To my fellow Hacker News contributors • Hacker News Board

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#21

Post by grandalf » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:32 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #14

We are all going to nod our heads to this post, but as 'raganwald knows, nothing is going to change as a result. The inoculations against tribalism and tribal drama are cultural. Whatever vaccine HN had against this, it's worn off. My take is, flag these topics off the site. Cut them off like a gangrenous limb. We want to keep the leg, but even more, we want our heart to keep beating. But then, a vocal subset of HN u…

It's funny that you write this b/c I hadn't read any of those threads myself. I have a filter where I don't often read the comments on stories from major media that make it to HN. There's rarely anything much to discuss and you're absolutely right that I do not care what anyone on HN thinks of Steve Jobs.

As a side note, I'm happy about the removal of point visibility on comments... but I wonder if perhaps increased tribalism might be a result of users in search of social meaning... which used to be easier to obtain via points.. and over time has been replaced by an emergent tribal system, wars, etc.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#22

Post by hugh3 » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:33 PM UTC

arkitaip wrote: post #4

Comment down/up votes have to go. People should be adult enough to be able read a post without someone telling them what's readworthy or not. Life is not a popularity contest where you tally how many points you've gotten for playing the game well. Members should, however, be able to flag comments that violate the guidelines so that the mods can deal with spam and other transgressions.

I disagree, but am upvoting you anyway because you were in negative territory. Comment scores are necessary because:

a) Not everybody has time to read every comment on every thread, and

b) The scores provide a slight psychological reward for writing good comments, thus encouraging that sort of behaviour.

Forums without comment scores usually wind up looking like a complete mess.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#23

Post by grandalf » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:35 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #12

I mean that I am making myself feel worse for reading HN... That's a signal that your focus has shifted a little too much from your own work to HN. Take a day off and invest that energy back where it belongs. We'll be here when you get back. Promise. EDIT: Added tags (Lighten up you guys).

Rather than interpreting his essay as a sign of HN becoming too important in his life, I think it's more accurate to say that he values HN and feels that a blog post is a good way to contribute useful ideas back to the community.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#24

Post by brudgers » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:36 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #13

Is it really that bad? HN is still an oasis of civil discourse in a desert of internet trolls.

More important than the civil discourse is that HN discussions are generally intelligent due to the high number of really fucking smart people who participate. That along with the karma system keeps much of the trolling in check.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#25

Post by cbs » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:36 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #12

I mean that I am making myself feel worse for reading HN... That's a signal that your focus has shifted a little too much from your own work to HN. Take a day off and invest that energy back where it belongs. We'll be here when you get back. Promise. EDIT: Added tags (Lighten up you guys).

>That's a signal that your focus has shifted a little too much from your own work to HN.

Amusing that to be the only reason is significantly oversimplifying.

The HN community is at best corrosive to the reader that is looking for technology and some buisness discussion. I made the mistake of assuming thats what I'd find here; once I got rid of silly notion, I found I no longer had a ill feeling when I went back to work after my lunch break.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#26

Post by hugh3 » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

ForrestN wrote: post #17

I definitely share this experience, for instance in many of the recent "Groupon is a scam" threads, or anything having to do with Android. It becomes a disincentive to participate in conversations about certain topics. I think one thing that might help, and that often spurs relatively useless chains of comments, is to clarify exactly when a post should be downvoted. I think some people use downvoting to express disag…

I definitely share this experience, for instance in many of the recent "Groupon is a scam" threads, or anything having to do with Android. It becomes a disincentive to participate in conversations about certain topics.

I find that the worst area of discussion is intellectual property law.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#27

Post by Karunamon » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:38 PM UTC

I have nothing to add other than I agree with the premise of the article, and I expect this thread is going to be very meta.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#28

Post by brudgers » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:42 PM UTC

arkitaip wrote: post #18

arkitaip wrote: post #4

Comment down/up votes have to go. People should be adult enough to be able read a post without someone telling them what's readworthy or not. Life is not a popularity contest where you tally how many points you've gotten for playing the game well. Members should, however, be able to flag comments that violate the guidelines so that the mods can deal with spam and other transgressions.

Just to prove my point, I'm getting downvoted for the comment above :) Some people simply cannot handle the downvote.

What the downvotes probably indicate is that your argument is not well supported with detailed rationales and relevant examples. In other words, downvotes are a sign that your post could benefit from additional editing in the near term.

Taking downvotes as either a failure to communicate your ideas, or as the price for saying what you feel you must is the healthiest approach.

BTW, I didn't vote on it.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#29

Post by _delirium » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:44 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #19

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like you say, if you post a reply to a comment that you downvoted, you are - arguably - just adding more noise. // Personally I think HN has degraded vastly since we lost scores. I see far more downvotes for disagreement and apparently less interest in supporting good argument. It's really hard now to read HN and get much from it unless the topic is one you want to read every single comment on. I hope I'm not dragg…

I agree, invisible comment scores add noise, because if I read something I agree strongly with I feel compelled to show my approval. In the old days clicking the up-arrow would show a suitable quantum of approval, but nowadays I sometimes feel compelled to add a comment which just says "I agree" and perhaps adds some minor extra point. While typing this comment it occurred to me that this comment falls into that very…

Going even further and showing the actual voters, in addition to the score (like kuro5hin does) can also sometimes remove the need to post. I especially miss it here at the end of an exchange, where I want to say something like "good point" or "well I still disagree but your argument is a good one". On k5, I'd just vote "3" on that comment, which they would then be able to see I upvoted. Here it feels like I need to post an acknowledgement, or else it feels like I've rudely just ignored a good criticism or went off in a huff, because there's no silent way to signal that I'm breaking off the conversation amicably.

I also find it useful as a way of recognizing names. If a comment of mine gets 10 upvotes here, I know that some amphormous subset of readers liked my comment, but I don't build any recognition of who.

Re: To my fellow Hacker News contributors

#30

Post by quanticle » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 4:46 PM UTC

Doesn't this post simply contribute to the problem, though? I mean, if Raganwald wants the community to be more focused on content, rather than pointless meta-discussion, shouldn't he or she post content? I mean, all this post serves to do is give even more attention to the hipsters and trolls.

My recommendation? If you see a comment that's clearly off-topic, vote it down if you're able or ignore it if you're not. Even if you disagree with the content of the comment, don't respond to it. If its a thread; scroll past it without stopping. If enough people do this, the HN algorithm will push these off-topic threads to the bottom, where they'll slowly wither away.