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Some tactics for writing in public

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Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#61

Post by spencerflem »

lapcat wrote: post #32
zer8k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up/down vote systems, especially ones that punish the poster quickly by rendering their post unreadable, create a hivemind of people who agree. HN posters LOVE to point out the fact it's "not like Reddit" when, in fact, it is. If you say something factual but disagreeable with the current zeitgeist of HN (usually mid-to-far-left social policy) you will be met with downvotes. Even a small amount begins to add up until…

> the current zeitgeist of HN (usually mid-to-far-left social policy) HN has no zeitgeist, and "mid-to-far-left social policy" is not even close to my experience. A lot of commenters seem to think that HN has some kind of consensus, but it doesn't, as dang himself (the HN moderator) can testify. A number of different factions coexist (uneasily) here. My experience is that upvotes and downvotes are... pretty random, s…

Completely agreed.

I guess there's no one zeitgeist but I feel like the combination of groups collectively forms one.

If someone mentions Mozilla for example, I already know what the thread will be like for example

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#62

Post by OJFord »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #55
OJFord wrote: post #23

> Recently on Mastodon I complained about some gross terminology that I’d just noticed in the dig man page. A few dudes in the replies asked me to prove that the original author intended it to be offensive (which of course is besides [sic] the point) or tried to explain to me why it actually wasn’t a problem. > So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: Of course I understand no responsibility to 'prove' anyth…

There's a lot more interesting things in Julia's post than relitigating this specific example.

That's why it stuck out to me I suppose - the rest seemed like solid advice, and this a misunderstanding that was treated not really in the spirit of some of the other points.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#63

Post by OJFord »

lambda wrote: post #51
OJFord wrote: post #23

> Recently on Mastodon I complained about some gross terminology that I’d just noticed in the dig man page. A few dudes in the replies asked me to prove that the original author intended it to be offensive (which of course is besides [sic] the point) or tried to explain to me why it actually wasn’t a problem. > So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: Of course I understand no responsibility to 'prove' anyth…

Grope has the same meaning in American English, and used in that context could be fine ("grope around"). But I have never heard "groper" used for anything other than some engaging in sexual assault. The benign sense of "grope around" isn't a sufficient part of an identity to ever use the word "groper", while he sexual assault sense is, so "groper" implies the sexual assault meaning. It's entirely likely that the orig…

I don't think I've heard 'groper' to describe the actor when it's a human assailant either though?

And 'dig' is a tool that searches (or 'digs') for certain information - one (and only one) of the meanings fits!

I'm not really interested in an argument about it, and I'm certainly not holding anything against or taking Evans to task over it, as I said initially it just seems like a misunderstanding or that the commenters were rude about it to me.

I thought TFA was otherwise excellent and I've enjoyed (& learnt from) her writing on many occasions.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#64

Post by ant6n »

viknesh wrote: post #36
wrp wrote: post #8

Summary of her rules for defensive posting: 1. Talk about facts 2. Tell stories 3. Ask technical questions 4. Fix mistakes 5. Ask for examples, not opinions 6. Start with a little context 7. Avoid flamebait triggers 8. Preempt common suggestions 9. Ignore people who challenge your viewpoint (my interpretation) 10. Don't pursue arguments 11. Pay attention to critical feedback Number 9 is I think not as defensible as t…

I think the "shock" at an old man page is pretty silly to begin with, but I think a better phrasing for #9 would be to ignore the trolls. The problem with the dig acronym isn't that it was intended to be bad, but that viewed with today's (American) social context, the phrase would likely be taken to be distasteful. Therefore, I think the issue with the commenters isn't that they "challenge" the viewpoint. At a minimu…

"The problem with the dig acronym isn't that it was intended to be bad"

That's because many people in tech used to think that tech bro culture wasn't bad. Tech also used to be much very excluding. Back then, if you were not part of the tech bro culture, you already knew it was distasteful, and that you were being excluded.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#65

Post by [deleted] »

lapcat wrote: post #32
zer8k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up/down vote systems, especially ones that punish the poster quickly by rendering their post unreadable, create a hivemind of people who agree. HN posters LOVE to point out the fact it's "not like Reddit" when, in fact, it is. If you say something factual but disagreeable with the current zeitgeist of HN (usually mid-to-far-left social policy) you will be met with downvotes. Even a small amount begins to add up until…

> the current zeitgeist of HN (usually mid-to-far-left social policy) HN has no zeitgeist, and "mid-to-far-left social policy" is not even close to my experience. A lot of commenters seem to think that HN has some kind of consensus, but it doesn't, as dang himself (the HN moderator) can testify. A number of different factions coexist (uneasily) here. My experience is that upvotes and downvotes are... pretty random, s…

[deleted]

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#66

Post by teddyh »

noelwelsh wrote: post #26
teddyh wrote: post #17

[flagged]

Nah. There are certain things that one might post that are worth saying, because they push back against bullshit, but are certainly not worth discussing with peddlers of such bullshit. Just think of any conspiracy theory (e.g. anti-vaxers) as really obvious examples.

So you claim the right to push back but also the right to block any responders who push back on your push back? Why the asymmetry? Because you’re right and they’re wrong?

Sounds like people want to both get praise (or upvotes, depending on forum) for spouting the prevailing views (or the insular views of their bubble, whichever), but not having to deal with any inconvenient disagreements. Whatever that is, it is not a “conversation”.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#67

Post by mixedmath »

karaterobot wrote: post #47

My rules for HN: * Assume the person responding to you hasn't read the article, and has only briefly scanned your comment while mentally composing their reply. * Anything abstract is going to get misunderstood; keep it concrete but vague. * There is no consistent relationship between quality of a comment and how people respond to it. * You can write a reply and then erase it without sending, and that's the best thing…

I agree with these rules. I would add:

* Always assume that no one will reply to a comment. Threads of comments are at most loosely based on a theme.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#68

Post by iamflimflam1 »

karaterobot wrote: post #47

My rules for HN: * Assume the person responding to you hasn't read the article, and has only briefly scanned your comment while mentally composing their reply. * Anything abstract is going to get misunderstood; keep it concrete but vague. * There is no consistent relationship between quality of a comment and how people respond to it. * You can write a reply and then erase it without sending, and that's the best thing…

You can write a reply and then erase it without sending, and that's the best thing to do in most cases.

Reminds me of a time I’d written a huge email - can’t remember now what had got me riled up. I showed it to a colleague to proof read and he just said “there’s only want way to improve this” and promptly hit the delete button…

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#69

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

lucideer wrote: post #37
OJFord wrote: post #23

> Recently on Mastodon I complained about some gross terminology that I’d just noticed in the dig man page. A few dudes in the replies asked me to prove that the original author intended it to be offensive (which of course is besides [sic] the point) or tried to explain to me why it actually wasn’t a problem. > So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: Of course I understand no responsibility to 'prove' anyth…

I think the sexual interpretation is pretty strong (at least today) - "groping" and "groper" have slightly different vibes - that warrants removal today imo. But yeah, I'm not sure if that was the case in the 80s. --- Edit: as pointed out below I hadn't noticed when I wrote this that the offending mastodon replies were apparently deleted so the 3 replies I mention here aren't actually relevant --- I did click through…

Said the posts were deleted.

>A few dudes in the replies (who I think by now have all deleted their posts) asked me to prove that the original author intended it to be offensive…

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#70

Post by wpietri »

haswell wrote: post #54
OJFord wrote: post #23

> Recently on Mastodon I complained about some gross terminology that I’d just noticed in the dig man page. A few dudes in the replies asked me to prove that the original author intended it to be offensive (which of course is besides [sic] the point) or tried to explain to me why it actually wasn’t a problem. > So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: Of course I understand no responsibility to 'prove' anyth…

> So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: When I read the Mastodon thread, this jumped out at me as well. A couple of the guys who raised the point clarified that they fully agreed that the removal of “groping” was a good thing, but by that point, the author wouldn’t be able to see the clarification. I’m really torn on this. I fully support people’s choices to set boundaries and block abusive behavior. At t…

> insta-block [...] seems at the heart of the brokenness of online discourse.

> having seen what some of the women in my life go through re: abusive behavior online, I also understand the hair trigger

Even from your own words, it sounds like the heart is not in the reaction, but what people are reacting to.

I am moderately mouthy on social media. I get a much, much smaller level of pushback than similar women do. When I do, the level of respect is higher, and I almost never get my credentials questioned. But I regularly see women with much stronger credentials get those inspected and/or dismissed. Just yesterday I saw a woman with a relevant PhD getting talked down to by some random guy. And then when she made a separate post about her frustration with reply guys and how she was thinking about leaving Mastodon, some different random dude told her to "get a live".

Historically, we spent thousands of years keeping women in "their place". That was partly legal, but mostly social. We've solved the legal stuff in the US, but only recently. (E.g., states only started to outlaw marital rape in the 1970s, and it wasn't fully outlawed until 1992.) It should be no surprise to anybody that the social mechanisms did not magically evaporate the moment we passed some laws. And I think one of those social mechanisms is the disproportionate negativity women get from men when they are not in "their place". When they have the audacity to act like they know things and have valid opinions just like men do.

If you want to read more on this, Manne's "Down Girl: the logic of misogyny" is a very careful examination of the mechanisms and their effects. If you're looking for "the heart", I think that's a good place to continue your search.

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