Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
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Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#2This is pure speculation, but I wonder if only providing an upvote button discourages positive comments, leaving only negative ones left to actually be posted. The purpose of the upvote is intended to mean "I support this contribution to the discussion", but is too often simply used as an "agreed" vote. There have been plenty of other related comment thread discussions along these lines as well.
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#3This is pure speculation, but I wonder if only providing an upvote button discourages positive comments, leaving only negative ones left to actually be posted. The purpose of the upvote is intended to mean "I support this contribution to the discussion", but is too often simply used as an "agreed" vote. There have been plenty of other related comment thread discussions along these lines as well.
Maybe in part, but I think for the majority of people thinking positively about a situation results in a nodding of the head and moving on. Most don't find it interesting or adding to the conversation to just write, "I agree because of what you said or because of X, Y, and Z."
If you disagree, however, there is an emotional tendency to want to argue or lash out(especially under the guise of partial or full anonymity). Arguing makes for a more interesting read or prevents the 'yes' mentality.
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#4I think our culture has evolved this as a defence against shills. If positive low-content comments ("I just had a great experience with x") were an accepted and normal thing to post, pretty soon we'd fill up with astroturfers. If you're posting in support of something, you have to go into depth about what made it good.
I think this is good; HN is optimized for signal/noise even at the cost of missing out on some content. It would be better to have a culture that frowned on shallow criticisms (“Why don’t you have X, Y, or Z?” and “Why would you waste your time on that? 12 things like that already exist!”, as the article puts it).
Above all HN (to me) is the antitwitter; it's a place for serious, in-depth discussion. I wonder whether a minimum of 161 characters would lead to better posts.
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#5People tend to feel more strongly about things they dislike than things they like. When things work, they tend to drift past without being noticed. Think about the things that provoke reliable positive comment - they often are in scenarios where a negative experience is expected.
Consider Apple. Why do people love the brand and products so much and are so willing to discuss it? Perhaps because their expectation of those fields is so low and Apple surpasses it. Compare a normal retail stores with an Apple store. Compare a pre-iPhone with an iPhone. Compare a Mac with a PC. Apple have consciously taken negative customer experiences and made them positive. And as such they get extensive positive comment.
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#6People tend to feel more strongly about things they dislike than things they like. When things work, they tend to drift past without being noticed. Think about the things that provoke reliable positive comment - they often are in scenarios where a negative experience is expected. Consider Apple. Why do people love the brand and products so much and are so willing to discuss it? Perhaps because their expectation of th…
That's a really interesting point. So maybe we're likely to comment on something positive that far exceeds the normal experience, but not say anything where "good" is already expected. I'd never thought of it like that.
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#7"Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting."
- Emmet Fox
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#8I think our culture has evolved this as a defence against shills. If positive low-content comments ("I just had a great experience with x") were an accepted and normal thing to post, pretty soon we'd fill up with astroturfers. If you're posting in support of something, you have to go into depth about what made it good. I think this is good; HN is optimized for signal/noise even at the cost of missing out on some cont…
Your 161-character minimum is an interesting idea. It reminds me of Randall Munroe's IRC moderator bot that only allows novel lines that have never been typed before to show up in the room. He also has an interesting discussion of different techniques to improve conversational SNR:
http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-xkcd-signal-at...
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#9I think our culture has evolved this as a defence against shills. If positive low-content comments ("I just had a great experience with x") were an accepted and normal thing to post, pretty soon we'd fill up with astroturfers. If you're posting in support of something, you have to go into depth about what made it good. I think this is good; HN is optimized for signal/noise even at the cost of missing out on some cont…
In-depth useful comments are key. The best analogy is Amazon product reviews- the high-star rating serves as an initial screener, but the real test comes with the reviews. Positive but empty reviews are ignored, the useful ones talk about specifics of the product. Finally a quick glance at the negative reviews to see if they are about something substantial, or are just about a bad shipping experience or something.
Re: Tell People What You Like (Not Just What You Don't)
#10I think our culture has evolved this as a defence against shills. If positive low-content comments ("I just had a great experience with x") were an accepted and normal thing to post, pretty soon we'd fill up with astroturfers. If you're posting in support of something, you have to go into depth about what made it good. I think this is good; HN is optimized for signal/noise even at the cost of missing out on some cont…
In-depth useful comments are key. The best analogy is Amazon product reviews- the high-star rating serves as an initial screener, but the real test comes with the reviews. Positive but empty reviews are ignored, the useful ones talk about specifics of the product. Finally a quick glance at the negative reviews to see if they are about something substantial, or are just about a bad shipping experience or something.
This is a really interesting comparison to draw. What do you think of the 'movement' towards more transparent commenting systems like Disqus?