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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

#161

Post by Waterluvian »

eyan wrote: post #145
Waterluvian wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can often be an asshole on Reddit. But I never am here because HN is so clean and well kept. The signal to noise ratio is fantastic and I'll be damned if I'm going to be the one to lessen it. Kind of amazing to me how it works that way: once there's graffiti on the wall, suddenly the perception is that it's okay to put graffiti on the wall.

Plays nicely into the Broken Window Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

Thank you for sharing. That's exactly what I was trying to convey, without knowing the term.

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

#162

Post by eivarv »

StevePerkins wrote: post #154
lmm wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you measuring success? I feel that the quality of HN has declined a lot over the last year or two; we see a lot more one-liners and "couldn't resist" comments, and less technical content. (I think the caustic attitude of old HN helped; people who made jokes used to be shot down very quickly, whereas now people try to be nice about it). I now consciously avoid the site while America is awake.

> I now consciously avoid the site while America is awake. Is this one of those troll comments to which we should respond by saying something nice? Because if it were an American making a similar comment in reverse, then it would be buried as jingoistic/xenaphobic/racist/etc. You look great today.

I don't see how an American wanting to avoid comments from another continent would make them afraid of a warrior princess.

On a more serious note, I too have noticed a shift in the comments on this site; I really enjoyed the fact that HN was a more "serious" place for sober discussion, where most comments were useful (larger signal-to-noise ratio). This culture made me reconcider my own comments on a few occasions.

EDIT: Not saying that this is a huge problem - just a development I don't enjoy.

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

#163

Post by Asooka »

prawn wrote: post #74
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…

More than enabled, media has encouraged the more outrageous voices. Shockjocks get a lot of attention and make a lot of money. The media doesn't have an interest in civility, it has an interest in maintaining divisive and largely 'solved' issues.

e.g. all the articles on how Pokemon GO will get you stabbed, killed, run over in traffic, mugged, thrown off a cliff and make you stumble over piles of dead bodies in crack dens.

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

#164

Post by tnone »

deathanatos wrote: post #124
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that HN moderation is always effective. There is a local groupthink that will get you downvoted fast for rational commentary that runs contrary to the popular consensus. Much like Berkeley students shouting down any opposing viewpoint they've predetermined to be invalid.

I've heard this several times; I know there are viewpoints that HN tends to lean certain ways on (many of us are similar not only in profession, but that probably leads to similarities in views). Would you happen to have a link to a good comment thread that shows the alternate viewpoint not getting fair treatment or serially downvoted? (or, if not that, is there a particular topic area or debate, s.t. next time it co…

It's difficult to link to shadowbanned comments, so...

Basically anything to do with the cult of diversity. The double standards and refusal to acknowledge charlatans is impenetrable. It's no problem to demonize approved groups of people based on hearsay, but considered harassment to point out fraud or lies from protected demographics.

That's a holy cow that HN has slowly but surely adopted. The response is usually a kafkatrap: accuse the poster of being dishonest, and treat refusal as an admission of guilt.

If no explicit statement can be picked at, you get accused of "dog whistling".

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

#165

Post by MaulingMonkey »

xlayn wrote: post #102

I see an exploit of human interactions favoring employers, let me extend, for example below comment: __derek__ 5 I attended npm Camp on Saturday, and the tl;dr version of their policy may fit the bill: > be actively kind now imagine you are paired with 5 other "junior" programmers on trying to get some project to x state that requires 5 senior programmers. -saying that you require 5 senior, not juniors can be seen as…

> saying that you require 5 senior, not juniors can be seen as non polite.

Depends on how you define politeness.

To me, not saying that you require 5 senior programmers, or more time, is a form of grinfucking your manager and producers. It is intentionally keeping them out of the loop, which is rude. It is disrespecting their ability to take well intentioned, reasonable, important, and professional feedback as fellow professionals and adults, and ultimately undermining their ability to perform their jobs. Worse, not properly trying to manage expectations may leave your coworkers on the hook for crunch and overtime to try and meet said expectations - which I certainly don't consider "polite"!

This is not to say there aren't rude ways to go about the task of informing your manager that you're understaffed, over-committed, and dealing with a unrealistic schedule. You can beat a dead horse, enumerate individual's faults (perceived or real) instead of focusing on what strengths the team needs (that it lacks), or whine about your boss's inability to estimate instead of trying to collaborate to figure out the discrepancy in your estimations, among a million other possible mistakes.

The trick is to thoroughly internalize and stick to this definition of politeness.

> not helping them is not polite

Junior programmers can help me get the project done. The trick is to manage your time wisely. "Let me swing by after I finish up X" - either they'll figure it out, or they could really use the extra help. "I forget, does it say on the wiki?". I am assuming they're trying and have some basic competency though.

> and of course you do on free your extra mile time and help the company avoid paying the senior devs...

Crunching - or otherwise overworking - and burning out would decrease my overall productivity. It would be both rude and irresponsible of me to allow myself to be so mismanaged.

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

#166

Post by DHMO »

philh wrote: post #156
RhodaLs wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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. I try to downvote poor conversation norms: a common one is replying to an argument that someone didn't make. (Especially when it begins "oh, so you think...") I'd be okay with flagging such things if we agreed that that wa…

> I'm not sure about flagging such people, but I'm okay with downvoting them.

It may save your time, but a downvote doesn't explain why you think someone is clueless. Even link a link to something they could read to enlighten them to your point of thinking or a book title might be adequate in making your argument and would take maybe 30 seconds more, at most.

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

#167

Post by fallous »

jbmorgado wrote: post #9

Actually I see the present problem as exactly the opposite. More and more we live in a culture where people think it's their right to feel offended and for anyone saying anything that makes them fell that way to just be shut up by someone (some faculty department for instance). It is becoming basically a Politically Correct culture of censorship and we keep seeing opinion texts (just like this one) that appeal to tha…

I don't think it's an opposite effect so much as a variation on the same theme. "Cry-bullies" are still bullies, they just opt for an appeal to some other authority in a passive-aggressive manner instead of directly being the aggressor to get what they want.

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

#168

Post by lmm »

StevePerkins wrote: post #154
lmm wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you measuring success? I feel that the quality of HN has declined a lot over the last year or two; we see a lot more one-liners and "couldn't resist" comments, and less technical content. (I think the caustic attitude of old HN helped; people who made jokes used to be shot down very quickly, whereas now people try to be nice about it). I now consciously avoid the site while America is awake.

> I now consciously avoid the site while America is awake. Is this one of those troll comments to which we should respond by saying something nice? Because if it were an American making a similar comment in reverse, then it would be buried as jingoistic/xenaphobic/racist/etc. You look great today.

I suspect, though I don't know, that the difference I perceive is more a factor of what kind of moderation happens in which timezones than a difference in regular users.

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

#169

Post by naveen99 »

lmm wrote: post #138
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…

How are you measuring success? I feel that the quality of HN has declined a lot over the last year or two; we see a lot more one-liners and "couldn't resist" comments, and less technical content. (I think the caustic attitude of old HN helped; people who made jokes used to be shot down very quickly, whereas now people try to be nice about it). I now consciously avoid the site while America is awake.

One liners can be informative.

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

#170

Post by BaronSamedi »

ars wrote: post #117
enraged_camel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder how good or useful a civility algorithm might be in this case? Aren't sentiment analysis tools pretty good now? Finding examples of rude and uncivil comments on the Internet certainly won't be a problem.
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