this was a great post. its hard to deal with negativity when you're so close to the things you share on HN. But I agree just getting one positive and constructive comment is worth filtering through a lot of negativity. Its where another guy shows you something you've never thought about and it makes the code beautiful, or a critiques that helps make your app a better experience for people who have gotten a genuine interest in it.
Dear sw007
11–14 of 14 posts
Re: Dear sw007
#12Good post, Reg! I think you made Steve's day, and it is good advice for everyone on HN as well. I would be in favor of allowing people on HN to downvote overly negative comments. That would help I think. Not allowing everyone to downvote is a problem. HN karma != helpfulness.
Re: Dear sw007
#13The fundamental problem is that people like reading things that are written by people that have a slightly higher IQ than them (at least for people this side of 100). The reason that this is a problem is that the average person has more friends closer to the median IQ than they do further away. So when people share new sites with one another they are generally sharing it more often with lower IQ people than they are…
It's not about IQ, it's about actually wanting to understand something intellectually, and objectively.
Re: Dear sw007
#14Am I missing something here? This post makes it look like the conversation is surrounding the increase in negative comments vs the decrease of positive reinforcement. I don't think that's the crux of the issue at all. I come here for an interesting conversation. Lately, I haven't been getting it. Replacing overwhelmingly negative but unconstructive comments with overwhelmingly positive but unconstructive comments isn't the way forward. That's just trading one kind of troll for another. And to clear up any misconception - I don't think anybody's explicitly saying "say nicer things, no matter what!" But I think a focus on the positivity vs the constructiveness of a comment will take people down that road anyway.