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The internet has made defensive writers of us all

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Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#61

Post by WalterBright »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #24
WalterBright wrote: post #5

One of the common methods people use to attack posts with ideas they don't agree with is to take the prose literally. This is much like the "work to rule" form of protest that unions use, and the "letter of the law" rather than the spirit of it, and of course all those "zero tolerance" policies.

One approach to resolving this would be to not make statements that are literally not true and to correct statements that are literally not true to not be literally not true.

Consider the statement "People are smarter than dogs." This is not literally true, but is true in a very useful sense. Our language need not look like legal contracts, which are written to be literally true, and yet still they have ambiguity problems.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#63

Post by linkregister »

OvidStavrica wrote: post #43

I am fairly new to Y-Combinators Hacker News. Unfortunately, I've run head-long into this very issue on this forum. It ruins the experience. There is value in communicating figuratively and/or with metaphors. When creatively solving problems, looking for trends or drawing a hypothesis out of the ether, it is often desirable to avoid specifics. In my opinion, one's inability to comprehend and respond to any given stat…

I think that HN is one of the rare forums where this article doesn't apply.

Usually the top comment in a particular thread contains the least hedges and most enthusiastically espouses a particular opinion. The comment is not usually overly bombastic (though it sometimes is). The comment almost always adopts the majority opinion on HN.

Posting a comment not aligned with the majority opinion carries a risk of at most -4 points. I assert that downvotes more often correlate with disagreement than failure to abide by the standards of discourse. Since the penalty is limited, that's okay.

Therefore, if visibility and replies are your goal (who wants to comment without interesting replies?), then it's best to write boldly and concisely with a minimum of hedges.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#64

Post by danharaj »

Different perspective: The cost of being wrong is overstated. The cost of offending someone is overstated. Being told you're wrong isn't the worst thing in the world. Being told you've said something offensive won't set you on fire.

I used to be afraid of being told I was wrong or offensive. I took it personally. Now I try to shrug it off and take it as legitimate feedback that doesn't compromise my self-esteem or integrity. Being told you're wrong is better than being wrong and never told you're wrong. Being told you're offensive is enormously better than never being told who you're putting off with your behavior. This holds even when you take into account the unjustified negative feedback.

I try to avoid thinking less of someone for thinking I was wrong, or being offended by what I've done. If I do that, I'm distorting my social reality: I am penalizing people for telling me negative things. I am penalizing people for caring that I'm wrong. I'm penalizing people for telling me that my behavior hurts them. By protecting my ego, I would be hurting my relationships with my peers and social groups.

This is not to say I'm not emotional about the responses I receive. I am quite emotional. If I'm writing in a dry tone, I probably just woke up and don't have access to all my senses yet. In fact I think writing without emotional color is a form of defensiveness: It is yet another way for a writer to hedge and separate themself from their opinion and their reader. I'd rather be close to my words and my listeners than safe from criticism.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#65

Post by gaius »

enqk wrote: post #8
WalterBright wrote: post #5

One of the common methods people use to attack posts with ideas they don't agree with is to take the prose literally. This is much like the "work to rule" form of protest that unions use, and the "letter of the law" rather than the spirit of it, and of course all those "zero tolerance" policies.

For which the Principle Of Charity was created: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

It would be brave person indeed who put their faith in this on the public internet.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#66

Post by danieltillett »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #15
kornish wrote: post #13

A great quote from the article: "The defensive writing style also encourages another sort of ugliness, which is that “avoiding saying something wrong” becomes a primary focus of the writing, rather than communicating or exploring ideas which the author might himself be unsure of." One thing that's great about Gwern Branwen's writing is that Gwern's essays are accompanied by a "belief tag". That tag gives the ability…

It's one of the surprising side-effects of the Internet that anything whatsoever you might say in a public forum can potentially offend someone, somewhere, somehow.

You can look at this positively and that if someone gets offended then at least people are reading your work. It is very disheartening when you take the time to write something thoughtful and you get no response at all.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#67

Post by danieltillett »

WalterBright wrote: post #61
jsprogrammer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One approach to resolving this would be to not make statements that are literally not true and to correct statements that are literally not true to not be literally not true.

Consider the statement "People are smarter than dogs." This is not literally true, but is true in a very useful sense. Our language need not look like legal contracts, which are written to be literally true, and yet still they have ambiguity problems.

Walter maybe I am missing something here, but in what sense is the statement "people are smarter than dogs" not literally true?

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#69

Post by WalterBright »

danieltillett wrote: post #67
WalterBright wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the statement "People are smarter than dogs." This is not literally true, but is true in a very useful sense. Our language need not look like legal contracts, which are written to be literally true, and yet still they have ambiguity problems.

Walter maybe I am missing something here, but in what sense is the statement "people are smarter than dogs" not literally true?

Babies are not smarter than dogs, but they are certainly people. There are also people in vegetative states.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#70

Post by cryoshon »

kelukelugames wrote: post #6

I feel compelled to write about race issues because I am a person of color. The issues directly impact my life. But I'm afraid because readers might be pissed off enough to get me fired. :/

I also feel compelled to write about race issues. I don't write about them, though-- the issue is too poisoned to even approach if you aren't the correct race. I churn quietly instead.
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