41–50 of 204 posts
I came to learn that it meant if you ever say or do or criticize anything this guy did not like he would label you an asshole and then your career path was over there if he did not fire you.
It created a culture of the ass-kissers vs the assholes lol.
When I was the editor of Dr. Dobb's, we were very concerned about how to create a lively discussion forum that was free from jerks and unpleasant people. Ultimately, we settled on two components: treat everyone respectfully even those who seemed to be trolling, and delete all insulting posts. This largely worked. Similar elements seem to work here on HN too. That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests t…
That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests that the problem exists primarily b/c sites are willing to put up with bad behavior. Many people, even people running discussion forums with years of experience, simply do not know how to fix it and often believe it cannot be fixed. It is also common for them to "put out the fire with gasoline." On an email list, I used to say "fighting against the fighting is…
You might say that all of this does not effect you but if you see it enough it becomes ok to do.
We need to think about what's civil and live by that. There's a reason why codes of conduct are created. Mostly, they don't appear because some person wants to impose rules. They happen because enough people feel that too many crossed the line and it's best to let people know what's acceptable.
When I was the editor of Dr. Dobb's, we were very concerned about how to create a lively discussion forum that was free from jerks and unpleasant people. Ultimately, we settled on two components: treat everyone respectfully even those who seemed to be trolling, and delete all insulting posts. This largely worked. Similar elements seem to work here on HN too. That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests t…
That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests that the problem exists primarily b/c sites are willing to put up with bad behavior. Many people, even people running discussion forums with years of experience, simply do not know how to fix it and often believe it cannot be fixed. It is also common for them to "put out the fire with gasoline." On an email list, I used to say "fighting against the fighting is…
Nitpicking Time
Respect, decorum and civility are not only disappearing from the political discourse.
Why mention respect and decorum if the essay is only about civility?
It is also about the public and private interactions among workers of the so-called “knowledge economies”, which include scientists and entrepreneurs (or their wannabes).
Interactions are between people, not among them. Saying interactions are among people makes them sound like the aliens from They Live. It isn't important to specify private and public. Nobody would have assumed this was only for public interactions or only for private interactions. The phrase "knowledge economies" shouldn't be quoted; it should be explained.
Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule defines the...
There are more scare quotes instead of explanations for terms and there's another unnecessary distinction in parentheses. Nobody would have assumed only non-verbal or only verbal.
This type of behavior is not only inappropriate and unfortunate. It can have negative consequences on individuals, organizations and societies.
Saying it can have negative consequences is not the same as saying it does have negative consequences. The gap between the two is so big I could ship oil between it.
This “way of life” can be witnessed in physical and more virtual settings, including emails, discussion forums and social media.
More pointless scare quotes. The phrase "more virtual settings" is terrible. Just say online. Even better, don't say talk about physical and online settings. Here's an example, "These attitudes can be seen in person as well as in emails, discussion forums, and social media." That's much clearer.
I have encountered a good number of “polite” and smiling fools, who have mastered an astounding capacity for incivility.
There's another scare quote. This one is used correctly, but scare quotes are awful anyway. This is another clunky sentence that's hard to follow. This is my attempt, "I have met many polite people that are still very uncivil."
Civility means bringing discussion of problems to a ground where people emphasize arguments and the evidence to support or refute the arguments...
Civility also requires (and benefits from) conversations that are based on facts or reproducible observations...
These next two paragraphs start with a different version of the same sentence. This sentence defines civility and could replace both paragraphs, because neither paragraph helps clarify the sentence. The rest of these paragraphs is confusing. The other sentences give civility several different meanings instead of one specific meaning.
This is actually too important to let a few noxious people to hijack public or more circumscribed interactions for their selfish gains.
I didn't realize I had something to gain from being rude.
Hopefully, everyone here didn't need any of this pointed out.
Straight to the point. My colleague clearly and succinctly explained why an inappropriate behavior occurred and what motivated him to respond. If this happens visibly to the team it is likely that the person behind the behavior will take this as an attack, especially if he/she is a true asshole. Not good for long-term working climate. Also, it has a flavor of "white-knighting" oneself if it's done in front of the tea…
Note that as a general adage, this is "praise in public and criticize in private" (which doesn't just go for managers/higher ups). But it's not bullet-proof. When the criticism is private, there is no signal to the rest of the group that the behavior in question is not appropriate. The person being criticized certainly isn't going to say anything. This can lead to the situation where the behavior by one person is sto…
However, this can also go very badly. But I am mentioning it to note that there are alternatives to the two scenarios posited of either criticizing privately in order to protect the offending individual's ego or criticizing publicly so everyone gets the memo that the behavior is not a good idea. If you are careful and acting with good intent, sometimes you can protect the person's ego while publicly commenting on the fact that the behavior in question is not desirable.
There are other ways to give push back as well that actually moves the needle and doesn't just change who gets crapped on.
When I was the editor of Dr. Dobb's, we were very concerned about how to create a lively discussion forum that was free from jerks and unpleasant people. Ultimately, we settled on two components: treat everyone respectfully even those who seemed to be trolling, and delete all insulting posts. This largely worked. Similar elements seem to work here on HN too. That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests t…
> That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests that the problem exists primarily b/c sites are willing to put up with bad behavior. I think there's a little more at play, here. Look at the two subreddits /r/askhistorians and /r/askreddit, which vary about as much as possible in moderation patterns and resulting quality: /r/askhistorians is possibly the best moderated forum on the internet, allowing only…
Community is so big that they probably get new users all the time that they don't know the rule.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests that the problem exists primarily b/c sites are willing to put up with bad behavior. Many people, even people running discussion forums with years of experience, simply do not know how to fix it and often believe it cannot be fixed. It is also common for them to "put out the fire with gasoline." On an email list, I used to say "fighting against the fighting is…
I think half of the reason why HN has succeeded to a degree has to do with the niche subject matter. This approach doesn't work on more general forums such as the large subreddits or twitter.
We discussed everything from the Iraqi war to brexit to programming languages, etc.