In fact, for an experiment I created an account with which I posted a few negative responses (so destructive criticism), which got upvoted.
Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
101–110 of 465 posts
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#102I rarely read comments here anymore, preferring to stick to reading the article linked to - for the same reason that I never venture into the comment section on the Guardian's once great Comment is Free section. The first batch of comments are always (without fail) in the same vein, and start with a variation of "Yes, but..." or "But what about..." Attack, criticise, find something to disagree with. It doesn't matter if the commenter agreed with 5 things in the article, the early commenters always go looking for that 1 thing they don't agree with.
One of the great myths is that you have to put up with negative people online, that you have to 'toughen up', because, well, just because... You don't. Seth Godin wrote a great piece years ago telling you to fire your customers if they're too troublesome, and I've used this strategy in 2 businesses since. It's liberating. Negativity, insults, poorly mannered and poorly behaved people - you really DO NOT have to put up with any of that. Kick them to the curb and move on, because you really do not need those sorts of people anywhere near you or your new business.
Unfortunately, a lot of 'those people' hang out on HN (and the Guardian).
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#103Just don't say shit about Apple.
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#104Hi Steve, I don't know if you are going to read this, but I'm going to write it for the rest of the audience too. I think the trend of dismissing critics and commenting along the lines of "sour grapes" or "haters" very disturbing. Yes I go against your commentary. The great thing about internet and communities based on pseudonyms is that you get the first reaction that people have. Very few will take a few minutes to…
Point by point: Well thought comments are often ignored and not read ( not up/downvoted, just ignored ) You cannot tell if they were read or not. Exhorting users to use their 'mod points' is a challenge (yes its a slashdot reference). The community is larger and only the opinionated seem to vote. Stardom: No matter what they post some ""famous"" people around here get their post on the front page. By courtesy I won't…
hmmm, has anybody studied reading patterns of people when reading from a screen? It may be possible to fairly accurately estimate the probability of a section of text being read.
For example if there are 6 comments on display at anyone time and they are on display (without scrolling away) for 2 minutes, one might arrive at a probability of how much of that page was read, and how much time was equally spent on previous/subsequent parts of the page.
Especially when factors like, people tend to scroll text to be at the top of the screen to read it, or like me, highlight text I am currently reading with the mouse. Using these factors, we might be able to know what is/isn't read...
before improving something, try to measure it first!
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#105In my view, the main thing to change about this community over the last 5 years is that it's simply gotten bigger. As a result, the range of individuals you see is more diverse and the more there are a greater range of interests represented. There is a nostalgia associated with when the community was smaller and more intimate and I think that's what drives people to make claims about how things are declining. And I c…
I've been here 5 years as well, and there's always been an element of knee-jerk negativity, but if anything I've noticed less of it lately. The community has always valued intellegent discussion over mindlessly cheerleading eachother. I do see unconstructive negativity here and there, but it tends to fall to the bottom pretty quickly.
I think the difference now is, the negativity was dealt with by the community pretty severely. I lurked for a long time, then joined and now I rarely participate, in total I have probably been reading HN for over 5 years, and actively commenting for over 3. To me it seems like the community policing itself, and the individuals that helped have been overrun by a larger community that is apathetic to the negativity.
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
If all you want to hear is how awesome it is, then go show it to your mum. I'm sure she'll tell you how special you are and that you can do no wrong. Sounds like a strawman to me. Who here has said anything about wanting nothing but positivity, or to be told how awesome they are? Even negativity can be combined with encouragement and support. And it doesn't really cost anymore to do that. A. "Your idea is pretty bad.…
Mindcrime hits the nail on the head. I don't want people telling me how awesome my project is - no where in my OP have I said that. My mum would be my toughest critic but she'd also be my fairest and explain to me what she liked but more importantly how something I'd done could be made better. That's what HN was to me - a place for amazing constructive feedback. Constructive feedback is something much different to cr…
The 11K Club: I like the site design. I think the muted wood grain back ground is kind of cool. I have no idea what the site is for. The ToS scares me (The more people you refer ... the higher your chances of becoming a member ~ o_0)
Favilous: It looks like a bookmarking site. Solid site design and layout. Not too cluttered. I don't use bookmarking sites so I can't really comment on how it is different/better than other bookmarking sites.
Edit: Ok I see from posts here what 11kclub is. I'm not sure why user napillo is hellbanned but [s?]he makes a good point here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4397318
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#107I have also pretty much given up on HackerNews now too. I used to love finding novel and interesting material from any subject. Now I just see the same posts over and over again: - "top 'n' mistakes starts-up make" - "best 'n' ways to ensure your start up will succeed" - "'n' qualities that make a good founder/entrepreneur." - "why my start-up failed: lessons learnt" The content is rarely ground-breaking and rarely w…
oh, and not forgetting of course:
- "'n' things every programmer should know'" - "why every programmer should learn [C|LISP|ASSEMBLY]"
And can we just have a new section for the zillions of new "essential" JavaScript frameworks "we must learn" that get built every week.
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#108What projects are you working on now? If you're still stuck with a long commute and you are looking for something to build, you could try your hand at a Hacker News replacement. There are certainly enough people here jaded by the toxicity that would make the jump someplace new. My only piece of advice, if you decide do this, don't post it as a "Show HN". Reach out to smart people privately to beta test it.
Sadly I am starting to believe a invitation based HN would be the only solution to the problem but it comes with it's own set of problems. The biggest being that it would become an echo chamber.
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#109I spent the time and read your post for reviewing Favilous* and I have no idea why you think there was nothing constructive there. Frankly, it looks like mostly constructive. Most of the comments are even in your format of 'I like this but this needs work' for goodness sakes. I don't know what you expect. If anything, they pulled a lot of punches.
I've had the exact opposite reaction as you. I disliked the old HN community. It felt like a circle jerk who would hype each other up and offer little to no constructive criticism. Products that clearly had no defensible business models or clones of clones that would rely on kickbum business execution to see any adoption. You still see the same thing today, but at least there is some dissent.
I'm glad HN is no longer a place where clones of other platforms cobbled together in a few hours gets praised as the greatest thing since the memristor.
Re: Why I now, unfortunately, hate Hacker News..
#110Hi Steve, I don't know if you are going to read this, but I'm going to write it for the rest of the audience too. I think the trend of dismissing critics and commenting along the lines of "sour grapes" or "haters" very disturbing. Yes I go against your commentary. The great thing about internet and communities based on pseudonyms is that you get the first reaction that people have. Very few will take a few minutes to…
The trend was already well established by the time you got here. If you go back three years, you do see a different site that is far more accepting and far less technical. Early in the HN world, when I read an article, my first thought wasn't "let's see how HN have dismantled this". For many things (especially raw information), I appreciate that cynicism. For launches and discussions around early products, it annoys…
The Internet is not a hugbox. People launching products and companies need criticism more than anything else, because if they get it now, they can fix the problem before a customer or a funding source spots it.