Some Tips to Improve the Civility on Hacker News

Connectivity is only helped by your real name if you actually have a unique name, but for all the John and Jane Does in the world, a unique pseudonym is more likely to be (uniquely) "Googleable". (Then again, some of the John Does who share a name with someone more successful/famous might not mind the mix-up.)

Had the author of the article had responses that did not bruise his ego because of what people on the internet said to him - he would be writing an article about how awesome Hacker News was.

Posting another article explaining how you would change HN to your own benefit is adolescent behavior. Maybe, just maybe, the OP didn't have the correct view point. These types of people hop from job to job because everyone at the old company was "a bunch of idiots." Irony much?

Bluntness induced to make a point - suck it up, make a conscious effort to understand the true source of your emotions, and allow other people to have an opinion you may not like.

how egotistical is this guy to assume that we should play by his rules, because he doesn't like the outcome of the game.

First its with people leaving his company so obviously its our fault, now its with people that comment on his blog. Its simple if you don't want criticism don't write anything, or if you do want to write controversial things then grow a thicker skin. Lets be real for a minute. People are attacking him because he is saying something controversial and he can't take it.

>Disadvantages, anyone?

There are certain things that I'd like to comment on at times, but don't, because I post under my real name. I hold some controversial opinions on things, but I refuse to have them permanently associated with my name on the internet in an easily abusable way. Any statement can be taken out of context.

For example, I thought long and hard before making this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1314757

I only lurked on /r/anarchism for a long time, and didn't post there. Now I do.

There are a few other things that I just can't talk about in a public forum. I would contribute meaningful and thoughtful discussion if my account was anonymous.

Dear Mr. Suster,

While I personally don't condone obscenities, insults and ad hominems in a discussion, I couldn't help notice that most of the time HN audience downvotes comments according to their signal/noise ratio, which means that we're willing to tolerate even occasional obscenities for the sakes of a valuable contribution.

In the first example you pointed to, pw0ncakes actually made a rather valuable contribution to the discussion, despite obscenities. He gave the view of the other side of the story, the side you seem to have completely overlooked in your original post. Let's also be honest here and admit that it's very naive to expect calm and collected responses from everyone after writing an inflammatory, one-sided post on an emotionally significant topic. In the old Internet jargon, we would describe your situation as "he trolled and they flamed him for it". That does not justify what happened, but pointing it out might help avoid your readers getting a one-sided interpretation yet again.

Another thing I would like to point out about pw0ncakes' comment is that it's actually not the most voted. His comment has 61 points and is served first, just like you noted. However, the most voted comment was posted by apsec112, has 116 votes and has no obscenities whatsoever. It might not seem important, but it's really recommended to thoroughly check your facts before addressing your audience, especially if you're going to accuse that audience of improper behavior.

Yet another point worth noting is your own writing style in this latest post. I'm sure you've heard it said that people in glass houses should not throw stones. If you really expect a calm and rational discussion, then I would wholeheartedly recommend avoiding rhetorical tricks like "OK, HN folks, let ‘er rip. I can take it." Setting yourself up as a victim in advance is pathos. Considering that your post is asking for logos and ethos, it seems like a bit of a double standard to me.

Last, but not least, I'd like to state that I actually agree with most of your suggestions on improving the quality of comments and the user experience with them. Certainly #3 is an excellent idea. While I believe that #2 might be a good one, it should be studied for other side-effects it might have on social dynamics here. As for #1, I firmly believe that people should have the right to post anonymously if they want to. I prefer to do it in a public way, which is why my username is connected to my blog, which in turn has my real name, but I would not presume to take away other people's rights. Especially not on the grounds of someone's hurt feelings.

Cordially yours,

Vojislav Stojkovic