To get good, go after the metagame - <AUTHOR> https://commoncog.com/blog/to-get-good-go-after-the-metagame/ <comment><USER2> Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least a high degree of 'correctness') decisions based on them. This is true for all esports titles, and probably all games in general.

Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. It's not until you reach a level where _everyone_ around you has a mastery of the fundamentals, that the meta comes into play.

source: coached and managed professional esports players, in multiple games, who have competed in the world championship of their respective titles.

<comment><USER3> I disagree slightly. The metagame is relevant whenever you're facing opponents of _similar_ skill. If you're way better than your opponent, you can use highly sub-optimal, non-meta strategies and win through sheer experience and skill. For instance, I could kill 50% of Starcraft opponents lower than me by building only one unit and even announcing which unit I'll mass up.

However, if you're making a similar number of errors as your opponent, then the meta does come into play. Regardless of the raw error rate, where pros make few and amateurs make many, if this rate is similar to your opponent, then it still matters if your opponent has a strategic/meta counter to your strategy.

<comment><USER4> This is a good point. I played semi-high level StarCraft for a while (high masters, low grandmasters), and strategic decisions based on the metagame certainly won and lost me many games. That said, the GP has a point, too. I probably would've been better served working on my mechanics and fundamentals if I wanted to advance to the next level.

<comment><USER5> If you played against grandmasters your fundamentals were likely extremely good relative to most players

<comment><USER6> > If you played against grandmasters your fundamentals were likely extremely > good relative to most players

Relative to most players, no doubt. To be fair though, even someone in diamond is "extremely good relative to most players".

I was a mid+ NA grandmaster zerg, and took games off players like EG demuslim. And even at the level I was at, fundamentals were the most important thing. And even at the level I was at, I could see the fundamental errors that I or my opponents would make.

Certainly though, when facing off a player of a similar skill, knowing the meta can be really helpful. Even more important is knowing that specific player's playstyle.

When you practice with a certain partner consistently, you start doing things that you would never do against an unknown player, to exploit quirks of their playstyle. The best players had incredible game sense and thus were really good at doing this. (My favorite player for a long time was Stephano, who absolutely excelled at this)

\--

I'm not sure I had an actual point I was making :P

<comment><USER5> I was a masters NA Zerg, not quite at your level but we probably could have met in the ladder at some point.

I totally agree, I just think it's not great advice to say "if you want to get good go after the meta". Some gaming communities over emphasize the meta and IMO StarCraft is one of them. Meta is just one aspect of ways to get an edge and as you progress in your skill you need to take advantage of every edge you can get.

Many StarCraft streamers will do challenges where they only go for a certain, non dominate strategy to see how high they can rise, the one that stuck with me the most was destiny going mass queen. I saw so many people asking "what can counter mass queen" because they saw him winning over and over again. The answer wasn't how should you change your strat to deal with someone going mass queen, they aren't that good, the answer was to be better at macro than that player.

<comment><USER6> I started in Gold and ended up in GM, so depending on timing, we might have come across each other. I played under the name "sanddbox".

I used to be a huge Destiny fanboy. In fact, my measure of when I'd "made it" was when I could beat Destiny on ladder. (He beat me many times as well, of course).

Side note: Kind of sad that when I checked up him a couple months ago, he mostly just seems to do weird political debate style stuff these days

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A saying I have related to this is "Rules make sports." The skills and strategies that matter in a sport develop _around_ the rules. Change the rules and you change the sport.

The judo example the author presented is actually one of my go-to examples as well. Not only did disallowing grabbing the legs take out an entire suite of offensive options, it took out _defensive_ options in judo. In judo, the main way to win is to throw your opponent such that they land on their back. Before, a judo player could grab their opponents legs as a way to counter a throw. Now grabbing the legs is a penalty. But allowing yourself to be thrown is going to at least result in your opponent getting a point, and has potential for you to lose the match. So the solution is, in some situations, judo players will just intentionally face-plant onto the mat to avoid the throw. It looks silly, no one would do it in a self-defense situation, but rules make sports.

Note that just about all combat and grappling sports have this quirk: because they have rules, and are not just a free-form fight, you're going to encounter situations where the optimal thing to do in the sport would be terrible to do in a real fight.

<comment><USER8> Fencing exhibits this phenomenon nicely. Fencing does not come even close to mimicking a real sword fight. One reason for this is right of way, basically the idea that the person who attacks first gets precedence and the onus is on their opponent to defend against the attack before attacking themselves. However what is defined as an "attack" in fencing is very different from what a layperson would assume. Really, it's defined as forward movement without a clear intention to take the blade. Which means that tactics such as advancing with ones arm held back are rewarded.

A lot of people, upon hearing this, respond with something along the lines of "fencing is stupid! We should make our own sword fighting system that encourages real fighting!". HEMA is a nice example of this. Putting aside the questionable logic of a martial art based around swords, what inevitably happens is that as the system develops, people want to compete, to see who is the better fighter. Since they clearly can't judge fights by, well, murder, they need to come up with a rules and points system. Once this system develops, someone starts to realize "hmm, if I do x action, I can win fairly easily". Thus a meta develops. Once a meta develops, everybody starts using the meta to win and the fighting becomes less mimicking killing people with a sword and more competing in a sport.

Some argue that the way to prevent this is to not have competitions or rules. But...then you have a bunch of people waving around swords with no clue as to whether it's actually effective.

Side note, fencing has had a few of these major meta developments in its history too. Johan Harmenberg famously pushed epee's meta to be a lot more athletic and dynamic.

<comment><USER9> Many martial-like sports have a fundamental problem caused by this. In essence, there's a sequence:

1\. are certain techniques that are likely to cause injury even with proper protective gear, that sucks in a sport;

2\. so we make rules to prohibit using such techniques;

3\. so the meta changes so that realistic tactics (which obviously need to protect against the dangerous technique) become suboptimal, and the new meta is 'unnatural' as it leaves the fighters vulnerable to something that's prohibited but would be used in any real situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is also the ultimate version of the metagame i.e. your personal human condition. Blindly pursuing your career or chasing money without understanding the finite duration of your own physical existence, the scale of the universe, where you want to be in terms of life goals and family.

<comment><USER11> This is the meta I'm struggling to learn at the moment. I constantly gripe that people making similar salaries in my organization don't produce nearly as much as I do...but they seem happy and I'm constantly stressed out. Which begs the question...who's winning?

<comment><USER12> The answer probably lies somewhere halfway between you and them. What you are doing is probably good in terms of staying sharp with your skills. But _some_ detachment can help: I am assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) that you care very much about what's going on at work and that causes stress.

But I think it's possible to continue to care while not letting the organization's sluggishness affect you in a personal way. You care because you believe it's the right thing to do and/or because it furthers your skills. Good. The others are missing out; even if their pay is the same now, in 5-10 years you will be better positionned than them for whatever opportunities come. At the same time—and this is where that balance comes in—if you're slaving away with no enjoyment of life, it all seems pointless.

<comment><USER13> You are missing an important meta. Those who don't produce as much might produce something that is more valuable than you and thus be more valuable than you despite not producing as much quantity.

I've seen a lot of people fall into that trap and then get bitter when the "less productive" person was promoted.

Of course sometimes the meta is licking your bosses boots not something that makes the company money...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article is very good, but i dislike the word "meta" for this whole notion as it is simple a Nash Equilibrium ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium)) for some game. Changes of rules makes other equilibria, some equilibria are probabilistic (that makes the game balanced I think) some are just pure strategies (choose this hero if available). I think naming "meta" as "Nash Equilibrium" would popularize game theory more and add some good tools for balancing games.

It is also very interesting that you can sometimes find Equilibrium by researching "counters" or using best response dynamic ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_response))

If someone is interested in this topic becuase of esports commitment or just by curiosity there are some nice youtube videos and papers about using game theory in games:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miu3ldl- nY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miu3ldl-nY4)

[https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/h...](https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/22797/Jaffe_washington_0250E_11528.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)

I don't want to nitpick the word meta, just maybe someone will find more info if he or she knew how to google it properly.

ps I created account specially to write this comment :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Software development is a really funny example of this. The meta changes constantly and as a result "the technology is changing all the time". The thing is that the underlying principles and rules have barely changed in the last few decades. This is why I've never understood people that are enthusiastic about new programming languages and frameworks (among other things). It is just exploring the potential of a different meta. It doesn't necessarily make you a better programmer and probably your time is spent better elsewhere.

I personally believe this is also the reason why in the last few decades we are seeing less and less 'good' new programmers. Turns out it is quite counter intuitive for a new player to understand why they should spent their time on underlying principles and not on constantly chasing the shinny.

<comment><USER16> It seems to me that ever-changing tech is the meta of software development.

When done right, new tools and frameworks make us more productive and enable us to do more in less time. Because time to market is a crucial component of startup success, picking the right tools can give you that edge.

As for the underlying principles of software development, that's the "fundamentals" that everybody is talking about in this thread. OF COURSE you need to master them. But once you do, the meta really is chasing new tech. The problem is that folks with no knowledge of fundamentals are constantly chasing the new thing - i.e. attempting to play the meta prematurely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Donkeyspace is my favorite idea derived from metagames, but I can't find any good descriptions online.

As any given meta becomes dominant, other playstyles become viable that would not be viable in a game against players unaware of the meta, or in a different meta. A counter-meta. Sometimes there's counter-counter-meta and then you're really in Donkeyspace.

<comment><USER18> [http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=2346](http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=2346)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am the worst (maybe best) person to play board games with because 5 minutes after learning the rules I loudly proclaim what I perceive the meta to be, and unashamedly telegraph my moves in regards to it. I lose almost all of the time, but it makes the night much more memorable and I enjoy the mental exercise of trying to quickly grok a meta. Sometimes for fun I loudly proclaim "I'm going to Moneyball this!", and then often we end up discussing baseball or movies for a fair bit too.

Here are a few games and what their meta is not:

The Climbers - Don't try and get as high as quickly as possible.

Munchkin - Don't try and become a mercenary for hire defending anyone who needs it.

<comment><USER20> In law school, I had a 'how to negotiate' workshop once. We were given a fictitious deal to negotiate (with some external circumstances hidden from us), were paired up with a random person and then had 15 minutes to execute in the hallway. The second I got my numbers, I started building some sort of game theory model around the circumstances in my head, filling in some numbers and scenarios, all while stalling the girl opposite to me so that I had more time to work on my 'optimal strategy'. So then in the last 3 minutes or so, I 'executed' on my theory and we both got our negotiated numbers. The girl looked rather bored and played a bit dumb, giving out the feeling of 'I'll let you have this one, what do I care.'

Well the result is easy to predict - after the hidden circumstances and our respective numbers were revealed, it turned out she had basically steamrolled me and any smugness I might have had about my rational approach and winning strategy was crushed. I stopped doing any formal analysis of real world decision making after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "The metagame" in MTG was popularized by the game's creator, Richard Garfield after playing a lot of Cosmic Encounter and other games.

He wrote a great paper on it here: [https://edt210gamestechsociety.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/2...](https://edt210gamestechsociety.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/2000-garfield- metagame.pdf)

<comment><USER22> TL;DR: Magic became competitive and players influenced Magic by demanding competitive rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> One of my favorite books of all times: _The Art of Learning_ by Josh Waitzkin. He was the chess prodigy written about in _Searching for Bobby Fisher_. He quit chess shortly after and became a world champion in Tai Chi. The book is about learning two very different skills and how they are the same.

Thesis that learning one thing deeply helps learn other (unrelated) things makes total sense to me.

<comment><USER24> If anyone reacts as I did and wonders how it's possible to compete in Tai Chi, the competitive sport [1] is not the slow-movements-in-the-park activity I had in mind.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_hands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_hands)

<comment><USER25> its pure bullshido [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-KX99T5r3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-KX99T5r3A)

<comment><USER26> I agree and it's interesting that he also went on to become a black belt in jiu jitsu which is mostly not bullshido.

<comment><USER27> Very true - even blue belts in BJJ are savage killers compared to similarly- ranked adherents in other arts, TMA or not, much less the average drunk bully in a bar.

Yet a lot of the same life lessons are passed on through the right, uh, professor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Playing a game immediately after learning the rules is my favorite challenge - especially when the other players are all new too.

At this stage, tactics are mostly about keeping all the rules in your head and thinking hard before each move. But strategy is really interesting. Everyone is guessing blindly, and you can often win by guessing slightly less blindly.

I have two meta-strategies:

(1) Game phases

While learning the rules, whenever possible, mentally categorize game mechanics as opening-related or endgame-related. For example, a lot of board games have some engine-building in the opening and some point maximization in the end.

During the game, constantly estimate the distance to the end of the game. On the first playthrough, most people transition to endgame too late.

(2) Mechanics comparison

Whenever a game has different types of mechanics or resources, search for reference points that compare them. For example, in Dominion, you must choose between buying treasure and action cards. So on the first playthrough, you should deduce that 1 silver is similar to an action with (+2 treasure, +1 action).

The article talks about the metagame transition in Splendor, when players realize that a strategy with minimal engine-building is viable. I deduced that on the first playthrough by trying very hard to estimate the value of a 2-cost card vs taking resources.

Of course, you need to continuously re-evaluate as you understand the game better. By I have a very high winrate on first playthroughs relative to my general ability.

Does anyone else have meta-strategies for this situation?

<comment><USER29> Interestingly I played splendor for the first time against some experienced players a couple of weeks ago, and after they explained the rules and how the best strategy is to slowly build up resources, I googled 'how do you win at splendor' and everyone said to try and grab the most expensive cards first.

So I did that, then they said it was beginners luck after I won. Then I won two more times, and they said 'wow you just must be good at games', and I said no, I'm good at googling.

That's my whole IT career in a nutshell.

<comment><USER30> This strategy is only viable if nobody is blocking you from the tier 2 and especially tier 3 cards either by reserving what you're obviously going for, or shorting the supply of a colour you clearly need - But it works great otherwise.

Splendor has clever subtle player interaction here which I think is a real strong part of its design.

<comment><USER31> I've played a lot of four-player Splendor, and went two years and three tournaments without losing a game. One of the lessons from that is this: Even if three players are all jockeying for the expensive cards, it is still a losing strategy for the fourth to try to build an engine.

Good players playing against other good players will often grab one or two cheapies in the midgame to deal with resource scarcity. But you simply cannot win by buying cheap cards, building an engine, and picking up nobles. It's just that much slower.

The metagame in Splendor is more subtle, as you say. It's about clever play interaction and depends heavily on the early-game tableau. Does the tableau strongly favor a single color? Then your choice is to jockey for position on that color, or avoid the resource scarcity and go for weaker and/or less- coordinated cards. Does it have a lot of strong cards? Then it's about finding one or two you can get without someone else tying up your resources. Does it have a lot of weak cards? Then it's about finding ways to gain an upper hand for when the stronger cards come out.

Are players holding a lot of chips? Then you need to avoid getting stuck with a poor "hand" of chips - either a full hand that can't buy anything useful, or an empty hand when the chip supply is weak. Are they hoarding the wilds? That's much like the above, but with even more pitfalls.

Unfortunately, there's a skill ceiling to Splendor, and it's fairly low. Once you approach it, improvement is asymptotic, and the luck element of the game spikes tremendously. These days, I don't really like playing without the expansion. But in good news, the expansion refreshes the game wonderfully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting. I'm familiar with the meta as it relates to gaming (I follow SC2 pretty closely, though I basically never play anymore). I am curious to explore what the meta is as it relates to building web apps, or building software systems. I guess in web apps, the meta has evolved away from stateful and towards stateless applications, rigid to ephemeral infrastructure, and away from big kitchen sink frameworks towards smaller tools built for specific purposes (here I'm thinking like netlify, react-cli / vue-cli, serverless and aws lambda compatible frameworks and languages). In database land, I think there's a bit of reversal towards a happy medium between Relational and No SQL with the whole NewSQL trend (though I think most people just end up using whatever they're comfortable with).

I think the concept of 'covered ground' is especially fascinating when it comes to thinking about the meta of building web apps. Do you really appreciate the trade offs between MySQL and MongoDB, if you haven't ran into the scaling issues between the two? I don't think "running a bad migration" is covering enough ground to appreciate the differences. Is struggling to wrangle a bug in an Angular 1 directive enough 'covered ground' to understand the meta in building frontend applications?

And I wonder if the meta is moving towards low code and no code frameworks. Dark Lang looks pretty cool, though I've never really used it. Retool proved really valuable for internal dashboards for managing customer support at my last company.

You could explore the meta at a more fine grained level than just 'web apps', or zoom out to software in general and try to understand the meta (just like you could analyze why certain units in SC2 are just broken, or understand why the economies of the different races mean different opportunities for timing attacks for each race)

<comment> streb-lo You're using 'meta' as a synonym for popular.

Metagame is the 'game outside the game' ie in rock paper scissors the game is trivial the metagame involves guessing what the opponent will pick.

Meta-software-engineering would be things outside of your software stack that affect the overall process. People, sleep patterns, office layouts, commute time, corporate culture etc.

<comment><USER33> There's the classic "startup engineer" metagame: hop from startup to startup to build up an options portfolio. Stay until the 1-year cliff, exercise whatever options you get, and move on to the next one so you've hedged your bet over as many promising companies as possible.

<comment> streb-lo Yes that's a good one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The metagame is PARAMOUNT in Starcraft Brood War, which has had no patches in nearly 20 years. The only thing that's changed is the map pool and the players' skill/knowledge (finding some bugs, mapping out defense to rushes, etc.). Thus, players have years and thousands of hour to grind "standard" or "optimal" strategies, and someone who is less creative but more mechanically gifted can advance just by copying cookie-cutter strategies but executing them 5% better.

However, the Brood War leagues know this tendency, so they often add crazy maps to the mix. This season, ASL added Inner Coven, which is a really bizarre island-ish map, and has created a totally new meta. Check out this TvT, it's one of the weirdest games I've seen in years, all due to a map prodding the meta game.

[https://youtu.be/yF6GczAXpJI?t=3185](https://youtu.be/yF6GczAXpJI?t=3185)

</comment><comment><USER34> A somehow related quote from Paul Halmos ([https://youtu.be/LwMcz1Yh8tc?t=1506](https://youtu.be/LwMcz1Yh8tc?t=1506)): "I would choose depth over breath of knowledge every time. I think if you know something very well and keep try to know it better, then you will expand to other subjects, and the deeper down you go the broader the near by becomes."

</comment><comment><USER35> I see a lot of debate over what "meta" means, and I'd like to throw my own hat in the ring.

I would argue that a playing a game at the base level (i.e. playing without meta) consists of (a) finding different strategies to use, (b) figuring when is appropriate to use each strategy, and (c) executing strategies optimally. When the game is first being played, most strategies haven't been discovered. At this stage strategic play consists of (without loss of generality) player A using a strategy they think is effective, player B devising and using a strategy that will be effective against the strategy used by player A, Player A adapting in response, and so on. This is strategic play, but it isn't a meta-game. The meta-game arrises when players A and B are both experienced enough at the game that they can debate which strategy is the objective best. The meta then becomes the agreed upon dominant strategy (or set of strategies). In the base game (i.e before the meta develops) strategies exist mostly independent of each other, while the meta-game consists of fitting strategies into a framework.

The meta can change because of external or internal forces. An external force is a change to the base game, which is common to e-sports, and less common in actual sports. In e-sports, most games will tweak how the game is played (change the cooldown of abilities, change the size of a characters health pool, etc) every month or so. This will change which strategies are best, and therefore change the meta.

Internal changes arise from the changing skill level of players. As players get better at the game, hard to execute strategies will become more viable, while easy to execute strategies will remain at about the same level of viability.

This article shows a great example of what the pro Overwatch meta (the game I'm most familiar with) looks like and how it evolves, and it's (mostly) accessible to non-Overwatch players: [https://overwatchleague.com/en- us/news/23053244/the-meta-rep...](https://overwatchleague.com/en- us/news/23053244/the-meta-report-stage-3) (WARNING: autoplay video).

<comment><USER36> A build on this, is as a soft-core participant in a game, often it is more enjoyable to participate in a game where the meta is not known, and everyone is in the 'finding different strategies' mode - bit like early days starcraft. Now the Internet exists, everyone jumps to semi-optimal strategies by copying, not putting in their own thinking time. While I admire high level play, at mid/low level it is more fun if the meta is not nailed down, also philosophically I think life is more 'hidden' than people think, and the idea there is a best-move/ common optimising strategy without thinking yourself is detrimental. I personally would like games which are more random, or where optimising is harder and less discoverable and not shareable.

<comment><USER35> Totally agree! Overwatch is often criticized for the pro meta "infecting" regular play, because low/mid level players will find themselves pressured by their teammates to play heroes that are meta at the pro level, even though pro strategies are only meta when they're being executed at the highest level of play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Judo — the sport that I am most familiar with — has a metagame that is > shaped by rule changes from the International Judo Federation. A few years > after I stopped competing, the IJF banned leg grabs, outlawing a whole class > of throws that were part of classical Judo canon

It also has the metagame of carefully crafting your weight to optimally fit in your preferred weight class

<comment><USER38> I think that's true of every sport with a weight class. You want to be the heaviest guy in your classification.

I don't think that's metagaming so much as just simple min-maxing.

<comment><USER39> I wonder why sports with weight categories don't implement floating weight windows? If there is 10kg spread in a given category, place every participant in the center of their own category so they always fight somebody at most 5 kg different from them in either direction and adjust points being earned appropriately (based on weight difference and an impact factor of weight in given sport).

Then points will be normalized and you can compare skill of underfed ballerina and a sumo fighter directly if they compete in the same sport.

<comment><USER27> This is a constant point of contention. The workaround (at least in BJJ that I know of) generally is to have "open weight" fights in addition to weight-class restricted ones. Everyone's happy usually. Now if they have open sex fights then we can see the underfed ballerina vs. a sumo fighter!

It's not as common in MMA, I think. BJJ is often thought to favor the smaller, weaker player but with the less strict ruleset in MMA, open fights aren't as "fair", I think. Physics, basically. Skill level equal, a larger and more muscular and well-conditioned athlete will usually win.

An enjoyable exception to this is the classic BJJ vs. wrestling contest in the early UFCs between Royce Gracie, a 6'1" 180lb guy vs. a seeming bear of a man with proven wrestling skills in 6'2' 250lb Dan Severn. If you're not a fight geek (if you are, you surely already know about these 2) it may be kind of boring to watch and more interesting to read or watch a well-informed analysis with pictures and clips, sort of like a "Gracie Breakdown".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Interesting point that one has to master the game first, before mastering the metagame. I am reminded that Warren Buffet & Bill Gates are reputed to enjoy the game of bridge, which comprises at least three games: the trick-taking game; the bidding game which is about how many tricks one thinks one can win; and the communication game which runs over the bids themselves. One could argue that outa-of-band communication is a third, cheating, game. One might also consider multi-table play to be a metagame, although it is a fairly simple one.

</comment><comment><USER41> When did meta come to mean strategy? It can't really be 'meta' if its about one specific game or implementation.

<comment><USER42> MetaGame is not strategy. The metagame is often the behind-the-scene variables that enable a certain set of strategies to flourish.

For example, in Dota, changes to armor or magic resistance scaling can change the metagame to be magic or physical focused, but the strategies and trends themselves develop in ways that take the meta-game into account.

During one meta game, it is common to see various different strategies flourish. IMO, as it is one level of abstraction higher, it is fair to call it meta-strategy and by extension the meta-game.

<comment><USER43> To further expound upon this, the vast majority of a game is encoded in the engine or ruleset. Core strategy is in dealing with these these ground truth fundamentals. This is the realm of beginners and casual players.

Small tweaks to the rules or weights (simple numeric multipliers!) can dramatically change how the game is played amongst those who are incredibly skilled at the game's fundamentals.

Metagame is truly emergent phenomena.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I love this concept. I've been thinking about ways of "traversing skill trees" and identifying meta-games for some time. Collecting ideas here: [https://garybasin.com/thinking-toys/](https://garybasin.com/thinking-toys/)

I think this can be done systematically...

<comment><USER45> The "skill tree" image seem like a good mental model[1] for learning.

[1] [https://fs.blog/mental-models/](https://fs.blog/mental-models/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> If you find metagame strategies interesting, you may enjoy Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene [1] and specifically Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS)[2]. Of course ESS takes place over a much longer timeline. Summary of ESS in this video by Veritasium [3].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUxt-- mMjwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUxt--mMjwA)

</comment><comment><USER47> The meta game is a high level arena for people that hammered through the proven advantageous strategies. Once you beat everyone unwilling to do that, you are now in an arena with people that used your exact same strategy.

A short example of this is a fighting game where the majority of people want to play the characters they enjoy playing. Unfortunately, like life, there is no perfect balance, and picking some specific characters will give you an advantage (even if you hate playing them). So long story short, play the character with the advantage, ride it to the top, everyone at the top got there doing the same shit you did —- and voila, the meta game, how do we all with the same strategy compete against each other.

</comment><comment><USER48> I may be simplifying but wouldn't the ultimate "meta" move be to adapt the concepts behind John Boyd's OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop[1] in your thinking? Basically you need to always adapt to changes in the game and get inside your opponents own loop.

If you're able to run your own OODA process faster than your opponent, you're already acting before they have even realized the game has changed.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)

<comment><USER49> But then the question becomes on which level of OODA loop you should spend your focus, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Re: playing the meta game, a great article on coyotes being "too clever by half" and missing the meta game to their detriment came up on HN awhile ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369)

Basic idea - you can be too clever for your own good, and as a result, fail miserably at the meta game, which less clever people don't do.

</comment><comment><USER51> First time I ever understood what "the meta" refers to. Though I've definitely participated in the metagame without realizing it before.

<comment><USER52> The definition of meta used in the piece doesn't match my understanding. Take his final example where he says that adjusting tactics in response to your opponent in ultimate frisbee is meta. No, that just strategy.

Same goes for most of the examples he gives.

Looks like I'm getting old, and the word has been redefined from out under me:

 _In video games, however, the metagame has its own meaning—and depending on which game you play, the context differs. In short, the metagame in video gaming means using characters or items that are the most powerful at the time to try and find the best and quickest means to victory._

[https://dotesports.com/general/news/what-is-the-meta- meaning...](https://dotesports.com/general/news/what-is-the-meta- meaning-24834)

<comment><USER53> >Take his final example where he says that adjusting tactics in response to your opponent in ultimate frisbee is meta. No, that just strategy.

Choice of strategy can be "meta", though. It depends on the context. For example in ultimate frisbee the current meta is to play Vertical offense, and so you see a lot of teams training for how to run it and how to defend against it.

Back in 2004 ish, the dominant teams played Horizontal offense, and we only saw Vert for set plays after a foul or other play stoppage.

The meta has changed because the dominant strategies have changed.

Then you can get even more meta, because perhaps your team is playing "long ball" and you know that if you start calling lots of travels, the other team will reciprocate. And you know that because even a contested travel causes a return to the thrower, it will hurt you more than hurting them.

All of that is both strategy _and_ meta.

<comment><USER52> Eh, it's all semantics. What you are calling meta has been called strategy for thousands of years.

No big deal - words change. I'll get used to it.

<comment><USER54> The article's usage seems to drift around somewhat, but in esports I follow "meta" refers specifically to the _consensus_ about which strategies are good or bad, not to strategies themselves or to anything someone does in a given game.

E.g. saying "foo is meta right now" means most players consider foo to be stronger than the alternatives, and if a player uses a strategy other than foo one might say they were playing off-meta, etc. But the term is wholly distinct from strategy itself.

<comment><USER55> You're literally trying to game the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Yes there is a general trend that a new "market place" opens up. It could be adwords, or it could be udemy. There is then a race to the top/bottom where the marketplace becomes popular and crowded out. The "crowd" progressively gets a worse deal (except for the winners of the crowd) and the owner makes more money.

For example adwords:

1\. Crowd gets worse deal: average bidder pays more for ads, hard to make a profit, might break even if you are lucky. Might be OK in a new niche if lucky.

2\. Winners: people with sharp marketing teams who can bid on the right keywords and have an excellent sales funnel to take advantage. They can outbid the crowd and make a profit.

3\. Owner: Google makes a tonne of money from ads of course:

Udemy:

1\. Crowd gets worse deal: I saw a 80 hour course for $20 on there. Most are 20-30 hours course for $20. Course maker gets a fraction of that. 100's of similar course means the platform doesn't necessarily give you much traffic.

2\. Winners: Some people sells thousands of units of their course on these platforms. Again those with good funnels to get them to buy off the platform probably win (I am guessing).

3\. Owner: Udemy does well.

Same applies to the app stores!

</comment><comment><USER57> The meta game is like the bike shed. Everyone has an opinion about it. It is abstracted, full of analogies and therefore easy to talk about. It is the only way the experts can talk to the novices about the topic at hand. Note that the novice can't really talk back because they won't know when the analogies end.

How do you distinguish one meta opinion about the other? By looking at the merits of the person behind the opinion, looking at other data that distinguishes the expert from the novice.

If you then use the meta as a vehicle to find out which fundamentals are important, you better skip the meta all together and see what fundamentals the expert has.

</comment><comment><USER58> Poker is a great example where players can be playing very different "meta" levels. You can play the math ("given my cards, what is the probability I have the best hand on the table?"), play your cash ("are the other players willing to lose the equivalent of a month's income if they are wrong?") or play the other players ("I will let you win a couple low stakes games in order to build your confidence and then clean you out once you start to bet bigger?")

</comment><comment><USER59> He writes "There seems to be something in getting good at a skill tree that helps in latter life. I'd like to think it is a function of exposure: once you see the competitive meta at the top of one skill tree, you begin looking for it everywhere else."

Two things explain this phenom: 1) you learn how to learn - and if you pay attention you become better at learning, more efficient; 2) you develop the confidence that your time invested will pay off with expertise, so you don't begrudge the investment

</comment><comment><USER60> Does the author actually define "metagame" anywhere? He seems to use the term throughout the article to mean multiple subtly different things.

<comment><USER61> The author's usage of "meta" doesn't match up with how I've seen it used elsewhere. He refers to the "metagame" when really he's just talking about the game itself.

<comment><USER62> He defines it when talking about Magic, where there's the two games. The match "game", once you sit down with your decks and draw 7. And the metagame, where you choose which decks to bring, what sideboard to pick, etc.

If there's a really popular rush deck, do you drop some cards which shut down blue control and put in some anti rush cards? That will help when you match against the rush deck, but if everyone does it, then when you reach the finals you might be against the control deck.

That's the metagame, at least how it's used in those circles.

<comment><USER60> yes, the author seems to use "metagame" to mean a combination of pre-game strategizing (including creation opponent specific strategy) and post game review (+ absorbing lessons learned into the pre game strategizing for the next game).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I see what you did there:

"for content marketing [...] now we do longer, more comprehensive guides, and we cross-launch those to Product Hunt and Hacker News"

</comment><comment><USER64> Would I be correct in the following examples of Meta-game:

US Politics: \- Stacking the supreme court Vs the court case strategy itself \- Gerrymandering Vs Winning votes on merit \- How you play the Caucus nominations Vs policy

Business (internal to large companies): \- Gaming how funding flows vs Getting funding on merits

Business (external market) \- Finding the grey area in policy (e.g. Uber/ Airbnb) \- Lobbying

Would this be a correct understanding?

<comment><USER65> Meta gaming isn't the same thing as cheating (or exploiting a rules grey area). It's not gaming the system vs playing it honestly.

As far as I understand, the metagame is understanding how the rules reward certain strategies and over others, and how those strategies interact with each other. The reason the idea has so much currency in video games is that rules are constantly evolving as the game is updated and patched.

So like for gerrymandering, the metagame aspect is understanding that under the current rules, gerrymandering is a winning strategy. Actually executing that strategy and gerrymandering a district is the playing the game-game part, not the meta-game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> This is a really great article, and something I've been slowly realizing over the last few months.

I only wish he would explore the concept of playing your own meta in order to reach goals that are important to you (and maybe no-one else): hacking the system, so to speak. FIRE (financial independence/retire early) is an increasingly popular meta that does this.

</comment><comment><USER67> I think the author is basically describing the "meta" as what is mathematically sort of a _conformal space_ to the _game space_ — loosely the idea that a conformal description of the game space lets you operate transformations on said space; and understand why it has the shape it has).

I've personally always focused on the meta indeed; I'm the kinda guy who goes for the map first in dungeons, because I'm more about coordinates than superstition ( _I 'll take a matrix over an oracle, thank you very much_). That works when, in the meta, finding the map is an expected player move by the developers (it even becomes part of the storytelling of exploration; think Zelda or Bioshock).

But in the real world, the developer's program is kinda like _(maths \wedge physics)^chaos_ , so the meta is very much NOT clear-cut — there's no jury of life to rule that _" this year, we'll outlaw dick moves in office politics"_, or that retribution for many comes next in the form of a _#metoo_. The players are anti-Shakespearian, they're chronically fuzzy and chaotic and non-trivial.

There are thus, from our "game space" standpoint (unable to grasp the higher- dimensionality of our conformal space), an infinity of possible meta-games, possible descriptions of what's conformal to us. There are religious descriptions and beliefs about that, there are theoretical social-science accounts, there are witnesses in the thousands or millions even who gave their truth in some book or other long form, there's what your neighbor says, what your best friend says, etc. You, the player, get to make your own meaning.

So we kinda perform "loops", from our game space and back, passing by the meta: we try to grasp at it, understand the "higher" or "deeper" mechanisms. _How can I get this...?_ , _Why is it that...?_ , _" What is this...?"_ By trial and error, we manage to get our bearings, have a "feel of" or "sense for" this field / domain / situation / locality we're in. We kinda "know the ways" to think outside this box, after enough time contemplating it.

A truly "superior intelligence" (like we're superior to ants) would probably solve our "meta" like it's basic dominos — but again it's not magic, nor categorial, but really just _more of the same_ : computing power and specialized features devoted to analyzing patterns up to some order.

</comment><comment><USER68> And for tennis.. I highly recommend the 'inner game' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QEKR9TVQXk&t=13595s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QEKR9TVQXk&t=13595s)

you can apply this zen mastery to basically any physical game and always 'win'

</comment><comment><USER69> So in the investing game the actual game is buying and selling and the Meta game is to do good diligence. I would say for most things the meta game is obvious. For programming, meta game is learn the API and different patterns as the language evolve.

</comment><comment><USER70> The current meta strategy for getting a software engineering job is practicing leetcode.

</comment><comment><USER71> Good article and a nice read :)

You can apply the same analysis to the study of how "entire societies / nations generate Wealth" and get an interesting picture of the international econo-political metagame throughout history...

</comment><comment><USER72> How much would people pay for an expertise development app? Been coding one as a side project for some time now and I'm thinking I have to put it in front of actual users as soon as possible.

</comment><comment><USER73> So, is learning to identify and excel at metagames is the meta-metagame?

</comment><comment><USER74> I'm not sure I understand what he means by meta game.

Is it adapting to rule changes? Or simply focusing on abusing the rules instead of just being good at the fundamentals of the game?

</comment><comment><USER75> [off-topic] Kinda late to the party, but always a pleasant surprise to see an article written by a former schoolmate you've lost touched with trending on HN :)

Hi shadowsun7!

</comment><comment><USER76> It's interesting that in the early days of Google Adsense it did cost 100x less to advertise, and publishers got 100x more. I'm not that good at math, but does that mean Google takes a 99.99% cut!? Or more likely they rigged the market in the beginning in order to gain publishers and advertisers, eg. they subsidized advertisers and over-compensated publishers. Making the market explode with advertisers and people looking to monetize web content...

</comment><comment><USER77> For me, the good part of the article started in the section "The Meta in Real Life."

I think President Obama played a meta game using technology to win election. President Trump played a meta game using skills developed as a TV host to win election.

I think, in a way, that Peter Thiel's thesis in the book "Zero to One" is also about playing a meta game to develop monopoly type businesses.

I have always loved using Lisp languages and in a sense continually extending a language to "meet the problem to be solved" is another form of meta game. Rise above the fray, look at things from high altitude, be a good generalist, and win.

Good article.

</comment><comment><USER78> I wonder if this applies to a game of Chess or Go? What would be meta for that?

</comment><comment><USER79> Is management perhaps the "meta" of software development?

<comment><USER80> There are many games and many meta-games in this field. Here are two.

For SWEs, one base game is to earn the most money. The play-space appears to be one's current company, so working hard on company-beneficial projects and doing well should lead to promotions and pay-rises.

A meta-game for SWEs is realising that there are many companies that might hire you, so working on projects that benefit your current company may not be the best strategy. Instead, some SWEs attempt to work on projects that make their CV look more attractive to other companies.

A base game for Managers is trying to get the most output out of the team of SWEs available, by shuffling work around, training people, putting experienced and inexperience people on the same project to spread knowledge, etc. There's a lot of strategy and tactics in this; trading-off short term losses for long term gains, and the like.

A meta-game for Managers is being aware that some of those SWEs may be playing their own meta-game. Do you help that SWE to go up and out to replace them with a different SWE, perhaps with a more useful skillset? Do you cynically restrict them from working on CV-positive projects in an attempt (likely to fail and definitely unethical!) to keep them around? Do you find ways to pay or reward them more pre-emptively so that they're less interested in their meta-game?

Sometimes these meta-games are "too clever by half" and you may well be better off ignoring them and focussing on the base game itself. The important point is to be aware that such meta-games exist, and that even when people appear to be playing the same game, they may in fact be playing to lose in order to win a meta-game instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> So any Tetris 99 training suggestions?

</comment><comment><USER82> metagame with opponents within similar elo is the most important

</comment><comment><USER83> Git gud, is the correct term.

</comment><comment><USER84> I was #1 in a highly competitive game (with _a lot_ of players). I was a top player (top 10, easily) in another game (highly competitive, but lower player count)

I was #1 in another field for a short period of time (related to computers, but not games) and then I was top in a third field (nothing to do with computers).

The third field has nothing to do with the first two.

The approach is the same. There is no magic, and I don't even believe in "talent".

You have to work, work hard and work concentrated and fix your weakest points. Everybody does the same and once you get sufficient mastery, you can see it for yourself. It's like lifting a veil. No magic, no geniuses, no special talents, only brute hard work with a lot of mistakes. If you are lucky, nobody will know you made them. If you are highly intelligent, you'll learn from the mistakes of others, so on average you'll stop making mistakes faster. That's the best you can hope for.

I'll talk a little bit about esports, since I am most familiar with that. Being #1 is not easy at all. I would compare it to regular sports and say it's very close, in terms of competitiveness.

Most people involved are objectively dumb, though, so I can't compare it to chess or something like math olympiad or math/physics PhD at a stacked university. So it's very similar to sports, where people are also generally dumb. So high intelligence is not a prerequisite for this thing.

I've also met dumb people in chess and math, so it's not a guarantee. But they can't be dumb _and_ top in chess/math/physics in the same time. That I haven't met yet.

The approach to become #1 is the same for everyone in every field.

Fix the areas you are weak at, re-evaluate where you are weak, keep working at it, don't repeat mistakes, try to learn from other people's mistakes. Work focused, don't waste time, be honest. I see people putting thousands of hours into games, for example, and still end up being newbies. That's time wasted, that's not productive at all.

tldr once you become truly good, among the top, in _any_ field, you will know the "secret" in how to become good/top in any other field. There are no special fields or even special people. People that are truly good in certain fields can become good in any other field, given enough time and assuming it makes sense for them (1.60m playing basketball will never be among the elite, that's just due to the nature of the game).

If someone is #1 (or top 10 or whatever) in any field, I want to hear your thoughts anonymously, since apparently you cant say this out loud.

</comment><comment><USER85> This article is really the same thing as Elon Musk's "think from first principles", except Musk's formulation is much better imo.

<comment><USER86> In my opinion the byproduct of first principles thinking is precisely the opposite of meta : you wouldn't get a meta, but several metas for the same game, since you built your conceptualization from the fundamentals which are established truths.

Metas seem to be built around constrains, limitations, exploits, or other forms of disruption that are introduced in the game in a cyclical fashion (new rules, new laws, new markets, new medium, new tools, etc).

<comment><USER85> Totally disagree. First principle thinking is a clearer formulation of what the author wanted to achieve with the meta concept. For example in the marketing example where the meta dictates movement from adsense to xyz platforms you can also get there by first principles, which is finding the most cost effective way to reach the audience.

When you're thinking from first principles you are not disregarding the current conditions, including constraints, you are just not allowing yourself to be a lazy and are constantly reevaluating the situation from base. Many people love to talk meta but they end up with a hazy understanding of fundamentals and end up behind the curve, very detrimental. First principle thinking just avoids these issues.

BTW. Games are not perfectly analogous to IRL. Games can sometimes be (imo poorly) designed to function completely based on a fluctuating rps system that forces a meta, where if everyone goes rock you'll have the highest percentages going paper. IRL doesn't really work that way. Pikemen beats cavalry, cavalry beats swordsmen and swordsmen beats pikemen, but guns beat all 3 and it's completely OP.</comment></comment></comment>


UK minister to tell universities to stop 'no-platforming' speakers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/dec/26/jo-johnson-universities-no-platforming-freedom-of-speech <comment><USER2> Reporting from Oxbridge:

This is a real issue but actually most people have reasonable notions of free speech. It is just that the types that end up being welfare/student/women/minority officers are extremely aggressively attacking perceived attacks/hate speech/dissenters/traitors to the cause.

If anyone remembers the Tim Hunt story and the witch-hunt that followed (and let us not forgot the role the Guardian played in peddling that), there was a situation where Tim Hunt was supposed to give a speech at a college.

The women's officer was outraged and riled up freshers who where thoroughly convinced that a man accused of making a sexist joke merely _speaking_ in a room inside their college was a violation of their own safety, a phrase I recall is 'The college is our home and our safe space'.

Most faculty/graduate students/undergrads are actually very reasonable and want to hear dissenting opinions. The problem is just that most well-adjusted people quickly tire of outrage-driven student politics, so it's left to the ultra-aggressive types.

<comment><USER3> I was closely involved in this controversy at the time and I can attest to the "loudest voice" problem where a small number of people magnified the situation far beyond what it needed to be. Definitely surprised to see a comment referring to it on HN more than 2 years on though!

<comment><USER2> It stuck out with me because it made me realise that many students were not at all emotionally well equipped to handle certain situations of adult life.

A problem here especially is how quickly anything done by the university is framed as an attack on the mental health and safety of students.

For example, in a recent survey, students were asked about their mental health issues. Examples of the university not being supportive enough were things such as 'I was not given an extension on an essay'.

These incidents make me realise that a non-trivial fraction of this generation of students really feels _intense_ emotional distress to a point of needing counselling over things my generation would book under normal aspects of adult life. In these cases, there is also little self-reflection on one's own responsibility to handle such situations - everything is framed as an attack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a meaningless dog-whistle comment by an incompetent minister. To my knowledge, the OfS will have no real power to regulate student unions, which are the primary organisations where "no-platforming" would be a policy, and fining institutions for the behaviour of students unions is just dumb.

I think it's utterly vital that controversial views are aired, and that ludicrous fascist and racist views are publicly exposed to ridicule. But student unions are private organisations, governed generally democratically, and they must equally be free to decide on what policy they will take towards external speakers. The "no platform" policy of the NUS which is mentioned in the article is very narrow – it applies to six specified organisations, and forbids the use of union premises, speaking at union events, and rules out membership of those organisations for union officers.

Personally I don't think it's worth the cost, in particular because these policies have muddied the debate with a lot of ill-informed misinformation from every perspective - the various controversial speakers, for example, are not subject to any "no-platform" policy, but have been excluded from discussion based on the decisions of individual students.

Frankly the far bigger problem is the attitude of those individual students. It's been about a decade since I was at university, but even then the entire sphere of student politics was filled with ill-informed reactionaries who had very little tolerance for the idea that people might disagree with them while not being evil. The idea of Peter Tatchell being excluded from a discussion of gay rights is outright _ludicrous_ , and just reflects the bubble that these folk tend to live in.

That's the thing we should be worried about, rather than some bogus hand- waving about safe-space policies that don't actually exist and are just red meat to the usual shit-stirrers.

<comment><USER5> >and that ludicrous fascist and racist views are publicly exposed to ridicule

I agree, but putting those views on a platform where they are heard more than the views of the people they're attacking is absolute horse shit. Why is it perfectly fine to give platforms to people spouting Nazi talking points, or transphobia/homophobia/racism, but the minorities those people are saying should be killed aren't given anywhere near as high a platform by universities? If you're going to give a platform to people spouting bigotry and bullshit, you have to give even more of a platform to the people peacefully talking about why they shouldn't be killed just for being alive.

<comment> LV-426 I've seen some strange downvoting here, but what's this about?

They simply argue that hate speakers should not be given as much time as their targets/potential victims/people not advocating hate, and their post is virtually white.

And none of the people who downvoted put their name to it by making an argument/reply/rebuttal.

<comment><USER5> It's Hacker News, where everything is somehow free speech and if you disagree with extremist conservatism, you're the enemy! /sarcasm

In all seriousness though, HN has an echo chamber, it's the inverse of Reddit. Reddit and HN function very similarly with their voting systems, and everyone knows Reddit is an extreme-left shithole, but HN is getting more conservative, I've definitely seen a lot more comments that are low-effort and look like they could be from T_D now that Reddit is banning a fuck-ton of them for brigading. Give it a few years and I guarantee this becomes T_Dv2 (or at least a lot more like /pol/).

<comment> LV-426 Yes, it's sad that while so much is discouraged here, far-right/racist comments or voting by certain users is tolerated.

Seems like I have at least one such user following me around now, downvoting my comments (my anti-racist comments anyway) in different threads.

We'll see if they anonymously announce themselves with this post too.

Edit: And right on cue, the test produces a result: mere _minutes_ after making this post - _two_ more downvotes, including a post already downvoted.

So either someone is keeping themselves awake 24/7 to religiously reload a dead thread, or my comments page, using multiple accounts to downvote (which while completely insane is still flattering), or it's a bot with no limit (for reasons that can only be guessed at) that checks for new posts and downvotes automatically.

(Perhaps more tests are needed, I can then write a Medium and submit the results here.)

Either way it's an interestingly hostile response to someone commenting about far-right/racist users at Hackernews.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, someone's definitely following you, my response wasn't downvoted at all.

Some people are so childish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is probably a step in the right direction since, in my estimation, there is a clear bias against conservative speakers at universities. However, this is still government forcing people to allow certain kinds of speech. That's the other side of the coin of the government disallowing certain kinds of speech. In the UK, people are getting jail time for posting speech deemed offensive on social media. Both involve delineations best left out of the hands of government. I wouldn't want to see the government force free speech or punish offensive speech on privately-owned platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Hacker News. But when it comes to publicly-funded universities there may be no way around this.

<comment><USER7> > In the UK, people are getting jail time for posting speech deemed offensive > on social media.

Please could you link to some of these cases? Because in almost all of the ones I've seen it's been someone making threats of violence, not just being offensive.

<comment><USER8> The most basic google search would show that's not the case; rude and racist remarks sure but not actionable threats.

Section 127 of the communications act is an abomination.

<comment><USER7> Please link to any cases. So far when anyone has linked a case it's turned out (with one exception) to be someone making very many direct, credible, threats of harm, or engaging in a campaign of harassment.

But those cases got widespread, mostly american, coverage of the attack on free speech. Those sites are wrong.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu47muw-- A4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu47muw--A4)

This guy in the UK has been in court for 2 years for making this video. It is an obvious joke, yet the crown is acting like he is a secret Nazi trying to use his dog to convert people into extremism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whatever your views on this, it has to be seen through the lens of the Conservative government in the UK hiking tuition fees and overseeing the biggest rise in university executive pay in a generation. It's nothing more than misdirection to take attention away from the things that real students _actually_ care about. The majority of undergraduate students in the UK probably don't even care one way or the other.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not keen on safe spaces, the harsh reality is your going to run into a broad range of people with varying views and a variety of degrees of sanity, better to let them have a shitty little backroom at UW and not give them a good story to take to the media that an insane mofo got banned from a college for spreading hate down there.

Throwing media attention at those who seek to push us gays back into the closet is counterproductive, akin to fanning a flame. Milo and his ilk love to be no platformed, as it makes for great PR when they can say "Blah college banned us, how dare they!".

Suppression of ideas doesn't work, let them die in the brutal, harsh light of public discussion and debate. With free media attention and a stunted discussion, this will only continue to snowball.

Building walls never works, unless you prop them up!

<comment><USER12> >Throwing media attention at those who seek to push us gays back into the closet is counterproductive, akin to fanning a flame. Milo and his ilk love to be no platformed, as it makes for great PR when they can say "Blah college banned us, how dare they!".

Quite a few of the people involved already have a 'platform' writing for major national or international publications[1], or regularly featuring on TV. So yes it does give them something else to moan about in their regular newspaper column, but I'm not sure it makes all that much difference to how much attention they get. The media is already pretty much saturated with people like Germain Greer, and they are all very adept at generating controversy to promote themselves without outside help - that's how they got where they are today.

That's the irony of this really - it's a bunch of people with the biggest megaphone imaginable complaining that they have been silenced because people didn't want to come to/host their utterly insignificant student debate. The fact that such an insignificant thing has become a major story is evidence of just how loud their voices are, sadly.

[1] there are other people being 'no platformed' as well, but I'm not sure the government/Daily Mail is really suggesting they want to force universities to host Abu Hamza al-Masri or face fines

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good. The purpose of going to university other than getting an eduation is to have your views challenged by people you don't agree with.

<comment><USER14> People have differing objectives when they go to university

<comment><USER15> Should anybody beside them care?

<comment><USER14> Not sure what other members only clubs beside SUs the government thinks it can interfere with the running of

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I consider myself a free speech proponent, but I do not feel comfortable with fines. Groups that defend/want to hear unpopular opinions should organize themselves to oppose hysterical speech and to guide the debate to a less aggressive rhetoric. Is it an ideal and distant solution? Maybe, but is better than official coercion. There must be a way, most people are not downright hostile to controversy.

Edit: I do think that welcoming some ideas is a waste of time, or perhaps dangerous (fascism, for example). But I cannot see why Peter Tatchell is an imminent danger.

<comment><USER17> >Groups that defend/want to hear unpopular opinions should organize themselves to oppose hysterical speech

That's exactly how Charlottesville happened.

<comment><USER16> No, it is not. One can easily destroy nazi-fascism without being apocaliptic, and I think that welcoming this ideology in universities is a waste of time, as I said earlier.

The Charlottesville guys were not trying to engage in an educated debate or expose their opinions to scrutiny, their creed does not accommodate the very idea of dissent. Few among them [edit: previously " Few fascists"] are brave or patient enough to be civilized. Groups like theirs generally value shock tactics and its meeting was mainly conceived as a demonstration of power.

Like-minded people, good or bad, will reunite and some groups will use the US free speech laws to propagate their hate and attract more followers. It is a very different scenario than polemic opinions being treated like a civilizational hazard in England (or elsewhere). Gay rigths, desegragation and many other ideas now taken for granted were once unpopular. History does not moves always forward and everyone that values freedom needs caution when considering politics regulating speech - they can be used for nefarious purposes or create unexpected precedents.

[Edit: formatting and grammar]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The National Union of Students has a reasonable list of banned organisations.

Al Muhajiroun; British National Party (BNP); English Defence League (EDL); Hizb ut Tahir; Muslim Public Affairs Committee; National Action

Some of these are proscribed organisations in the UK, eg [https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-action- becomes-f...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-action-becomes- first-extreme-right-wing-group-to-be-banned-in-uk)

The problem is that local branches go much further, and ban many more people.

<comment><USER18> Is the British National Party an actual political party? If so, it does not seem reasonable to me that they are banned, unless they ban all political parties.

Favoring some political parties over others should not be allowed.

<comment><USER7> I think the very small list is reassuring. They're not banning all extreme right wing parties. UKIP isn't on the list, for example.

<comment><USER19> What rating out of 10 does "extreme" denote in terms of right-itude?

"far" seems to start at about 3/10.

<comment><USER7> Like I say, they haven't banned UKIP (which is seen as a strongly right wing group), but they have banned the BNP.

If the bans started at 3/10 then UKIP would definitely be banned.

BNP members went on to form paramilitary organisations that are linked to the murder of immigrants.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_18](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_18)

> Combat 18 is an openly neo-Nazi group that is devoted to violence and is > hostile to electoral politics, and for this reason Sargent [ _the founder of > Combat 18_ ] split decisively from the BNP in 1993.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's not how free speech works. FS protects your right to say things. A university telling you you aren't welcome for whatever reason isn't in violation of that right.

</comment><comment><USER20> This title is misleading - can it be corrected to the actual title of the article?

Because at issue isn't any ban on free speech, it's whether it's OK to ban invited speakers expected e.g. to incite harassment, bigotry, or violence. And obviously there's a grey area there, but it's certainly no restrain on the message _at all_ \- merely the platform (not that that's irrelevant, but the distinction isn't irrelevant either), and I kind of doubt you'd want to provide a platform to _everything_ regardless of what kind of hate speech they're spouting. There's a fine line between a constructive diversity of opinions, including ones you don't agree with, and giving a microphone to those saying nothing new, where the primary draw isn't the message itself, but the drama and tribalism surrounding it.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it isn't misleading. "Universities could face fines for failing to uphold free speech if their student unions do not give a platform to speakers such as Germaine Greer and Peter Tatchell, the higher education minister has said.". Such behaviour if it occurred would be 'disallowing free speech' and might be dealt with accordingly as described in the article.

Your second paragraph epitomises the problem highlighted by the minister. It seems that you seek to judge free speech by considerations aside from its legality. I am not aware that Voltaire added a qualification to "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

<comment><USER20> It's misleading not because it's false (it's not!), but because it's selectively leaving out context. The original title is better. I'm not saying there's no free speech dimension here, just that the original (since- corrected) hacker-news title was more click bait than accurate summary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I was a student I was no fan of "no platform" and it was an important factor in the No to NUS campaign I led back then. BUT...

Universities and student unions foremost reponsibility is to the safety of the students and yes that can mean stopping the odd event.

Also unions are generally mandated to uphold an atmosphere of inclusion and tolerance and that certainly means going further than the legal minimum in rejecting hate.

<comment><USER21> It's not so much "no platforming" as "my platforming" now, purely territorial aggression from self-proclaimed moral guardians that will cut out anyone who disagrees, marginally offends or even ignores them. It's the very definition of a "toxic" person: every community they touch is divided and destroyed from the inside.

<comment><USER14> Student unions aren't dictatorships

They're a great environment in which young folks can have these debates with minimal consequences</comment></comment></comment>


Boulder is buying plane tickets for entrepreneurs and engineers to come visit - <AUTHOR> http://boulderstartupweek.com/we-will-fly-you-to-boulder/

<comment><USER2> Excited to be hosting people again. All events are at plancast.com/boulderstartupweek and 95% of them are free and open.

</comment><comment><USER3> Last year several people moved to Boulder after visiting Boulder Startup Week.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great event. Fun times!</comment>


Objective-C network request queue library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kevin0571/STNetTaskQueue

<comment><AUTHOR> Queue for managing network request

If you don't want to put all the network reqeust logics in a "Manager" class, STNetTaskQueue may be your choice. You can now handle each network reqeust with separated STNetTask instead. STHTTPNetTaskQueueHandler is included, which is for HTTP based network reqeust. If you are looking for a socket or other protocol based handler, currently you should write your own net task queue handler and conform to STNetTaskQueueHandler protocol. STHTTPNetTaskQeueuHandler depends on AFNetworking, which is included in example project.</comment>


Google scrapes Yahoo directory, wraps own ads around - <AUTHOR> http://www.seobook.com/instant-answers-rich-snippets-poor-webmasters

<comment><USER2> I think this is an ancient page rewriter for crusty mobile browsers. Probably less insidious than the author thinks.

<comment><USER3> For example:

[http://www.google.com/gwt/x?q=hacker+news&ei=d6xmT8nQB4S...](http://www.google.com/gwt/x?q=hacker+news&ei=d6xmT8nQB4SYiQKpiwE&hl=en&source=m&u=http://news.ycombinator.com/)

Note that I had to specifically choose "mobile view" to get this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's the Google Wireless Transcoder and you're about five years late to the party.

<http://google.com/gwt/n>

Also, it has nothing to do with scraping (though the whole point of the directory _is_ to be scraped) and Google does not run its own ads on it (any ads that are stripped out are because Javascript is stripped out)..

By in large it sucks. But then again, browsing the web on a device this was meant for always sucks.

</comment><comment> vertex-four Google Mobile Search has been rewriting pages for old mobile browsers (pre- iPhone) for years. It's a similar system to Opera Mini's proxy, except rather than pre-rendered pages it outputs pages in either minimal HTML or WAP. Another way to look at it is it's like Google's text-only caches of pages. There's nothing Yahoo!-specific about it.</comment>


Where terrorists go to chat; government and the end-to-end encryption problem - <AUTHOR> https://hadleybeeman.com/2017/05/25/where-terrorists-go-to-chat/ <comment><USER2> If you accept the premise that the problem is how to only allow the government access to encrypted messages, you are implicitly agreeing that people have no right to conduct themselves in a way that hampers surveillance.

Carry a fully charged phone linked to your name at all times, don't wear face- obscuring items such as hats or sunglasses, make sure your license plate is clean and well lit for all the automated readers, pay for taxi's with your credit card, don't use cash, and always speak clearly and into the microphones. If one of your home's microphones should malfunction, a licensed technician will arrive shortly to replace it. They use a master key, which all locks licensed for consumer sale must obey, so you don't even have to be home to let them in - how convenient!</comment>


Armed with tough computer chips, scientists are ready to return to Venus - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer-chips-scientists-are-ready-return-hell-venus <comment><USER2> Europe is also working on returning to Venus. Electronics meant to withstand the conditions on Venus are being developed at KTH in Sweden[1]. They are also Silicon Carbide based [2].

[1] [https://www.kth.se/en/forskning/artiklar/elektronik-som- klar...](https://www.kth.se/en/forskning/artiklar/elektronik-som-klarar- klimatet-pa-venus-1.590949)

[2] [https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/meetings/archive/vexag_14/pre...](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/meetings/archive/vexag_14/presentations/21-Zetterling%20-SiC- Electronics.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting article. Does the fact that silicon carbide chips work at more than 700K mean that we could built 3 dimensional chips with that (as internal heating would be much less of an issue). I do not have insights what really limits current silicon chips from exploring vertical stacking more but would have thought that another dimension out-competes several orders of magnitude in structure size differences?

</comment><comment><USER4> For those interested in a deep technical book on a previous mission (Magellan) to Venus, I would strongly recommend "The Evening Star: Venus Observed", it's wonderful: [http://amzn.to/2BgRXGW](http://amzn.to/2BgRXGW)

<comment><USER5> Hijacking your comment to plug another good resource that describes the Venus / Venera missions in detail: [http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm](http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm)

Good old fashioned web page, focused content, no weird js malarky, I love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how they plan to power the devices. Are there chemical batteries that can handle such temperatures?

Is there a way to capture the heat or wind energy on Venus?

<comment><USER7> There are some kinds of battery that _only_ work at those temperatures - molten salt batteries. Used on earth for a few types of missile and some grid batteries.

The special chips described are silicon carbide; note the caveat of _much_ lower transistor density!

Remember that the Russians managed to get photos of the surface with 1970s technology. One of the main obstacles seems to have been getting the lens caps off the cameras once they'd survived the landing.

<comment><USER8> > There are some kinds of battery that only work at those temperatures - > molten salt batteries. Used on earth for a few types of missile and some > grid batteries.

Not an expert in batteries but Wikipedia says molten salt batteries provide high amount of power only for a short period of time:

> Once activated, they provide a burst of high power for a short period (a few > tens of seconds to 60 minutes or more), with output ranging from watts to > kilowatts.

Source: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten- salt_battery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery)

<comment><USER9> Keep reading, until you get into the rechargeable configurations.

<comment><USER8> Actually I read the rechargeable section but there is no explicit mention there of how quickly does the rechargeable battery provide power. Is this implied that it's not in quick bursts because it's rechargeable? Or maybe I missed something? (I re-read the section again now).

<comment><USER9> Yes, there is no mention because it's not very different from other technologies.

Molten salt batteries are mostly not practical (who wants to carry around some explosives at boiling water temperature), but the single use cells get some usage because of this feature. Rechargeable ones don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hell is no problem for Science!</comment>


The stakes in Skyhook's suits against Google: It's the location data, stupid - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/09/16/skyhook-fighting-for-its-life-in-suit-against-google-cries-foul-%E2%80%9Ccall-in-the-referees-and-review-the-tape%E2%80%9D/

<comment><USER2> Skyhook is kind of a sad case.

Their technology is undoubtedly one of the things that made using my first iPhone such a great experience. Now Apple has created their own competing tech and won't be using them anymore. And I learned from this article that Google is now getting in on the act as well.

Aren't technology leaders who come up with a good idea supposed to get better outcomes than this? I'm not sure what the lesson is.</comment>


NASA Open Letter - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/college_letter_detail.html

<comment><USER2> I like the sentiment, but I took issue with this passage in the letter: "In 2035, when humans first orbit Mars, today's college sophomores will be my age; perhaps one will even be in my job. Ten years prior, humans will explore an asteroid, venturing into deep space for the first time in human history. Today's same college sophomores will be 34 at that time, about a third of the way into their professional careers. For the engineering and science students in our nation's universities today, these are not distant timelines; instead, cutting-edge technologies and innovations developed by this generation in the early phases of their careers will form the foundation for humanity's next great leap."

This guy talks about getting to Mars and the asteroids as if they were some kind of inevitable end result; as if the only choice is in whether we get there faster or slower. I think this is a fundamental mistake. Space travel (or even having an agency like NASA) is fundamentally a political decision. In that light, Robert Braun is not predicting technology thirty years out (though that's hard enough). He is predicting politics over that timeframe, which far far more difficult than the former effort.

Given that the original space program was created during the course of a great rivalry between superpowers, I say that aspiring space scientists would be better off applying for positions of the two next superpowers: India and China. These two countries are in a position where they still have the need to demonstrate parity (if not superiority) in the field of technology. An active space program is a good way for them to do that.</comment>


If you think NASA is frustrated with SpaceX, you're probably right - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/02/if-you-think-nasa-is-frustrated-with-spacex-youre-probably-right/ <comment><USER2> NASA have operated within their charter and the space act to support commercial human space flight. NASA made SpaceX possible. How can NASA be frustrated by their success in fulfilling their statutory obligations?

<comment><USER3> According to the article, the frustration comes from the fact that there is _more than one_ commercial space company in the U.S. and SpaceX is undercutting those companies' efforts when it has yet to deliver on its own promises to NASA regarding astronaut to space station flights.

The reporter may be playing up the controversy a bit, but he's probably right about NASA's other concerns about the direction SpaceX is taking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Article seems to be trying pretty hard to find controversy.</comment>


Conservatives Are Now Getting Angry About Google's Fact-Checking Module - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/conservatives-are-now-getting-angry-about-googles-fact-1821934885 <comment><USER2> Good idea in theory, but needs to be applied equally. I've seen just as much bullshit on Gizmodo (and sister sites) and BuzzFeed as I have on FoxNews, and other like sites. It does seem a bit weird that they are only trialing it on right leaning sources. Coupled with the stuff the Damore lawsuit is bringing out, it makes me take a second look.

There also needs to be a distinction between reporting, and editorials. Every side is guilty of mixing in editorials masquerading as reporting along side reporting. It's extremely hard to tell the two apart. WashingtonPost; I need to look in the URL to see which category the content falls under.

I think an effective method would having something along the lines of the following for each site:

\- This is a reliable source

\- This is generally a reliable source

\- This is sometimes reliable source

\- This is not generally a reliable source

\- This is not a reliable source

\- This is satire

\- This is opinion

</comment><comment><USER3> > Paranoid conservatives have increasingly become certain Google is trying to > silence them, citing its firing of engineers who allegedly created hostile > work environments and a largely illusory panic about YouTube censorship.

>largely illusory panic

The link that is cited here is one talking about a Prager University video on the "1 in 5 women are raped" claim. Prager U is suing Google for 1st amendment violations. The article talks about how it isn't likely to get Google in much legal trouble because they are a private company. However it doesn't make much comment on if the "panic" is "illusory" or not. The examples given seem to indicate Google is actively censoring certain people they don't like.

[The Linked Article] > The complaint filed in California federal court includes charts of restricted videos compared to unrestricted videos on "similar topics." For example, Prager's video titled "Are 1 in 5 women in college raped?" is on lockdown, while a Real Time With Bill Maher video about The Hunting Ground; an interview with former Vice President Joe Biden on how to end the campus rape crisis; and Lady Gaga singing about rape all can be seen by YouTube users.

> As to the meat of the thing good conservatives are supposed to get angry > about: Is Google flagging more right-leaning sites for review than left- > leaning ones? Probably. But, uh, that's also probably because a massive > segment of the conservative media, particularly newer digital ventures like > the Caller, are completely fine with brazen distortion and aren't interested > in the same journalistic standards as most parts of the mainstream media.

Hilarious that the links in this segment are to MotherJones and NewRepublic. Hardly unbiased sources, and none of the links are any kind of support for what is being talked about in this paragraph. I notice that a lot in these kinds of pieces, they think that putting links to other articles will somehow make them seem more well supported. When you actually follow the links they are nonsensical or throw you down a rabbit hole of checking event characterization.

This whole article is weird, the author admits that Google isn't doing a good job at their attempt at fact checking, but who cares? The people complaining are people we don't like!

</comment><comment><USER4> some of the daily caller complaints seem to be google trying to text match the fact checking to an article and matching too liberally. i guess they are trying to do this because the url in the fact check site pointing to the original article sometimes becomes dead and maybe also because the same incorrect claim gets copy and pasted into other articles.

but i'm surprised they didn't go for the simpler version of just matching by the URL to start off with. i guess if you have cool text processing / AI tools at hand then you have to use them.

also, its quite possible that conservative sites aren't getting an unbalanced number of fact checks. the daily callers methodology was probably looking through a bunch of emails and tweets pointing them to fact checks on their property. they probably checked other sites by just putting random terms into a search engine. they shouldn't be surprised one of these techniques is going to generate more hits than the other :/

i'm also not sure how google could have provided this in a more fair way (ignoring the bad text matching). like a lot of the fact checking sites (snopes, polifact, etc) are considered biased by conservative sites. so there doesn't seem to be a way to provide third party fact checking without being attacked for bias.

</comment><comment><USER5> This was on the front page of HN and then vanished. Does anyone know how/why they would happen without it showing as flagged?

<comment><USER6> As I understand it, there are primarily four things that cause a submission to fall in ranking: flags can affect ranking before enough accumulate that '[flagged]' appears; the "overheated discussion detector" which I believe looks at rate of comments and votes can, when triggered, cause down weighting, though given the paucity of both for this submission I suspect it's unlikely; a mod can down-weight it if they feel it's not appropriate for the front page; it's a natural result of its motion relative to the action on other stories. The first three are active, which is likely what you're getting at. From the outside, hard to say which are contributing in any given case.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. I wasn't aware that a story could be down-weighted as a result of being flagged, without it showing as "flagged".

I'm in the process of building a tool that will detect which stories have been torpedoed (for any reason) so that people don't miss out on discussions that are popular but deemed inappropriate for HN. It seems a lot of these stories are political in nature.

<comment><USER6> I do understand and sympathize with the motivation, I'm not sure if that's in keeping with what the mods are hoping to accomplish on HN. The guidelines are quite clear on what's appropriate:

> _" Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless > they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Ideological or > political battle or talking points. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or > cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off- > topic."_

While the question of what is politics or (even what is appropriate) for HN can be thorny and not always clearly demarcated, actively working against what the mods and the community as a whole are working towards might very well help weaken the fragile strengths HN currently enjoys.

It's tough, because I think there are a lot of important topics that need discussing; however, not every forum is well-suited for such discussions. What makes HN valuable for a lot of members is, in part, that there is some curation by mods and members going on. While you mention only showing content so "people don't miss out on discussions", encouraging discussion on the topics can all-too-easily spill over into other threads. I also think it's questionable whether people are really missing out: many political threads continue to be active even when falling off of the front page.

I'd love for people to be able to discuss everything reasonably, calmly, and rationally, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and engaging in good faith. A lot of the social cues and reinforcements that encourage this off- line aren't present on HN by its very nature. If this type of discussion is truly what you want, there are plenty of places online where one can find it. Members sometimes mention they value the opinions of those on HN in particular, that they aren't necessarily present on other fora. One of the reasons for that, in part, is that many on HN are here _because_ of the forum it currently is. Changing that environment can all too easily change the fauna that populate it.

Anyway, that's likely more than what you were expecting :) (and Pascal† would likely have something to say about it, too). And you may very well disagree. I encourage you to use HN search to find what 'dang and 'sctb have commented on the subject. They have a lot of experience viewing what happens on HN, what their goals are when "tending the garden", and how they go about doing that, and both because it's interesting, and whether what you're looking to do works with or against those goals.

† [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter- letter/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/)

<comment><USER5> I didn't mean the stories are purely political, only that they lie at the edges of what some consider to be too political. I don't think I'm working against the mods on this—mostly it's that some stories seem to disappear, either with or without "flagged" appearing, and I know as a community member I was surprised to see how this could happen (1) quickly and (2) to stories that were previously very popular. I am hoping to build a tool that will enable other people to see what they might be missing, in part so they can partake in these discussions, and in part so they can be more aware of how the system works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not a conservative (the very name implies that even if a conservative wins, all they get is to keep from losing). But it's clear Google has massive biases (at least in publicly visible representatives) and their fact checking (which I've only seen once or twice) has gone to biased sites like Politifact.

<comment><USER8> James Damore please log off

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good intentions, poor execution.

Fact checking is probably best done by a third party of the user's choosing. It's rare that a statement cannot be reasonbly argued from multiple angles. We simply have to pick the sources we trust and picking them for us is probably not the best solution.

I understand the desire to prevent fake stories, but probably much better to tie credibility to individuals so there's more at stake for them personally.

<comment><USER10> Would a fact checking engine that allows you to use incorrect information as its source be better or worse than nothing at all?

<comment><USER9> In many instances there are many sides to a story. The point is, how do we know Google is unbiased? I don't think it's possible to completely remove bias. Even AI shows bias and if course humans do.

Point is, I'd like to see the fact checking that I trust the most not the fact checking that someone else trusts the most.

Google might have the best one for me, but I don't feel like it'll be the best for everyone.</comment></comment></comment>