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Some tactics for writing in public

jvns.ca

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Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#151

Post by lapcat »

schneems wrote: post #128
lapcat wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somehow we've built a culture where its socially acceptable, and even rewarded, to behave online in ways that would never be acceptable in other social settings. I don't think we've "built" the culture per se. I think it's more like humans evolved over millions of years for small, in-person groups, and we're not "built" (by nature) to handle the endless sea of online strangers. On the internet, the personal familia…

I agree with you that we’re in the infancy of context free communication (text only posts). But disagree that it wasn’t built (or couldn’t be changed, my extended interpretation) There are wildly different experiences with communities online. Communities are also a thing that can be built intentionally. We can also learn from prior works. Lessig (1999) identifies four elements that regulate behavior online: Laws, nor…

I think the biggest factor is actually moderation. Smaller communities can be effectively moderated. This may fall under "Norms", but the difference is that (non-government) moderators will enforce the social conventions regardless of whether you feel compelled to follow them. But perhaps familiarity is still a factor in smaller online communities, because the participants often get to know each other.

Unfortunately, larger communities are effectively beyond moderation IMO. I don't think that the one or two moderators are enough on Hacker News, and of course the social media platforms are even worse. In the "real world", the non-online world, a significant portion of the population will flout the laws, regardless of government enforcement, and a significant portion will flout the social conventions. That will also occur in the online world.

To put it another way, all you need is one bad reply to ruin your day. :-)

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#152

Post by nonethewiser »

mjb wrote: post #3

This is really great, actionable, sensible, advice for folks who write on the internet. It agrees with my experiences, too. On the other hand, it's sad that the culture we have built on the internet forces talented people like Julia to censor themselves and narrow the scope of their writing. > So I have a weird catalog in my head of things not to mention if I don’t want to start the same discussion about that thing f…

> The exact flavors of that on HN, Slashdot, Twitter, Tumblr, etc are different, but the core issue is the same everywhere.

I think there are three main factors. Some cases are more one than the other.

1. Anonymity. Many places people know who you really are. Your family, friends, and coworkers arent judging you.

2. Using a mob for cover. As an analogy, its a lot safer to throw a Molotov cocktail from a crowd then by yourself.

3. No empathy for avatars. You aren’t talking to a real person, who you would empathize a lot more with.

After writing these, they are largely different shades of anonymity.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#153

Post by deadbeeves »

hathchip wrote: post #139
deadbeeves wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how etymology is determined. The etymology of a word describes the reason why it's spelled or spoken the way it is. "Jizz" was chosen because it sounds like "jazz", but different. We can infer that the person who chose the word meant to convey that jizz music is like jazz music but different. We can suppose that if the slang for sperm didn't exist that the writer would definitely have chosen "jezz", "juzz"…

It's hard to believe you're not simply trying to satirise the people jvns complained about, who repeatedly pretend to believe that an obvious choice of words to make a sexual joke was not chosen for that reason.

I guess I'm just less confident than you in my ability to read people's minds. But I do find it funny that we're arguing about intent when the initial point was that it didn't matter.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#154

Post by verve_rat »

nonethewiser wrote: post #152
mjb wrote: post #3

This is really great, actionable, sensible, advice for folks who write on the internet. It agrees with my experiences, too. On the other hand, it's sad that the culture we have built on the internet forces talented people like Julia to censor themselves and narrow the scope of their writing. > So I have a weird catalog in my head of things not to mention if I don’t want to start the same discussion about that thing f…

> The exact flavors of that on HN, Slashdot, Twitter, Tumblr, etc are different, but the core issue is the same everywhere. I think there are three main factors. Some cases are more one than the other. 1. Anonymity. Many places people know who you really are. Your family, friends, and coworkers arent judging you. 2. Using a mob for cover. As an analogy, its a lot safer to throw a Molotov cocktail from a crowd then by…

Ah, the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboa...

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#155

Post by hyperpape »

gary_0 wrote: post #73

Julia's writing also just has nice-person energy (without any of the forced cutesy-ness that some blogs suffer from) and I think she's getting back what she puts out. She's clearly a skilled writer who knows how to set a tone. The default tone people tend to assume on the Internet is more brash, and that's the source of a lot of unnecessary problems. On the other hand, I don't mind a little snark or old-school Torval…

Agreed, Julia's writing has always struck me as great, and I have her in my head as a model to aspire to. Despite that, I feel like my tone is always much more of a lecture than I wish it was.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#156

Post by deadbeeves »

dragonwriter wrote: post #144
deadbeeves wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how etymology is determined. The etymology of a word describes the reason why it's spelled or spoken the way it is. "Jizz" was chosen because it sounds like "jazz", but different. We can infer that the person who chose the word meant to convey that jizz music is like jazz music but different. We can suppose that if the slang for sperm didn't exist that the writer would definitely have chosen "jezz", "juzz"…

> “Jizz” was chosen because it sounds like “jazz”, but different. We can infer that the person who chose the word meant to convey that jizz music is like jazz music but different. “Jizz” in English is etymologically closely related to “jazz” in English, which some sources also attest to having a (historical) slang use identical to that of “jizz”, so, while you are absolutely correct about the point of choosing the wo…

A separate question that further complicates this is whether the writer was aware of that etymological connection.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#157

Post by johnnyworker »

wpietri wrote: post #34
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…

"Groping for a light switch" would be a valid phrase in American English as well. But a "groper" on its own is going to have sexual connotations. E.g.: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/groper I think that would be especially true for women, who, being the common targets of sexual groping, are going to be more aware of it. So even if it weren't my first association, I would still think it a reasonable association for…

> But a "groper" on its own is going to have sexual connotations. E.g.: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/groper

The first (and the only non-slang one) definition of that is "a person or thing that gropes".

Context matters, as in "groping $person" versus "groping $object". You cannot sexually touch domain information, so that couldn't possibly be the meaning.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#158

Post by civilitty »

remich wrote: post #117
dkarl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair that some people have stronger feelings about and more appetite for discussing a topic than I do. To pick one of her examples, I've done a couple of toy projects with Tailwind. I think it's pretty neat, and I don't mind saying so! But I accept that people working full time on huge Tailwind projects at work probably care way more deeply about the topic than I do, are much more impacted by aspects of…

You know, that's interesting. I tend to avoid Tailwind discussion because I feel like I don't see enough opinions from people working full time on huge projects using it. Most of the time, it seems like the strongest opinions in favor come from folks who have only used it in toy apps, side projects, or completely greenfield small-to-medium applications. There's nothing wrong with using it in that way, of course, or o…

> But for some reason I rarely see that caveat mentioned, and the idea of refactoring a legacy application to use it makes me queasy haha.

Easiest way to check is to just add tailwind with PostCSS and the `@tailwind` directives and see what happens to your app. Unfortunately, if there's substantial CSS it will most likely be a disaster because the Tailwind reset will clobber the assumptions made by the previous CSS. It can be really hard to refactor custom styles when you can't see how they were supposed to look without running a separate older commit.

You can try disabling the CSS reset tailwind adds but then you'll have to chase bugs in the assumptions Tailwind makes so it's a bit of a catch 22. If it's a really large project with dozens of developers in its history, chances are there is already a custom CSS utility framework in place that uses the obvious formats like "p-2"/"px-2" for padding (with a different scale, yay!) and other naming collisions. You can however use the `@apply` directive to inline the Tailwind styles in the legacy classes to make it easier.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#159

Post by shadowgovt »

javajosh wrote: post #149
shadowgovt wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't being offended a bad thing? No. Offense is a (complex) emotional signal that you may not be able to ally with someone because their worldview differs from yours in a way that your goals are likely to come into conflict. It's no more bad to be offended than it's bad to be angry, or sad, or happy; it's an emotional signal, one that binds to a complex sociological model. > Doesn't it make sense to try as hard as…

[flagged]

> Your worldview is based on the assumption that offense is pleasant

With respect: I believe you have misunderstood me. Offense doesn't feel good; it's unpleasant. Whether something that feels bad is bad is context-specific. Pain, for example, can be caused by neuron misfiring or by having your hand on a hot stove; you definitely don't want to just tell yourself "Oh, this pain is something I'm feeling because I've been conditioned to; I should self-reflect on why I feel this way" if it's the hot-stove case.

When we feel offended, sometimes it's inappropriate (i.e. the signal isn't telling us anything useful). But sometimes it's quite appropriate. In online interactions with strangers? It's often appropriate and the appropriate response is to just silence the stranger rather than getting into an ultimately-fruitless back-and-forth over fundamentally opposed worldviews.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#160

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

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…

The non-sexual meaning was almost certainly the intended one (because the sexual meaning makes no sense at all in that context). I think we can give the original developers a full pass and assign no blame. It may still be a good idea to change it (and, indeed, they have done so; it's just that Apple retains an older version for licensing reasons).
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