I think about this from time to time -- how people build up this sense of personality related to a forum or site. I think what tends to happen for an individual is that when you're talking to millions of people you don't have the perspective on who says what anymore, it becomes "twitter thinks" or "reddit says" instead of "these 10 people."
I think the reason everybody knows everything is that because we don't look at the individuals when we talk in a forum like this. There are always going to be some 'famous' people whose names pop up over and over, but as general responses you don't really know what a person thinks about something. We internalize a consensus of opinions and then it becomes just "well, HN said this."
This is most apparent when the forum contradicts itself. If there isn't another way to denote the opinions (like a sub-forum) then you start seeing comments like "everyone was against it yesterday and now everyone is in favor?" when in reality it's unlikely to be the same people responding anyway.
I think about this from time to time -- how people build up this sense of personality related to a forum or site. I think what tends to happen for an individual is that when you're talking to millions of people you don't have the perspective on who says what anymore, it becomes "twitter thinks" or "reddit says" instead of "these 10 people."
I think the reason everybody knows everything is that because we don't look at the individuals when we talk in a forum like this. There are always going to be some 'famous' people whose names pop up over and over, but as general responses you don't really know what a person thinks about something. We internalize a consensus of opinions and then it becomes just "well, HN said this."
This is most apparent when the forum contradicts itself. If there isn't another way to denote the opinions (like a sub-forum) then you start seeing comments like "everyone was against it yesterday and now everyone is in favor?" when in reality it's unlikely to be the same people responding anyway.