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Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

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Re: Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

#81

Post by alnayyir »

pg wrote: post #5

Based on a cursory look at your comments I would guess the problem is not what you say but how.

He's not the only one discontented with the state of the community. It's gotten so bad here that I can't convince half the programmers I know that this place is any better than a cult locked in a warehouse.

Almost no one I know takes anything anybody says here seriously, even if the content stream is marginally better than the alternatives.

The focus has shifted from intelligent and thoughtful writing seeded by your essays, to business-oriented boosterism fed by a provincial navel-gazing audience who fail to censure themselves.

I'm someone who's already had a failed business, and even when my finances were falling apart, I loved the thrill of it.

I love hacker culture and ambitious people. I plan to begin work on another idea soon.

However, the situation here is untenable and the utility I once extracted from being exposed to this community is being destroyed for the sake of a minority's craven ambition and desire to fit in with the shibboleths of those around them. I am not by any means alone. Everyone I know who follows the kind of news and interests that is discussed here has been increasingly disenchanted over the past year with hackernews.

This is not a site or community unto itself, it serves a real purpose for YC and everyone is aware of this. You might call it a garden.

The garden needs pruning.

Re: Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

#82

Post by karmawhore »

julsonl wrote: post #79
karmawhore wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many people downvote people that they disagree with which is the downfall of a karma based system. What if you disagree, but they are right? Why do you dislike the fact that someone may have an opinion that differs from yours? Downvoting people you disagree with implies that you are always right. I bow down to your perfection.

You forgot to read the part where he mentioned downvoting because the information was wrong or misinformed. The same way I'll get downvoted if I furiously debated that an apple's color is always blue.

No, because he THOUGHT it was wrong or misinformed. Large difference between something being wrong and him thinking it is wrong -- unless he is always right.

If something is factually correct, and he disagrees with it and thinks it is wrong, it gets a downvote. I was actually more amused that he got upvotes as it sort of reinforces the point I was trying to make.

By his logic, if we disagree with his point, we should downvote him, whether his opinion has merit or not.

Re: Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

#85

Post by armandososa »

alnayyir wrote: post #81
pg wrote: post #5

Based on a cursory look at your comments I would guess the problem is not what you say but how.

He's not the only one discontented with the state of the community. It's gotten so bad here that I can't convince half the programmers I know that this place is any better than a cult locked in a warehouse. Almost no one I know takes anything anybody says here seriously, even if the content stream is marginally better than the alternatives. The focus has shifted from intelligent and thoughtful writing seeded by your…

I found hacker news amazing and comforting. But if I was not happy here and if I ever found it to be only slighter better than the next alternative I'll just move on.

Really, it's sad to be in a community where you don't actually feel good.

Re: Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

#87

Post by apsurd »

DjDarkman wrote: post #10
SandB0x wrote: post #8

There's criticism and there's negativity. You seem to be confusing these two things. You can put your point across without snarky comments like: "Vertical list of applications??? Microsoft what have you been smoking?" (As we're quoting rap lyrics today) I think that you'll be doing just fine if you relax a little.

I may be alone in this, but I like expressing my thoughts/feelings, as a matter of fact, most of the time I want to make it really clear that what I say is just my the way I see it. Do I go a little bit too far with it? Maybe.

You want downvoters to explain themselves;

I downvoted you because this makes no sense:

I want to make it really clear that what I say is just my the way I see it.

1) If you are honestly going for clarity, then 90% of the words you use in your comments aren't helping.

2) "It's PG's house. You may not like to wear pants, but if PG feels that people should wear pants when over for dinner, you wear pants"

3) It's just a stupid downvote.

Re: Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

#89

Post by lsc »

It's very annoying that 100+ karma users could act as really good trolls, they could just go around and downvote everybody without ever loosing karma, but costing the commenter karma.

Really good trolls? does getting downvoted really get you all that riled up? As far as I can tell, once you are over 100 and can downvote, getting more carma does not alter your user experience.

I'd suggest you grow a thicker skin, especially if you want to say mean things on the internet.

Re: Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

#90

Post by Robin_Message »

alnayyir wrote: post #81
pg wrote: post #5

Based on a cursory look at your comments I would guess the problem is not what you say but how.

He's not the only one discontented with the state of the community. It's gotten so bad here that I can't convince half the programmers I know that this place is any better than a cult locked in a warehouse. Almost no one I know takes anything anybody says here seriously, even if the content stream is marginally better than the alternatives. The focus has shifted from intelligent and thoughtful writing seeded by your…

Your comment is frankly a load of crap. (I would be more polite if we were in person, but then I would have been able to interrupt and say, "Oh hang on a minute", when you came out with some rubbish like "the situation here is untenable.")

It's not untenable. If you don't like the community, leave! If you know a lot of people who are disenchanted with hackernews, great! Start something new for you to chat. You could even import the hackernews front page so you have something interesting to chat about.

But for me, this site still by and large works. Yes, there is some useless fanboyism in a few places, but this place is not a cult locked in a warehouse. And you can avoid the worse of it easily enough - just avoid discussion of shibboleth topics where the S/N drops and wait until it's a post on someone's blog instead of techcrunch.

I'm also intrigued - can you link to a discussion where you feel a craven minority destroyed the utility, or is it more of a general feeling, hard to pinpoint and reason about? Can you suggest who needs pruning and how it should be done?

Finally, community is what people put into it. So, what are you putting in Chris? You say you had a failed business. Could you do a post on what went wrong and how it would go better next time? That's the kind of thing that makes hacker news great.

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