Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News • Hacker News Board

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#31

Post by wwortiz » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:37 PM UTC

10ren wrote: post #8

1. If you are writing self-admittedly inflammatory material, and you get inflammatory responses, you should try stopping doing that and see what happens before suggesting changes in HN. People are mirrors. 2. You can flag inappropriate comments (click on their link or parent link for the flag link to appear). [ EDIT maybe there's a karma threshold to see the flag link.] I think swearing and meanness is very rare on H…

The karma threshold to flag comments is just as minimal as the threshold to flag stories, but it would be much easier to see if you didn't have to go to the comments actual page.

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#32

Post by philk » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:49 PM UTC

I'm not sure that I can agree.

1) The blog post of yours which attracted such vitriol was entitled "Never Hire Job Hoppers. Never. They Make Terrible Employees"; you aren't using a conciliatory tone and it seems unfair to expect one in response.

2) Practically all the comments I read on here are more civil than I see elsewhere on the web.

3) In pw0ncakes original post there were a lot of measured statements (for instance Job hopping is almost always involuntary-- not in the sense of a person getting fired, but in the sense of a person being wise enough to realize that he's in a position that his wasting his time, and moving on-- the rational response.) which you appear to have disregarded.

4) Most of the vitriolic posts I've seen on HN have already been modded down into oblivion.

5) Although purely anecdotal I notice the civil air here and censor myself accordingly (in real life I tend far more towards "sarcastic douche" than I do here).

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#33

Post by arethuza » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:53 PM UTC

tom_ilsinszki wrote: post #27

"Make all users post under real names that you verify". Advantages: * Better comment quality: verified users would think twice if they wanted a curse words to show up when someone googled their name. * Connectivity: If you like someone's reasoning and thinking, it would be easier to check out more about what they do online (accomplishments, blogs, twitter, etc). Disadvantages, anyone?

How would you go about verifying someone's real identity? Or by real names do you mean having identities strongly linked to accounts on other systems (e.g. Facebook) that probably have more reputable identity details?

Even Certificate Authorities these days don't do a whole lot of verification of your identity when getting a personal certificate - it's usually at the level of checking that you have access to an email account.

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#34

Post by Sukotto » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:54 PM UTC

marilyn wrote: post #6

The civility on HN is unparallelled. This community, with pg's guidance has done an amazing job of fostering a thoughtful community for intelligent discussion. Suster's arguments all focus around one particular discussion in which emotions ran a little higher than usual, and are not, in my opinion, representative of the community as a whole. As for Suster's suggestions, the first one would be a mistake. There are man…

  The civility on HN is unparallelled

I submit that http://ask.metafilter.com is as good, or better. Mostly due to their excellent moderators.

[edit to expand] Also because you have to pay $5 to join and they impose traffic caps on newer users to get around some of the spamming problems. So yeah... not entirely apples-to-apples.

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#35

Post by tedunangst » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:57 PM UTC

looprecur wrote: post #21

pavs wrote: post #16

> I have thick enough skin or I wouldn’t blog. ... > It’s totally acceptable to me for people to harshly criticize my > points-of-view. No problem. But calling me a f***ing a**hole or some > of the other epithets used goes too far. Does not compute. Though I agree with you that such language is not nice and can be (should be) avoided as much as possible. Some people sometimes have bad days and certain topics can brin…

I don't think "fucking asshole" is much worse than "trophy kid". They're about comparable in terms of incivility.

One of those terms I would use in front of my mother. The other I would not.

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#36

Post by amirmc » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:59 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #26

michael_dorfman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not get too self-congratulatory here. Yes, the civility on HN is much higher than on many other discussion sites, but it's still a lot lower than you'd find in most real-world situations. I agree that throwaway accounts are useful, and that there are times when anonymity is advantageous, and that the added civility that comes with real names is a bad tradeoff in this case. However: in this case, the second poin…

Actually, having just observed a situation where a bunch of people who met in real life exploded into an immature email discussion full of insults and accusations, I don't think the civility on here is any worse than it is in real life. I think the reason why it feels like "real life" is more civil is that you don't hear about people insulting each other in real life, because they don't usually shout it out on the ro…

In addition, most issues in real life don't leave lasting traces the same way that typewritten messages on forums/comment threads do.

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#37

Post by ojbyrne » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 1:02 PM UTC

In my opinion, the people looking for civility are often people in positions of authority looking to maintain a hierarchy. They're often rude and uncivil to people of perceived lower status in real life, but because of their status don't expect that same tone to be reciprocated. They dislike the internet, because in general the clues about status aren't as clear, and thus they get talked to just like everyone else.

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#38

Post by thirdstation » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 1:13 PM UTC

tom_ilsinszki wrote: post #27

"Make all users post under real names that you verify". Advantages: * Better comment quality: verified users would think twice if they wanted a curse words to show up when someone googled their name. * Connectivity: If you like someone's reasoning and thinking, it would be easier to check out more about what they do online (accomplishments, blogs, twitter, etc). Disadvantages, anyone?

1) The Internet never forgets. If you post something regretful in a fit of rage you can never take it back. You are not the same person you were ten years ago (even if you have the same name). Do you want to be judged today on how that person behaved back then? It is naive to think you won't be judged so.

2) There are some really batsh*t-crazy people in the world. I prefer to be somewhat isolated from them.

3) How do you verify a real name from a real-sounding name?

I would also like to see some evidence that "Real Name" = "better comments".

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#39

Post by edw519 » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 1:13 PM UTC

OP is asking for gadgets to treat the effect, not the cause of the problem. The cause? I'm not really sure, but this whole discussion reminds me of some simple, yet brilliant advice my grandmother once gave me, "If you look hard enough for trouble, you'll probably find it."

Mark, I've been here for ages and simply have not witnessed very much of the negativity you talk about. I don't remember any of the original threads you cite, so maybe I just travel in a different circle within hn. Or maybe I stick to more technical issues. Or just avoid threads that invite more emotional responses. I don't know.

Or maybe you're just looking to stoke a little bit. That's fine. We need that kind of thinking from time to time. But don't be like the kid with green hair that gets upset when people react. You know they will. So deal with it. That's my tip. Not much else needed here. Move along.

Re: Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

#40

Post by dejb » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 1:30 PM UTC

marilyn wrote: post #6

The civility on HN is unparallelled. This community, with pg's guidance has done an amazing job of fostering a thoughtful community for intelligent discussion. Suster's arguments all focus around one particular discussion in which emotions ran a little higher than usual, and are not, in my opinion, representative of the community as a whole. As for Suster's suggestions, the first one would be a mistake. There are man…

> The civility on HN is unparallelled.

Try looking at lesswrong. Scary. I think prefer the odd venomous irrational spew at the moment rather than having to mathematically prove my opinion. Good reading though.