Please read the paper before you comment • Hacker News Board

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#51

Post by samatman » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #6

> Rule of thumb: the more steps you get away from the primary source the more corrupted everything gets. The article is good. The press release is bad. The tweet about the press release is worse. The tweets dunking on the tweet about the press release are terrible. Each one loses more of the critical context we need to actually understand what’s going on. Only the paper itself is a primary source. If you want to know…

I'll freely admit that the article about the tweets dunking on the press release for the paper, is as much as I'll ever want to know about this particular kerfuffle.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#52

Post by Waterfall » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:57 AM UTC

serf wrote: post #11

sircastor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you’d get an increase in quality at a loss of quantity. As you suggest, that may be the key to the discourse we’re all looking for.

you lose a bit of quality, too. It might up the ratio towards quality, but you'll definitely lose some comments that the author doesn't feel like jumping through hoops to send through. example : captcha/captcha-like services. I've written well-thought out responses and comments on various forums and communities , and finally when asked to identify all the buses or traffic lights I quit the process. Why? Is it because…

Just be a little smarter than the average commenter. It's not reached critical mass yet. https://github.com/dessant/buster

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#53

Post by vmilner » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:57 AM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #33

As a rule of thumb, I try not to quote from media unless I have seen the whole book/story/article/movie myself and am sure I understand the quotation in context. Part of that comes from the kind of frustration Hillel Wayne voices here: > People will offhand use famous quotes to support their arguments, when the context the quote was given in has nothing to do with it. I spent a lot of hours in high school debate list…

Salvor Hardin talking about the archaeologist Lord Dorwin in the first Foundation novel.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#54

Post by wbobeirne » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:58 AM UTC

For anyone who wants to see this in action, refer to this front page post from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23885684

First read the article, then read the comments, and spot who didn't read the article. You may have to scroll down / go to the more section, as the people who are way off base didn't get upvoted as much as the ones who actually read it.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#55

Post by tssva » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:59 AM UTC

From the title this seems to be a violation of HN guidelines. "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article."

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#56

Post by polimind » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:00 AM UTC

Laremere wrote: post #50

Covzire wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying we need a platform with both characters/post and post/day limits?! I mean... that's beautiful, because I created a second twitter account just so I can follow a select few people for the pretty much the same reason you gave without having to worry they're getting lost to the noise.

The social network I honestly want is something akin to the tradition of Christmas cards: a rare update (at most once a quarter) about how life is going with the option of attaching a few photos. No comments section, but instead a "I'd like to get in touch and chat sometime" button which helps schedule a video chat. No retweets, shares, engagement metrics.

Man, sign me up. I would love to have a Facebook again if you removed the news feed, likes, alarm red notifications, and long comment threads about politics or whatever. Just a casual "hey let's catch up" and "here's how my last month / quarter went," oh yeah, I'm in.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#57

Post by Waterfall » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #26

serf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you lose a bit of quality, too. It might up the ratio towards quality, but you'll definitely lose some comments that the author doesn't feel like jumping through hoops to send through. example : captcha/captcha-like services. I've written well-thought out responses and comments on various forums and communities , and finally when asked to identify all the buses or traffic lights I quit the process. Why? Is it because…

I already abort a lot of comments I've written to post on forums, Reddit, HN, etc. Sometimes multiple paragraphs of written and re-written text. Usually my thinking is "someone will inevitably misconstrue my intent and start a dispute" - the chance of that often seems higher than the chance of someone finding my comment useful. So, I figure "what's the point?" Adding a gateway, like your example with the CAPTCHA, wou…

I agree. On certain places I just give up. That place that is complete different from your opinions? But who cares? Your comment on an echo chamber will just be deleted, ignored, you banned, downvoted at hell at best. The only places to give dissenting opinions is places where all posts have no score and are merited not by the ego of the poster but the content of the post, the anonymous places have been both the most accepting and the most toxic.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#58

Post by DoreenMichele » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:04 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29

The key to cleaning up my Twitter feed was to unfollow people who were too good at Twitter. That is: People who are working to maximize engagement, follower count, retweets, and likes. In my feed, the highest signal to noise ratio comes from people who aren't commenting on any and every trending topic. Instead, they're busy doing real work, away from Twitter, only occasionally checking in to share something. Likewise…

I have no idea how to do Twitter well. I have a serious medical condition and other issues and I spend most of my time basically trying to distract myself from the misery of my life and I sometimes spend all day on Twitter and sometimes don't look at it for weeks at a time.

Thank you for this observation.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#59

Post by xupybd » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

This is true of most news. Headlines claim something crazy, the article has some nuances and clears up the click bait confusion. Then people read the headline without reading the article. Then they form a world view accordingly.

Re: Please read the paper before you comment

#60

Post by wittyreference » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

tssva wrote: post #55

From the title this seems to be a violation of HN guidelines. "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article."

I wish the addendum to that rule was “because we will just delete their post anyway.”

The lowest value contributions on HN are inevitably those that use a headline to air personal grievances vaguely related to the subject of the post (“Apple releases new cure for diabetes”, top comment: “Let me tell you why I hate the touchbar.”) the second lowest are those that clearly read the headline and ran with it, without reading the content that utterly contradicts what they imagine the article would contain.

Not having read the article / not discussing anything in the darn article should absolutely be grounds for criticism.