Poll: Ban Codinghorror? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#61

Post by ankhmoop » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 10:14 PM UTC

bmj wrote: post #48

rglullis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the "getting things wrong" that bothers me. I don't mind at all seeing flawed, but honest attempts of writing. What bothers me a lot is the whole attitude of shoot-first-ask-later. It causes excessive noise. He knows it, but he doesn't care , because it gets people talking about him. He tries to control the conversation by saturating the channel, and the one filter that we have (the community itself) will go…

I'm not sure the several posts a week constitute "saturating the channel." Jeff is hardly prolific as far as bloggers go.

Several posts a week is remarkably prolific for a genuinely technical blogger. I'm lucky if I write a post once a month, and that's because that's generally the minimum amount of time it takes to do something worth talking about, or gain an insight worth sharing.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#62

Post by Xichekolas » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 10:18 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #10

Could we have a 3rd option: "Quit whining" I mean, really. Although, you make a good point that it will drive unwanted people here...but there's nothing we can do about that unfortunately.

I'd totally vote for option 3, but if people don't want to ever see a CodingHorror article again... well:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25039

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#63

Post by thenduks » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 10:27 PM UTC

SFAgitator wrote: post #51

If you don't like it, go suck on your mothers tit "Grandma's Boy!" There's nothing I hate more than a bunch of egotistical whiners who don't like other people playing in, what they "think" is, their sandbox. Who are these "unwanted people" you scour down your nose at? Are they the ones that, tisk-tisk, don't know as much as you do? Never forget where you came from; remember that you too were an IDIOT that didn't know…

Here's a story.

I saw this comment, all light grey sitting at the bottom of the page. I thought to myself "self, it would be really nice if hovering over these comments would cause them to get readable (say, darker?)... especially since highlighting them doesn't really help."

While thinking this (I'm a multi-tasker!) I copy/pasted the text of the comment into TextMate.

After reading it, I have only this to say to HN: Please don't make hovering on these comments cause them to be more readable. We'll all end up living in a van down by the river.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#64

Post by leohorie » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 10:56 PM UTC

Just a thought on the idea about the "mass of users that would contribute little": why do people assume others will never grow, change or that they have a certain fixed "intellectual level" based on one source of articles they chose to read at one point in time?

As far coding horror links go: the main point of posting a link here is to discuss it, and I, personally, would much rather read comments about Atwood's posts here than on his site because I consider the signal to noise ratio in comments here more reasonable. Even if articles from any given source don't get facts right or if they sound like blatant self-promotion with a programmer facade, I feel the insight from the community's comments are still invaluable.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#65

Post by wfarr » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 11:07 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #12

Don't ban it, but I wish people would stop posting Codinghorror articles. The writing quality is low, and I don't learn anything from the articles. It's just a big waste of time. Edit: modding this up to 11? Give me a break. There are much better comments than this.

I should note that I voted your comment up based on your edit. Not that I don't agree with your original statement, but humility is usually a pleasant surprise.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#66

Post by amastilovic » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 11:28 PM UTC

Although I'm more of a user than a contributor to HN, I have to (generally) disagree to the practice of banning blogs such as CodingHorror, Joel Spolsky etc.

I simply think that the practice of banning will lead to elitism, which will eventually lead to extinction.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#67

Post by Hexstream » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 11:30 PM UTC

icey wrote: post #14

mechanical_fish wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://xkcd.com/386/

It's sad that I get sent that enough that I know which comic it is just by the URL :(

I'm worse, I never really noticed what number it is but when I see an xkcd link like that I infer from the context that it must be that particular one, without even considering it might be another, and then I verify and I'm right 100% of the time.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#68

Post by beta » Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 11:34 PM UTC

peterhi wrote: post #43

midnightmonster wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent upvoted (from -1 to 0) b/c unsupported warnings of possible future harm really is a lousy way to carry out debate. OTOH, peterhi, I just skimmed your past comments: the negative karma isn't just b/c you say unpopular or off-topic things--it's also because you're mostly a jerk about it.

I have a way with words, mostly because people seem to miss the point if it is subtle. A slap in the face will get attention, a polite cough is all too easily ignored. The OP has basically called the readership of Codinghorror worthless and incapable of contributing to a site so elevated as HackerNews and if we could only ban Codinghorror from HackerNews then perhaps this flood of proles could be thwarted (and how is…

I think you're absolutely right about rglullis's methods here, they strike me as pretty slimy. I also find the whole To those who have objections to the choices: I did a copy-and-paste of PG's poll when he was deciding whether or not to ban valleywag. just a weak grab at legitimizing his behavior through canonizing something pg did for a fringe case. All in all, rglullis is plainly taking this all very personally and trying to rationalize his reaction.

As for the "jerk" aside, well, it goes either way. You can either say something politely, knowing that most people who disagree with you will probably ignore you. Or you can say something more heavy that will get their attention, but then you'll have to deal with character assassination tactics like marginalizing you as a extremist or a jerk, etc. Either way you're kinda screwed.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#69

Post by assembler » Wed, Mar 11, 2009, 1:15 AM UTC

vorador wrote: post #34

mistermann wrote: post #10

Could we have a 3rd option: "Quit whining" I mean, really. Although, you make a good point that it will drive unwanted people here...but there's nothing we can do about that unfortunately.

It may also bring interesting people too.

No,no, mistermann refers to people like myself, who've come from coding horror, and asking questions like "Excuse me, but, um, where are those Warez, dudes?", or who think PHP is a fine language, or, you know, people that embody the children that use to pick on you in school.

Re: Poll: Ban Codinghorror?

#70

Post by RossM » Wed, Mar 11, 2009, 6:26 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #12

Don't ban it, but I wish people would stop posting Codinghorror articles. The writing quality is low, and I don't learn anything from the articles. It's just a big waste of time. Edit: modding this up to 11? Give me a break. There are much better comments than this.

My feelings are that those who want to read Codinghorror already subscribe to the feed (I'm one of them) - so there should really be no need to pos tthem at all. For me HN is still the place to find things from palces I'm unaware of.