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Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

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Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#21

Post by jodrellblank »

inerte wrote: post #3
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.

Can we please stop with the one-liners article summaries? Pretty please?... I've read the thing, summaries just waste screen space and my time... What happened anyway in the last week that this is becoming so popular?

One of my recent comments was a summary of a post. I think it's my most voted up comment of my entire time at HN - a post wherein I went out of my way to try and add near enough nothing at all. It suggests that people value me not saying more than saying.

Compared to this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=466917 which took some effort. No votes at all and one reply which managed to avoid everything I wanted to talk about.

When writing said summary comment, I started off wanting to say "Look look, you have to look at that, it's brilliant, it's not the usual "my opinion about X" blog post!", but a summary seemed more fitting.

On the iPhone, I read comments first because they load and render quicker, and like concise summaries. It's not extra content as such, but it is a contribution.

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#22

Post by mechanical_fish »

inerte wrote: post #11
mechanical_fish wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

My apologies. I'm sure I did overreact. But when someone flags a submission that could well have been part of one's autobiography for arbitrary deletion as hopelessly offtopic it does feel rather like a slap in the face. This is presumably why the "flag" vote total is kept secret, and folks aren't encouraged to post replies talking about how or why they flagged something.

But it was almost certainly an innocent mistake (it's not as if the intended use of the "flag" button is known to anyone who hasn't read the entire guidelines page or been present during its invention) so I'm sorry that my reply came out as snippy as it did.

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#23

Post by diN0bot »

inerte wrote: post #6
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…

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…

i don't understand the problem with one-line summaries. if you stop question them and pleading with people to remove them there wouldn't be this whole thread anyway.

also: > "By the way, I've flagged the article based on this. The main idea is solid (you've got to learn how to read people) but the execution was flawed. Besides, it's off-topic IMHO."

weird. i appreciated the insight in this article, as well as the general brevity. is flagging the new down-voting? or am i missing the scope of what should be flagged? (i rarely downvote and have never flagged. i like to be inclusive. i also see the necessity of information overload handlers, so we might just want completely different systems).

[edit: eit. looks like the flag point was handled by mechanical_fish and inerte above. good work :-p]

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#24

Post by 10ren »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #12
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.

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.

But the beauty of the minimal Hacker News design is that users can create their own idioms on top of it, that, in effect, become part of the design - a domain specific design, or DSD, if you will. Crystallizing a common idiom into an explicit feature. with explicit design, would enforce a common interface upon all users, which despite its benefits would reduce the raw power and flexibility of the minimal design - a step along the road to Blubber News. ;-)

But seriously, it's a good idea; but why not do it within the current design? That way, you get voting on the summary too. Herring's point about RSS could be accomplished by including the top comment in it...

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#25

Post by derefr »

10ren wrote: post #24
mechanical_fish wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But the beauty of the minimal Hacker News design is that users can create their own idioms on top of it, that, in effect, become part of the design - a domain specific design, or DSD, if you will. Crystallizing a common idiom into an explicit feature . with explicit design, would enforce a common interface upon all users, which despite its benefits would reduce the raw power and flexibility of the minimal design - a…

Polls originally started this way, and did crystallize, specifically, I think, because they went against the whole "comment karma is a real, useful measure of participation" idea. Likewise, just restating the article-but-shorter shouldn't be rewarded--pretend we're all in a sixth-grade English class: "Talk about the assigned reading; don't just say what happens."

Re: Unsolicited Advice is a Valuable Clue

#26

Post by [deleted] »

derefr wrote: post #25
10ren wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the beauty of the minimal Hacker News design is that users can create their own idioms on top of it, that, in effect, become part of the design - a domain specific design, or DSD, if you will. Crystallizing a common idiom into an explicit feature . with explicit design, would enforce a common interface upon all users, which despite its benefits would reduce the raw power and flexibility of the minimal design - a…

Polls originally started this way, and did crystallize, specifically, I think, because they went against the whole "comment karma is a real, useful measure of participation" idea. Likewise, just restating the article-but-shorter shouldn't be rewarded--pretend we're all in a sixth-grade English class: "Talk about the assigned reading; don't just say what happens."

[deleted]
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