Hello again,

"can you tell me more about whether, when you say 'it would make for a healthier community by being as transparent as possible' - you're referring to transparency of the platform, transparency of the culture, transparency of the membership?"

-Transparency around the manual methods & algorithms used on HN as a platform specifically when determining submission/content rankings. Is it 100% social voting?

when you describe yourself as 'just here to listen learn from smart people' and go on to say that you were 'a lurker' for a relatively long period of time, would you say that there's a connection between two? As in, members who feel certain role relations (i.e. just here to learn) to the HN community end up sustaining certain behaviors (i.e. lurking).

-I don't understand this question, but I think it's just more my nature to be a fly on the wall by default.

I'm not sure I know enough about 'identity politics' as you're using it here, but fascinated by this distinction between 'caliber of content' and 'who it's coming from' - what do you think or see as sustaining this 'high/low' emphasis the most?

-Again, I don't really understand this question the way its worded? But first and foremost it starts with the way the platform is designed. Think about how little personally identifiable information is required to join and participate this community. All you get is a random handle (which I'd wager most people don't even look at anyways) and nothing else asked, needed, or wanted. It's actually great equalizer on many levels.

...and because of this design approach, how little emphasis is found around here on who we physically are in terms of age, race, ethnicity, gender, location, orientation, disability, etc. These components of our 'identity' are largely if not completely irrelevant in this community. Effectively, what this does is it creates and keeps more space for the intellect to speak freely and for itself without distractions, subconscious biases, etc. stemming from the "who" we are outside - rather it's much more about what's going inside!

I don't know what to call this hypothetical relationship whereas less identity politics = better content, conversational qualities, and learning opportunities...(read: health) but there's something bigger at play here on HN vs any other scaled social community/forum I am aware of - save for some niche subreddits. (And Twitter would be just about the exact opposite, which maybe healthy as a business operation, but not nearly as healthy in the community sense for me at least). Maybe because the nature of the topics and shared interests on HN is grounded much more in the rational, logical, mathematical, scientific realm? Does this place and emphasis the pursuit of truth and reason above all else? Does HN intentionally lack the emotional side of humanity, and therefore is deemed "healthier" among certain types of people?

Personally, and provisionally, I consider 'success' and 'health' to be as much about the ability of a community to sustain itself through a transition - shift in purpose, direction of vision, change in norms, etc - as much as the capabilities of its members to bring about these types of transitions.

-Thanks for answering that and reading mine.