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Official Hacker News T-Shirt

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Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#171

Post by cperciva »

pg wrote: post #138
cperciva wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean no offense, and I realize that this is your site; but I really think jug6ernaut's comment added far more value than your response. I don't think jug6ernaut missed the point whatsoever, and I wouldn't characterize him as nit-picking either: The question of who is expected to understand the t-shirt and what its point is (as compared to an unbranded t-shirt) are perfectly reasonable. Personally I see nothing wron…

I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody. It's precisely because I want HN to be a site where people engage in meaningful discussion that I try to discourage people from upvoting the first dismissive comment they come across. Even discourage is probably too strong a word though. I feel like someone standing in the surf, trying to hold back a breaking wave with his hand. (I didn't answer his question because other user…

the first dismissive comment

I guess that's where we disagree then: I didn't see that comment as being dismissive, but rather as raising a legitimate question.

I serve as an alumni representative on a number of committees at my alma mater, and it's very rare that a proposal comes to us and does not meet with any criticism. This isn't because we have lots of horrible proposals coming to us or because we're grouchy old academics; it's because even if we like the general idea behind something, the precise details are rarely perfect. It's very rare for us to actually vote against something, and even proposals being withdrawn are rare; but there are a great many ideas which are changed -- and hopefully improved -- as a result of the criticisms they receive.

If jug6ernaut had written "a Hacker News t-shirt? What a dumb idea... I get lots of free t-shirts and if I donate $13 directly then Watsi ends up with far more money" then I would have said that he was being dismissive and the comment was not useful. But he didn't; instead, he asked a question about the detail -- is this the best design for a HN t-shirt? Is it too minimalist? -- and implicitly suggested a potential improvement.

It's natural, having spent time working on something, to view any criticism as an attack to be defended against; but the more we can deny that impulse and give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their motives in raising questions, the more useful I think our discussions can be.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#172

Post by robbles »

pg wrote: post #154
lionhearted wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that sort of thing bug you on some level Paul? I always had you mentally as pretty stoically philosophically detached from that sort of thing. But I've seen a couple of your comments where you seem genuinely bothered when people are catty or mean to others you care about. Would love to hear your take on how you mentally approach that sort of thing in general.

Complicated question. Dismissive comments about new things bother me partly because there's an asymmetry that seems unfair. It's so risky to create something new, and so easy to dismiss it. At their worst, the people making such comments are like schoolyard bullies picking on someone who tries to do something different. This particular case is very mild-- more confused than dismissive really. It just struck me as fun…

Have you found that hiding the number of votes a post receives helps with this voting problem, or makes it worse?

I think I might have unknowingly contributed to the problem by carelessly upvoting a negative post because I didn't realize it had so much support behind it already. It's a lot easier to see the danger of a mob and decide not to support it when you can count the number of people.

Side note: have you thought about more drastic approaches, like automatically upvoting or increasing the weight of comments with positive sentiment?

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#173

Post by kfury »

pg wrote: post #60
jug6ernaut wrote: post #12

I don't really get this T, i understand its going for minimalism, but would someone who frequents HN recognize it if they did not already know its affiliation?(i wouldn't) & if the answer is no, then whats the point of the T? Edit for clarity: Not knocking the cause, it is great. Just the design really, maybe im missing something.

I kind of wish this were the top comment. It would be humorously appropriate if the top comment on the thread about the official HN t-shirt were the traditional nitpicking/point-missing type that is so commonly the top comment when people launch new technology here.

Perhaps a t-shirt that says "If you can't downvote, upvote!"

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#174

Post by danielrhodes »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #12

I don't really get this T, i understand its going for minimalism, but would someone who frequents HN recognize it if they did not already know its affiliation?(i wouldn't) & if the answer is no, then whats the point of the T? Edit for clarity: Not knocking the cause, it is great. Just the design really, maybe im missing something.

I think the point of the shirt is that it means something to those who visit HN, in the same way that the Eye of Providence means something to Free Masons.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#175

Post by ihuman »

hallowtech wrote: post #167
pg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody. It's precisely because I want HN to be a site where people engage in meaningful discussion that I try to discourage people from upvoting the first dismissive comment they come across. Even discourage is probably too strong a word though. I feel like someone standing in the surf, trying to hold back a breaking wave with his hand. (I didn't answer his question because other user…

Maybe you should allow downvoting for everyone then. I'm more likely to downvote a dismissive reply then I am to upvote every positive reply to overtake it. And on the mention of dismissive comments: as a frequent visitor I feel emotionally safer just reading and not posting... so if there is a karma threshold for allowing downvotes, I doubt I will ever hit it.

The problem is that people would abuse the downvote button and use it as a representation of "I disagree with you" is read of "this comment adds no value to the conversation."

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#177

Post by gknoy »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #90
mayank wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the inside joke is kind of the point.

I agree. I like it. It's absent of words, which always adds a cheesy factor to clothes, in my opinion. and it's not an in-your-face look at me I'm a tourist t-shirt with a big HN on the front. That you would have to explain to your grandma. not cool. It's just a shirt with a simple "design", that no outsider would consider twice or bother to ask about. So you can wear it in public. I think it's very classily done. I…

Thank you for the explanation. I was surprised to see the colored bars, rather than the [Y] icon which I'm so accustomed to seeing on the favorite icon, but that makes it slightly more appealing than it was before.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#178

Post by jiggy2011 »

ihuman wrote: post #175
hallowtech wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should allow downvoting for everyone then. I'm more likely to downvote a dismissive reply then I am to upvote every positive reply to overtake it. And on the mention of dismissive comments: as a frequent visitor I feel emotionally safer just reading and not posting... so if there is a karma threshold for allowing downvotes, I doubt I will ever hit it.

The problem is that people would abuse the downvote button and use it as a representation of "I disagree with you" is read of "this comment adds no value to the conversation."

Or sign up shill accounts to repeatedly downvote people they don't like.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#179

Post by nvr219 »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #85
pg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of wish this were the top comment. It would be humorously appropriate if the top comment on the thread about the official HN t-shirt were the traditional nitpicking/point-missing type that is so commonly the top comment when people launch new technology here.

Just this once you can make it so! Edit the score in the REPL ;-) Do it live!

Site goes down for another 6 hours.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#180

Post by antirez »

Mahn wrote: post #162
antirez wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a failed attempt from my side too, because you can't just trow a site there, and don't handle the community, create a super-partes organization, and so forth. My problem is lack of time unfortunately. I'll retry with something in Italian language soon that is smaller and more manageable, and much needed.

Make sure the people want it; I'm for example native from Spain, and there's nothing that comes close to HN in Spanish, but I know an attempt to make something like that would fail miserably because the people simply don't want it (that's probably also why it doesn't exist)

In Italy it is much needed, and apparently there is demand, not because we need to discuss the same news in Italian language. Every semi-decent programmer can read-write some basic English. The point is to work in a "show HN" alike way to create the community that can be used to found new startups. Basically it's an economic/startup-dynamics need, not an actual news need.

Well honesty there is also a small news need, that's news relevant to Italy that would not have a place it, like startup days, new rounds of italian stuff, and so forth.

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