I wonder to what extent this is determined by the platform? There is a kind of response that occurs on HN and every other platform I know that seems reflexive. I've tried at times and utterly failed to move from "commenting on" to "doing something" or "further discussion" and it just does not seem to work. Perhaps it is me but perhaps there is some other style or format that would provide a better vehicle. I find the concept of "name it and they will come" funny and interesting and would like to explore it more, but how?
Name It, and They Will Come
61–70 of 116 posts
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The internet has always had more noise than signal. HN used to have an incredibly good noise reduction mechanism, mostly thanks to self-policing in the community and the occasional intervention of the moderators. Thanks to this mechanism, most of the time, the top comments were really interesting ones. The noise usually ended towards the bottom of the page. I'm pretty sure that the expectation that this would happen…
There once was a model railway enthusiast. He loved trains and knew just about everything about them. He had a wonderful collection of model trains. One day he met someone with the same love of model railways. Together they built complex simulations and had their trains running together. They wrote software that could schedule the trains, etc, etc. A few more people noticed and while most people said, "Wow. These guy…
Thank you for presenting such a vivid example. Something that appeals to a minority, will, by definition, stop appealing to them when it morphs into a form that appeals to the majority. I have seen this happen even with TV series. Is there a name for this phenomenon? I do agree with the article where it says "we can’t discuss what we never named"
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#63The author's understanding is that these pepole would be discussing the project proper if they weren't discussing other things instead. I don't think he's right there. People love to talk and tend to flock to wherever conversation is happening. These people were never partciularly interested in discussing the project anyways; they were just browsing and saw an opportunity to jump into the discussion with something they do really care about, such as indentation styles or the nature of abstraction or what have you.
Also, the conclusion is a typical case of something that sounds insightful, but doesn't make any actual sense. I don't have even the slightest clue as to what the author is trying to say.
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
The internet has always had more noise than signal. HN used to have an incredibly good noise reduction mechanism, mostly thanks to self-policing in the community and the occasional intervention of the moderators. Thanks to this mechanism, most of the time, the top comments were really interesting ones. The noise usually ended towards the bottom of the page. I'm pretty sure that the expectation that this would happen…
There once was a model railway enthusiast. He loved trains and knew just about everything about them. He had a wonderful collection of model trains. One day he met someone with the same love of model railways. Together they built complex simulations and had their trains running together. They wrote software that could schedule the trains, etc, etc. A few more people noticed and while most people said, "Wow. These guy…
It could be tied to Leopold Kohr's observations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kohr#Philosophy
and to the way our typical political party hacks his platform in order to gain votes. In some ways 'quantity kills quality'.
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. It says that most users wont try hard enough to understand a post, and instead comment like people are doing in this thread. (It also suggests to try and give name to what you've built, and and try and weave it into an explicit narrative, to help people understand it and give more focused responses).
Okay, but what does that mean in practice? Almost every project posted on HN already has a name and at least a short description of why it exists or what it's trying to do (often in the title itself). They still get bikeshedded to hell, so obviously the name and story alone aren't enough. I see a ton of posts where people bicker specifically about the name or the story (half the comments are "is this actually an issu…
"If you, as an author, want to spark an intelligent discussion on your product than do just that, present the points you want to debate while allowing some freedom for that noise since it isn't always useless.
Instead of: "Hey HN, I just wrote a badass new streaming protocol" and linking to the github source, specifically mention your concerns about continuing to rely on TCP for video streaming and the buffering lag it induces, link to a blog-ish thing which links to your source but frames a number of questions or doubts you have around your project if you, indeed, are at a loss and want to turn to the internet as a whole to try and solve them."
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
The internet has always had more noise than signal. HN used to have an incredibly good noise reduction mechanism, mostly thanks to self-policing in the community and the occasional intervention of the moderators. Thanks to this mechanism, most of the time, the top comments were really interesting ones. The noise usually ended towards the bottom of the page. I'm pretty sure that the expectation that this would happen…
There once was a model railway enthusiast. He loved trains and knew just about everything about them. He had a wonderful collection of model trains. One day he met someone with the same love of model railways. Together they built complex simulations and had their trains running together. They wrote software that could schedule the trains, etc, etc. A few more people noticed and while most people said, "Wow. These guy…
This is a fantastic way of describing the CS "culture" of my school. So many people who like talking about tech without ever bothering to learn the actual underlying skills. And yet they're nominally CS majors...
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#67Why does this guy write about "we" so much? He tries to come off as a "sensitive" guy but underneath "we" all see the desperation and pleas for approval.
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#68I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. Most of it just describes the usual internet bike-shedding ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality#Examples ), and then says that you could have avoided it by just... telling a story or naming something, but doesn't elaborate at all on what it means by that, how to do it, or why it would help.
> I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. It says that most users wont try hard enough to understand a post, and instead comment like people are doing in this thread. (It also suggests to try and give name to what you've built, and and try and weave it into an explicit narrative, to help people understand it and give more focused responses).
> most users wont try hard enough to understand a post
When it is obviously written by a tryhard, self-aware people tend to be a bit dismissive of this kind of pandering.
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#69Wow, most of the comments in this thread completely miss the point, which... is the point. So meta. We suffered this exact same issue for years, but it isn't only in git, readme or marketing pages that the problem exists. When pitching or telling people what we do, because what we are doing is new, we struggled to find the right words and therefore, got blank stares about what we were doing. The same thing happens wi…
With that description I still have no idea about what you actually do. Maybe that's not actually the pitch and you're just giving an example, or maybe not, just wanted you to give you my feedback :)
Thanks, we've found this to be significantly better than what we were saying before, it's still a work in progress.
"We're like drone shot video, but the viewer is in control of their perspective"
Most people get that.
Re: Name It, and They Will Come
#70I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. Most of it just describes the usual internet bike-shedding ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality#Examples ), and then says that you could have avoided it by just... telling a story or naming something, but doesn't elaborate at all on what it means by that, how to do it, or why it would help.
> I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. It says that most users wont try hard enough to understand a post, and instead comment like people are doing in this thread. (It also suggests to try and give name to what you've built, and and try and weave it into an explicit narrative, to help people understand it and give more focused responses).
So he should've named the naming problem.
Wait, is that what it's called? The Naming Problem?