Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue • Hacker News Board

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#11

Post by inerte » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 8:15 PM UTC

mechanical_fish wrote: post #10

inerte wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with you, but I am happy someone provided reasons for what this is happening. My main problem with the summaries (I have more than one but let me be brief ;) is this: Imagine if I replied to your comment with this: Summary: Sometimes it's useful. This is what you've said, but you provided one counter-argument to my comment, one personal explanation, one extrapolation on what I've said. Then you expanded…

By reading one-liners, or depending on them to see if you're going to read the article, you're missing all the little stuff that separates the good from the bad. Yes. Welcome to the cruel world of information overload, where I don't have time to read 95% of the brilliantly crafted content that is being created on the Internet, to say nothing of the stupid stuff. Yes, judging books by their cover blurbs and reviews is…

Ok... but why are you being so ironic and offensive? Was I a jerk? I am being nice to you, and disagreeing in good terms. No need to treat me like that.

I was going to craft another response to you, but really, you're demotivating me with your choice of words. Welcome newbie to reality? Congratulations? My sake? Your world? What's up mf, can't we talk normally? At least agree that we disagree on these summaries?

Gee... cool down. If you like the summaries, upvote them... by the amount of positive votes they're getting lately, they seem to be pretty popular... but I was just trying to understand why it looks like they're here to stay and at the same time say why I don't like them...

Edit: I typed this reply before you added more text to yours, so it looked like all you were doing was mocking me :p

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#12

Post by mechanical_fish » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 8:23 PM UTC

ph0rque wrote: post #7

mechanical_fish wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They waste very little screen space and time (by design). And they can help those of us who always read comments first. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean nobody likes them. What really wastes time is clicking through some link and reading five paragraphs of something that turns out to either be linkbait, or something that many of us have seen a dozen times before. Of course, many people think that the sol…

hmmm... maybe along with the title field, there should be another summary field (limited to, say, ~300 characters?) that people other than the author are able to edit.

Yep. That's the ticket. When you see something happening over and over on a website, sometimes it means that the users are struggling to invent a missing feature.

Of course, sometimes that feature is one that makes certain users give certain other users money in exchange for counterfeit Viagra. But not, I think, in this case.

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#13

Post by swombat » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 8:44 PM UTC

No one’s happiest at work. Ever.

A minor nit-pick perhaps, but I am happiest when I'm working. Fair enough, I work for myself, from home, on my own business (and other endeavours), but I'm happiest when I'm doing that. I can go on holiday, and enjoy those, but nothing feels quite as good as a quality day of hard, productive work.

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#14

Post by swombat » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 8:45 PM UTC

albertcardona wrote: post #2

In even shorter than the article: when interviewing for a job and you are given advice for free, the advice describes how it is to work there.

The above comment is a summary of the article. (there, even shorter)

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#15

Post by timf » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 8:51 PM UTC

ph0rque wrote: post #7

mechanical_fish wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They waste very little screen space and time (by design). And they can help those of us who always read comments first. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean nobody likes them. What really wastes time is clicking through some link and reading five paragraphs of something that turns out to either be linkbait, or something that many of us have seen a dozen times before. Of course, many people think that the sol…

hmmm... maybe along with the title field, there should be another summary field (limited to, say, ~300 characters?) that people other than the author are able to edit.

Not edit it, but those who took the time to read the actual article could submit summaries and/or vote on which was the best summary (== most accurate).

And only show one summary to normal viewers, the highest voted one. If people want to contribute to the summary pool or vote on summaries, they can perhaps click in somewhere.

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#16

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 8:55 PM UTC

timf wrote: post #15

ph0rque wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmmm... maybe along with the title field, there should be another summary field (limited to, say, ~300 characters?) that people other than the author are able to edit.

Not edit it, but those who took the time to read the actual article could submit summaries and/or vote on which was the best summary (== most accurate). And only show one summary to normal viewers, the highest voted one. If people want to contribute to the summary pool or vote on summaries, they can perhaps click in somewhere.

[deleted]

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#17

Post by Herring » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 9:56 PM UTC

ph0rque wrote: post #7

mechanical_fish wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They waste very little screen space and time (by design). And they can help those of us who always read comments first. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean nobody likes them. What really wastes time is clicking through some link and reading five paragraphs of something that turns out to either be linkbait, or something that many of us have seen a dozen times before. Of course, many people think that the sol…

hmmm... maybe along with the title field, there should be another summary field (limited to, say, ~300 characters?) that people other than the author are able to edit.

Plus that would make HN's RSS not completely suck. ¬¬

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#18

Post by fraying » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 11:44 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #13

No one’s happiest at work. Ever. A minor nit-pick perhaps, but I am happiest when I'm working. Fair enough, I work for myself, from home, on my own business (and other endeavours), but I'm happiest when I'm doing that. I can go on holiday, and enjoy those, but nothing feels quite as good as a quality day of hard, productive work.

Heh. I almost qualified that to say "unless it's their company." But since the article is for those interviewing, it's a given that it's not their company, so that happiness won't be theirs.

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#19

Post by ja2ke » Mon, Feb 09, 2009, 12:41 AM UTC

albertcardona wrote: post #8

ja2ke wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read those summaries I feel like I'm reading HN's equivalent of "first post." They also often read less like true summaries and more like one sentence newspaper movie reviews, which, coupled with the "first post" feeling, makes me question people's motivation for posting them.

I wanted to encourage people to read a well-thought blog post on job interviews and the meaning of free advice given there. And yes: I posted a comment because without comments I wouldn't read a link in the first place, and others may think likewise. So that's my motivation.

That's fine. So many of the one sentence summaries (including the one for this article) read to me as being very dismissive, or as if the author hopes that their comment will encapsulate so much that you can glean the information or "learn the lesson" of the parent article through the summary, and now don't need to bother reading the post. If that wasn't your intent, then awesome, points to you. It is definitely how they almost always read in my mind, though.

I know the HN community is growing and the spread of topics pushed to the front page is expanding, but the original point of letting a user type in a headline and then letting the community vote up interesting ones should in theory at least alleviate the need for a summary.

I compared the summaries to "first post" because they often feel like someone is posting them simply to post. On HN you obviously couldn't "post for the sake of posting" with an actual First Post, but typing up a sentence summarizing the first or last paragraph of the post is probably close to the bottom of an innocuous "post just because you can" contribution.

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#20

Post by jodrellblank » Mon, Feb 09, 2009, 1:09 AM UTC

swombat wrote: post #13

No one’s happiest at work. Ever. A minor nit-pick perhaps, but I am happiest when I'm working. Fair enough, I work for myself, from home, on my own business (and other endeavours), but I'm happiest when I'm doing that. I can go on holiday, and enjoy those, but nothing feels quite as good as a quality day of hard, productive work.

Where was I reading about a study showing that whatever people said, their observed behaviour shows a lot of (most?) people show more signs of happiness at work than not at work?