a performance.

Anyway I'm going to point this out again because it's useful and interesting: HN behaves in these same ways to about the same degree as any large sub does. The alignment on etiquette, culture, accepted belief and punishment for deviation from it is very strong here. This indicates to me that this is somehow an emergent characteristic of large self-selecting online communities.