The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes • Hacker News Board

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#91

Post by duaneb » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 1:57 AM UTC

itsnotlupus wrote: post #81

rodgerd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't know the rule. I doubt it. I've seen reddit mods complain about being harassed across multiple social media sites, sent death threats and so on, not least by people professing to be affronted by their offenses against "free speech". I would be very surprised if a goodly number of deleted comments aren't people deliberately posting off-topic.

There are ways to look at a number of deleted comments in those threads, and very few if any seem to be deliberate attempts at community sabotage. On the contrary, most end up being made by people feeling compelled to share their opinion, or some personal anecdote in reaction to a question, which would be completely fine in almost every other subreddit.

On that subreddit in particular, it's like 10% shitty answers referencing pop history (e.g. Jared Diamond, Howard Zinn), 80% shitty answers with no basis (e.g. "jefferson smoked weed"), 10% typical reddit shitposting (bigotry, holocaust denial, conspiracies, memes, moderator complaints).

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#92

Post by bjohan » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:01 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #85

mwsherman wrote: post #2

A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. It’s much more effective to work learn about people, their predilections, biases and experiences. No one is a “checkbox” asshole. Much better to focus on specific behaviors, instead of writing off a person as a type. When I see a company describe its “no assholes…

> No one is a “checkbox” asshole. With all due respect, this is spoken like someone who's never moderated a forum. True, an actual human being, with meat and parents and bills is probably not a checkbox asshole - but online, we almost never deal with that person, aside from the people you know in meatspace on Facebook. I am not an actual human being to you, and vice versa, and can't be unless we take a very long time…

FTR, the original post was not about internet.

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#93

Post by youngButEager » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:02 AM UTC

The problem with calling out 'jerks, bozos and assholes' is contextual -- social norms/what works in NYC is quite different from small-town Indiana for example.

Two ways to handle someone you think is being a 'jerk/bozo/asshole': 1) what percentage of their behavior is 'bad behavior'? 2) what is my threshold percentage for what I personally consider bad behavior?

After I got married and witnessed PMS in action, the proportion good/proportion bad became essential.

The same is true at work.

And there is no OBJECTIVELY jerk/bozo/asshole behavior. What you think is jerk/bozo/asshole may not even CHART with what your boss, friend, family member think is jerk/bozo/asshole behavior.

If I hire a sales guy who blows away the next 10 sales guys but 25% of the time he is reported to be a jerk/bozo/asshole I'm NOT firing him/her.

This is life and people have different psychological makeups and histories.

If you're going to set your "tolerance level" for bad behavior to, say -- 5%? 10%? at home, or in the workplace -- you'll meet highly effective people who add value to relationships and businesses who will make you unhappy.

They're out there.

"For better or worse." "Take the good with the bad." "Lighten up Francis."

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#94

Post by Mz » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:07 AM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #29

Mz wrote: post #19

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…

Aka have the patience of a saint?

No, not really. I am not a patient person and I am pretty good at certain aspects of this. If you know that doing X will actually make things worse and suck up more of your time and energy than foregoing X, it really does not take patience to sigh deeply at your computer screen and choose to pass on the option of shooting yourself in the foot.

Knowledge is power. Having it clear in your mind that certain things simply are not a path forward has nothing to do with patience and everything to do with having the right mental models, knowledge and education.

On the other hand, I am also medically handicapped, so sometimes I fall on my face anyway. But when I get it right, it has nothing at all to do with patience because I didn't get that gene.

Edit: Let me put that another way: Impatience is why I don't do certain things. If I know what a painful timesuck it is, impatience is my motivator for just not going there.

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#95

Post by grkvlt » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:12 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #57

mwsherman wrote: post #2

A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. It’s much more effective to work learn about people, their predilections, biases and experiences. No one is a “checkbox” asshole. Much better to focus on specific behaviors, instead of writing off a person as a type. When I see a company describe its “no assholes…

> A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. Yes, but you can easily blow up the stack with all this recursion, since the real world doesn't have TCO. > If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. Well, some people legitimately and truly are "jerks, bozos and assholes" though, some even embrace the jerk ethos openly. If you're addressing them, it's…

The point is more one of framing, not of tolerance to assholes. If you restate the 'no assholes' policy as a set of positive traits that are to be encouraged then the framing effect is to cause people to look for those desirable traits and emulate them. A 'no assholes' policy frames things in a way that makes people look for assholes, and causes them to think negatively about personality traits, in terms of not being something undesirable. Instead of 'calling out' people for being jerks, bozos and so on, the idea would be to talk instead about how they could become better at teamwork, interaction with others and so on. So rather than pigeonholing them as something undesirable, you show them they are on the start of a path that leads to improvement.

I think the impact of these subtle semantic changes can be surprisingly effective, especially because it is all happening at an almost unconscious level. I also think some of it can certainly come across as a little cringe-worthy and perhaps rather strained. Sort of like the trend of looking for something to praise about everyone, and awarding certificates for merely showing up when that is the only positive thing that can be found. But, everything can be taken too far I suppose...

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#96

Post by chongli » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

jonahx wrote: post #82

chongli wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with your conclusion, but the common thread I see is more the type of person than the subject matter. I don't mean that HN's audience is homogenous across some simple metric, but even among its vastly different members I see a shared respect of logical reasoning and evidence-based argument. That, and just generally smart people, are the hallmarks of the culture here for me (at least the positive part of it).

Right, and the subject matter (at least at the outset) has a large influence on the culture that develops. Challenging subject matter tends to attract people who share those traits.

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#97

Post by crucini » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:27 AM UTC

This sentence jumped out at me:

>You also have those individuals who are “not rude” but keep telling people to “suck it up”, to get “their act together” or to believe that disrespect is just a question of interpretation.

Sounds like the author has a lot of conflicts. Sounds like he often receives unwanted advice to cool his jets. Talking about "assholes" is somewhat pointless because conflict is a fact of life, and in most conflicts both parties consider the counterparty an asshole.

This author doesn't show any philosophy, self-insight or humility; rather he is surrounded by "assholes" with "inappropriate" behavior. (He keeps using that word "inappropriate" - but if people agreed on what was appropriate, would we still have conflict?)

Here's something I've learned over decades of working with other people: fix yourself first. Become tactful, adroit and thick-skinned. Recognize that absorbing the bumps and jolts of social interaction is part of the job, whether your are a salesman or an engineer. Recognize that the "asshole" is right in his own mind and may in fact be be right, period.

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#98

Post by solipsism » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:31 AM UTC

crucini wrote: post #97

This sentence jumped out at me: >You also have those individuals who are “not rude” but keep telling people to “suck it up”, to get “their act together” or to believe that disrespect is just a question of interpretation. Sounds like the author has a lot of conflicts. Sounds like he often receives unwanted advice to cool his jets. Talking about "assholes" is somewhat pointless because conflict is a fact of life, and i…

if people agreed on what was appropriate, would we still have conflict?

Yes. It strikes me as a strange question. People act in ways they themselves would consider inappropriate all the time. We're emotional creatures.

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#99

Post by losteric » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:33 AM UTC

crucini wrote: post #97

This sentence jumped out at me: >You also have those individuals who are “not rude” but keep telling people to “suck it up”, to get “their act together” or to believe that disrespect is just a question of interpretation. Sounds like the author has a lot of conflicts. Sounds like he often receives unwanted advice to cool his jets. Talking about "assholes" is somewhat pointless because conflict is a fact of life, and i…

I've heard this quote a couple times, it seems appropriate:

> If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.

Re: The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

#100

Post by orionblastar » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 2:38 AM UTC

Wow hard to avoid negative people in the workplace and public. Jerks et all usually get what they want because agressive people are rewarded by management as getting stuff done through other people. Sometimes they become managers and supervisors.

Sort of like in high school the bullies and popular kids get what they want and the school does nothing about them being jerks to other students.