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Trolls (2008)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Trolls (2008)

#201

Post by kstenerud »

billswift wrote: post #182
kstenerud wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything you post can't be seen by others unless they've turned on dead posts in their configuration, in which case anything you post has [dead] prefixed on it. Though it happens less than in other forums, wagon circling is definitely a persistent problem on HN. I believe it's only further exacerbated by the fact that downvoted comments are displayed in a difficult to read color, meaning that downvotes can effectivel…

Interestingly, since it is easy to highlight and read them, I almost always read downvoted comments. Even in a post, like this one, with lots of comments, where I start to skim them, but I still read most of the downvoted ones.

I do too; it's just annoying to have to manually highlight something in order to read it.

In general, a 1-line downvoted post is downvoted for good reason. For multiline posts, it's far more often a good post that people didn't like for other reasons. Those are the ones I take steps to manually highlight and read, and then upvote if I think it was downvoted for the wrong reasons.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#202

Post by m0th87 »

zedshaw wrote: post #179

I normally find that, unless an essay is about mathematics, if it is based on a binary argument then it's just false because it's too simplistic to be based in reality. In this case saying there's only "trolls" and "super awesome people!" is childish. There's a much more interesting spectrum of human behavior online that doesn't fit into these convenient categories. To then say there's only two types of "trolls" is a…

Are you suggesting HN's ranking algorithm biases toward YC-related content? Because that is a serious accusation.

I realize YC job posts can disable comments, and there is a separate tab for open jobs. That's no big deal because the behavior is externally visible and obvious.

If HN actually re-ranks articles to support YC content though, that is a big deal. And it's scary how that might subtly affect the Valley, given how large and influential HN is now.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#203

Post by teej »

nirvana wrote: post #162
teej wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last 6 months I've been running an experiment. An experiment to make Hacker News better. Because I felt Hacker News was going to shit in several ways and I felt like I could help. I couldn't stop naive newbies from making dumb comments, but I could stop fanboyism and groupthink. I decided that I was going to take a different approach to commenting. In essence, I wanted to be like DHH - highly opinionated, stro…

You had 3.5k karma before beginning this experiment and you're a cofounder of a YC funded company! You're already part of the "in" group. The first comment prior to this one on your comments feed starts of with: "Your entire comment is bullshit and it pisses me off. You've never worked at Zynga, so to purport that you know exactly what it's like to work there is bullshit. Your comment reflects exactly what Silicon Va…

To be clear, my "foundership" of a YC company wasn't publicly knowledge until 4 weeks ago.

My last comment isn't my greatest accomplishment. I'd hope that my behavior would be looked at in whole, instead of cherrypicked.

That being said, I was characterizing the general feeling of HN as a whole. Of the 100k+ readership of HN, very few are actual Zynga employees. So in that light, I defend my comment. There is a large anti-Zynga sentiment on HN and that sentiment is driven by media-fueled propaganda.

I can't account for why others have been hell-banned or downvoted. But from my experience being very contrarian in my own way, I haven't seen that at all. In fact, I've seen the exact opposite.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#204

Post by DiabloD3 »

teej wrote: post #137
interlagos wrote: post #91

I've been hellbanned here on HN on at least three different IP addresses and accounts...that I am aware of. Probably more. In each case nothing I'd ever said would be considered trolling by any rational observer. Here on HN, however, as with most communities where you start to recognize the regulars (tptacek, raganwald, etc), "trolling" is redefined to simply mean "going against the grain". There was one discussion t…

In the last 6 months I've been running an experiment. An experiment to make Hacker News better. Because I felt Hacker News was going to shit in several ways and I felt like I could help. I couldn't stop naive newbies from making dumb comments, but I could stop fanboyism and groupthink. I decided that I was going to take a different approach to commenting. In essence, I wanted to be like DHH - highly opinionated, stro…

In short, you can't stop the group think.

Continuing from this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3354448

I'm not even sure if I get the point of trying either. I mean, I believe I have provided at least some value to HN, but every time I've "been unafraid to call people out", all I got was a bunch of crap for it.

Although you say we shouldn't lose hope, I think I already have. Its frustrating to have to deal with people claiming everything is the next new previous thing or the new black or the new white or the new Apple or the new Google or whatever else meme you can think of it.

I find startups intriguing, I like deeply scientific and mathematical discussions, I like hearing about stuff going on in the open source world. You'd think HN would be my thing, but there are simply elements of the HN community that rub me the wrong way and no matter how much you try to stop them, no matter how many times you down vote them, they just keep coming back stronger than before.

Honestly, there are just some people here who'd be happier over at 4chan than here, and I wish they'd just go.

BTW, I expect to get downvoted for this, and I don't care. I don't sugar coat the truth, and I'm sure as hell not going to start now.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#205

Post by gbog »

mithaler wrote: post #126
interlagos wrote: post #91

I've been hellbanned here on HN on at least three different IP addresses and accounts...that I am aware of. Probably more. In each case nothing I'd ever said would be considered trolling by any rational observer. Here on HN, however, as with most communities where you start to recognize the regulars (tptacek, raganwald, etc), "trolling" is redefined to simply mean "going against the grain". There was one discussion t…

There was one discussion that I participated where I predicted that Apple would see declining profit margins due to increased competition. Remarkably this completely benign, seemingly obvious observation saw me declared a troll, and shortly thereafter yet another account was hellbanned from HN. I'm curious--can you paste the text of that comment here if you still have it? It's possible that, for example, it was your…

There has been some threads where any comment that was not a praise of Steve Jobs and Apple was downvoted. Sometimes I feel fragmentation on HN, was is upvoted in a thread is downvoted in another.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#207

Post by billswift »

Sukotto wrote: post #92

My go-to commentary on this general topic is the classic penny-arcade comic "John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" (Normal Person) + (Anonymity) + (Audience) = (Total Fuckwad) http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/

More generally: (Normal Person) + (Wrong Situation) = (Oops)

See: Banality of Evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banality_of_evil

and, http://www.radioopensource.org/hannah-arendt-and-the-banalit...

Re: Trolls (2008)

#209

Post by Tsagadai »

scott_s wrote: post #46
_delirium wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like honest discussion also, but also enjoy discussion that's "playful" in various ways, especially when it's on the gray-area border between serious and trollish. You can get interesting sides of people when they have something of an alibi because they aren't "really" saying something (but aren't "really" not doing so, either). I do think it's probably better if it's in areas where there's at least tacit agreement…

Playful discussion requires familiarity and trust. Trolls poison trust.

Trust on the internet is dangerous. You should exercise your judgement and not let it be impaired by a perceived absence of trolls. There are trolls, flamebaiters, astroturfers, bots, vested interests, paid posters and spammers everywhere on the internet. Once upon a time, appeal to authority arguments actually influenced most of the population. Let us not go back there, it is better for us all if we don't trust everything we see and hear.

I'm a very trusting person. I don't lock my doors, for instance. But I exercise, or at least I like to think I exercise, a healthy scepticism without falling into paranoia. You can never really know or understand what everyone else's motivations and intentions are and you should remember that fact at all times.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#210

Post by wanorris »

anamax wrote: post #187
wanorris wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current Congress can't get anything done because one of the political parties has decided that it isn't in their interest to get anything done, to keep the other party from getting credit for it. I don't mean to call out the Republicans for being uniquely unpleasant in this regard -- there have been periods when the Democrats have been just as calculatingly obstructive.

> The current Congress can't get anything done because one of the political parties has decided that it isn't in their interest to get anything done, to keep the other party from getting credit for it. Hmm. The House passed a budget this year. The Senate hasn't for almost three years. The House passed an extension to govt financing/ operations. The Senate hasn't. The House passed an extension to the payroll tax cut.…

Absent a 60-member supermajority, passing a bill in the Senate requires both parties to at least agree to let it come to a vote. Passing a bill in the House does not require it to be palatable to the other party, the Senate, or the President, nor is it required for it to have any realistic hope of ever becoming law.

I didn't really mean for this to be an unpleasantly partisan post, just a statement of facts about the situation in Washington as I see it. The current Democrats in power have many flaws, but I see no reason to think their goal is to avoid action, because a lack of action would provide no benefit to them.

To argue that the House has genuinely tried to get things done during this session, I would think you would have to assent to one of the following two things:

1. Even with a divided Congress, it is not required for both parties to work together in a bipartisan spirit of compromise to pass meaningful legislation.

2. The current House of Representatives has genuinely tried to work closely together with Senate Democrats and the President in a bipartisan spirit of compromise to pass meaningful legislation.

Do you believe one of these things?

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