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

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

#111

Post by [deleted] »

freshhawk wrote: post #69
tribune wrote: post #7

"Vanishing" implies that there was some Golden Age of civility that has now gone by. This is not really true. I would argue that this impression comes from the fact that media options were much more limited in the recent past, and therefore had to appeal to and not offend a wider range of audiences than current sources. Watching TV programs from the 50s/60s, for example, they do seem quite polite and civil. Now thoug…

Yes! This is the inevitable outcome of the world of connectedness and giving a voice to the voiceless that we all wanted isn't it? It comes off as overly cynical, but this seems to me to merely be the removal of a veil of ignorance about what people actually think and how they actually want to behave when they are either anonymous or not present physically (with the possibility of having their mirror neurons engaged,…

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by dschiptsov »

That's just street/slums/ghetto behavior. Such heavy selection pressure selects the most adaptive and the most lucky (on the contrary to the popular misconception that the strongest and the smartest are selected). One could find a whole countries with this kind of society - Russia and some African states are good example. Highest level of corruption and crime produce such street-gang social norms.

Such practices are plainly stupid and based on misconception and uneducated common sense and primitive memes. Every serious professional athlete will tell you that too much stress and pressure will dramatically diminish one's performance and health instead of making one "stronger". Relaxed self-control, proper habits and just enough of exercises will do.

Any highly such competitive and stressful societies of assholes and jerks characterized by high turnaround, very short lifespan for participants, high injury and mortality rates, and hence adaptations, such as earlier reproductive age, smaller body sized, quicker but lower quality development, etc. It is just biology.

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

#113

Post by DHMO »

andrewbinstock wrote: post #3

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…

> delete all insulting posts

This would be ok on HN. I'd rather that than people downvoting because they disagree or because you made an honest mistake. It wounds me every time I get a downvote, and often I just logout and create a new user, so that I don't feel marred by being associated with a past comment that someone didn't like. I had a serious amount of karma about 9 years ago and probably should've just gotten over it, but I said a few things I believed at the time, got seriously embarrassed when others disagreed, and then just started quitting and creating new users, and have been doing it ever since. I'm not proud of it. Really- I'd much rather everything just be anonymous. That would be easier.

I also disagree with the rules saying that you can't frame something as "I know I'll get downvotes but..."- really, I don't understand why it matters. I think flagging offensive or spam comments really should be the only control necessary. I know that being a moderator is tough, but the community should be welcoming to all sorts of ideas and comments. I'm not a troll.

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

#114

Post by overgard »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #105
overgard wrote: post #88

I used to work with this guy that was a prick to almost epic levels. We'll call him "Richard", because he was a Dick. (Not his real name of course) Most assholes are subtle, but somehow this guy kept his job despite being, basically, a monster. A few of the things he did: - Once, he kicked over a trashcan and stormed out for the rest of the day because I checked in a visual effect he didn't like (.. even though he ap…

Why was he kept on board for so long? With that much abuse I'd make it clear to my superiors that someone like him needs to have his future with the company reevaluated.

In a weird way, I think it was just a quirk of circumstances. We were a small team in a satellite office of a much larger company, which generally meant we were financially stable but otherwise disconnected from the rest of the company (no HR present or anything like that). So when someone misbehaved, it was sort of a "what happens in vegas stays in vegas" kind of thing, IE, as long as your shenanigans don't have ramifications outside of the group we'd keep things in the family.

I think because it was such a tight knit group, there was more tolerance than there would be in a more detached professional setting. I think this guy also got a lot more slack than he deserved because he was young and talented, so people chalked it up to immaturity.

That might be overcomplicating things though. I think when it came down to it, our boss was basically a nice person who didn't really want to fire anyone, and there was no pressure to, so he'd procrastinate it, and the rest of us didn't really want to see him fired, at least to the extent of outright advocating for it, and so it just sort of kept going until he finally left to do something else.

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

#115

Post by RhodaLs »

DHMO wrote: post #113
andrewbinstock wrote: post #3

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…

> delete all insulting posts This would be ok on HN. I'd rather that than people downvoting because they disagree or because you made an honest mistake. It wounds me every time I get a downvote, and often I just logout and create a new user, so that I don't feel marred by being associated with a past comment that someone didn't like. I had a serious amount of karma about 9 years ago and probably should've just gotten…

I agree with you. HN should get rid of the downvotes. They don't really serve a useful purpose. It just adds needless friction and anxiety, puts a certain amount of negativity at the center of the discussion, and reinforces a certain level of groupthink. If someone's factually wrong, a response pointing out the errors is far more effective than a downvote, and encourages further discussion. If something is offensive, flag the comment and move on. Downvotes also encourage some pointless noise in the conversation involving the downvotes themselves.

I could see keeping the upvotes as a way of helping to keep things positive (pun probably intended), but I'm not attached to them.

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

#116

Post by niftich »

RhodaLs wrote: post #115
DHMO wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> delete all insulting posts This would be ok on HN. I'd rather that than people downvoting because they disagree or because you made an honest mistake. It wounds me every time I get a downvote, and often I just logout and create a new user, so that I don't feel marred by being associated with a past comment that someone didn't like. I had a serious amount of karma about 9 years ago and probably should've just gotten…

I agree with you. HN should get rid of the downvotes. They don't really serve a useful purpose. It just adds needless friction and anxiety, puts a certain amount of negativity at the center of the discussion, and reinforces a certain level of groupthink. If someone's factually wrong, a response pointing out the errors is far more effective than a downvote, and encourages further discussion. If something is offensive,…

Although I agree with this point, I wonder if the removal of downvotes would alter the usage of 'flag' by a measurable amount, and flag be used by some as a proxy for when they would have used a downvote instead.

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

#117

Post by ars »

enraged_camel wrote: post #62
dang wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad to hear that an experienced editor sees HN that way, and also that you see evidence of a repeatable approach. Those are good signs. As I'm sure you know, it's a more complex problem than just being willing or unwilling to put up with bad behavior. There are costs to addressing it—quite a few, it turns out, no matter what approach one takes. Our plan is to move HN toward more community self-regulation. Each s…

IMO the biggest challenge of self-moderating communities is avoiding the echo chamber effect: ideas surviving and spreading due to their popularity, rather than their merit. I'm curious if you agree that this is a problem, and what your plans are to address it, if you do.

You need to moderate based only on civility. And emphatically NOT content (which slashdot does).

Say something completely wrong, but you are polite about it? No problem, it stays up.

Say something right, but insult those who disagree? Take it down, even if it's right and the others wrong.

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

#118

Post by eon1 »

vroombaprime wrote: post #52
dang wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad to hear that an experienced editor sees HN that way, and also that you see evidence of a repeatable approach. Those are good signs. As I'm sure you know, it's a more complex problem than just being willing or unwilling to put up with bad behavior. There are costs to addressing it—quite a few, it turns out, no matter what approach one takes. Our plan is to move HN toward more community self-regulation. Each s…

You guys do a great job with HN moderation and I've always been curious what ratio of mods:numComments is sustainable and still keep quality high and mods not burned out - do you think HN is a good datapoint or just special?

More mods doesn't necessarily mean more moderation, or the ability to moderate more content. From what I've seen it just means the moderation happens quicker and the mods pay less attention because "someone else will pick it up".

This does kind of make sense; excepting some special moderation view that allocates posts directly to each mod, they're all viewing the forum in the same way, posts bumped to the top or sinking to the bottom, so things will get the same amount of attention or outrage either way. Speaking again from experience, it's all dependent on how long that fire's burning before a mod sees it. A crappy comment deleted quickly causes little fuss, a crappy comment left to fester for a couple hours then deleted will still have the aftermath hanging over it. Even if the entire thread is purged, it still exists in the memories of users and effects the overall tone/behavioural standard of the forum.

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

#119

Post by dang »

coldtea wrote: post #55
andrewbinstock wrote: post #3

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…

>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. I think this seminal essay is required reading on such matters: http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enem...

Thanks; I just re-read that and it seems to me that HN is mostly pretty well aligned with what he's saying. But let me phrase that as a question: what's the most important insight in the essay that HN does not currently line up well with?

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

#120

Post by dang »

vroombaprime wrote: post #52
dang wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad to hear that an experienced editor sees HN that way, and also that you see evidence of a repeatable approach. Those are good signs. As I'm sure you know, it's a more complex problem than just being willing or unwilling to put up with bad behavior. There are costs to addressing it—quite a few, it turns out, no matter what approach one takes. Our plan is to move HN toward more community self-regulation. Each s…

You guys do a great job with HN moderation and I've always been curious what ratio of mods:numComments is sustainable and still keep quality high and mods not burned out - do you think HN is a good datapoint or just special?

Not sure I understand the question. Can you rephrase?
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