Thank you for this very enlightening post.
The Positive Programmer
101–110 of 119 posts
Re: The Positive Programmer
#102I remember sitting in a meeting some years ago and we were discussing a new issue tracking system that was being demoed on the projector. The editor component took a full 10 to 15 seconds to load into the page every time. So I said "that editor sucks". It was one of the few things I had said during the meeting. The manager was very irritated and said something like "We don't tolerate that kind of negativity here". An…
This is exactly the kind of thing the article is complaining about. You could say "that long load time is going to be bad for productivity", it's a valid criticism and deserves a response by whoever is explaining the tool. But you don't, you say "that editor sucks". It's aggressively negative language which doesn't even specify a problem.
Whoever is recommending this system is likely nervous, and very invested in what people think of it, so you saying "it sucks" will feel like a personal attack. It's completely unnecessary.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#103The more we tolerate this here, the more it will become the norm. HN's most attractive feature from day one has always been the positive, intelligent, supportive community. Those are not traits you tend to find in your typical 9-5 programmer (in my experience, at least), and are the exact opposite of what you find in the communities that most of our early adopters fled from (Slashdot was already hopeless by 2007, and…
> HN's most attractive feature from day one has always been the positive, intelligent, supportive community. Those are not traits you tend to find in your typical 9-5 programmer
I guess this is because HN attracts people that aren't just programmers but also entrepreneurs. A good hacker has to figure out worst-case scenarios. A good entrepreneur, on the other hand, has to look for value in everything to find business opportunities.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#104I've been working as a developer for about 10 years, and was involved in some tech communities for about 6 or 7 years prior to that (early high school, doing things like LAN parties, Linux install fests, and generally socializing amongst the "nerd" set). If there's an overwhelmingly common personality defect I've seen amongst tech aficionados, it's a proclivity towards the negative. My observation is that people with…
I can only speak for myself, but I think the cause is often practical: good things are often baselines that don't need to be changed and can usually be ignored more than the bad things which actually do need to be addressed. This tends to lead to a very negative outlook, but is more a consequence of pragmatic mental habit than anything. That said, like everyone else I've noticed that pragmatic negativity doesn't tran…
I've got a similar view on the situation - perhaps technical people are trained or enculturated to look out for the things that can be improved/fixed, rather than taking time to celebrate progress and achievement.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#105The more we tolerate this here, the more it will become the norm. HN's most attractive feature from day one has always been the positive, intelligent, supportive community. Those are not traits you tend to find in your typical 9-5 programmer (in my experience, at least), and are the exact opposite of what you find in the communities that most of our early adopters fled from (Slashdot was already hopeless by 2007, and…
I think that there is a clear distinction between pure negativity and "snark" or sardonicism. It is possible to be genuinely, objectively critical of things without being arrogant or sarcastic. Criticism is a necessary facet of discussion, and is indicative of a thoughtful community. "Asshole-sim" is not. I'm of the belief that the discussion on HN tends towards the former.
>This behavior sometimes doesn't get swatted down fast enough nor ruthlessly enough and bad comments are left to stand. People see these comments and think they're acceptable. And the standards erode.
>Flag ruthlessly, downvote comments that don't belong here, based on tone rather than disagreement.
I'm unsure of what you're advocating for. Are you for expunging the hyper-negative, misogynistic near-spam of Reddit, or for doing away with negativity entirely? (My hunch is latter, as fighting spam is trivially excepted and needn't be argued.) The latter is incredibly dangerous and will work to the detriment of the community inasmuch as HN, as a community of generally-intelligent individuals, is capable of analyzing a story to a greater extend than most news organizations or communities; and some sort of assault on negativity would remove the ability for one to introduce warranted skepticism or to dissent from general discussion. Skepticism, contrarianism, criticism, etc. are incredibly valuable tools and are fundamental to HN and to discourse in general. One should not have the merits of their ideas judged solely on the "tone" articulated by them, and HN should certainly not seek to create institutionalized positivity.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of like the mixed bag that Hacker News seems to be. I'm pretty new here, but I enjoy reading about the future of programming languages alongside posts about Marcus Aurelius' writings. It just seems that it's mostly content about being the best you that you can be and having a broad range of knowledge.
Do you think the recent "Inappropriate comments at Pycon 2013 called out" thread contributed to that mixed bag in a good way? I worded that carefully. I don't want to draw out sides on that thread topic, just whether it contributed to an educational atmosphere and meaningful discussion on HN.
It's a necessary discussion insofar as it was major news and will have a non-trivial effect on how gender-identity is interpreted and argued within the community.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right this is a cycle I've seen time and again online. I've been using the Internet since before the web, and seen this cycle again and again... newsgroups becoming popular, the negative argumentative types moving in, folks who weren't that way getting dragged into the negativity (I know I've been dragged there myself), then they just become festering shells of what they once were as the nice people move on an…
Slashdot's current state really breaks my heart. Even with the occasional drive-by troll or the "apk" lunatic (what's his deal anyway?) things were tolerable, but lately it seems some of the older posters have lost interest and moved on (maybe to HN? Ha!) or have reverted to petty squabbling and deliberate obtuseness. I mostly go there to read comments from the veterans who've stuck around over the years and only rec…
Slashdot used to be full of field experts discussing ideas and tech, you could see discusions on there from genuine industry and academic luminaries. Most of them have long since left as it devolved into negativity, trolling and fanboyism.
I stopped going there when it became obvious the the first posts on many topics were no longer genuine. Not only were the subject-matter experts gone, but the 'discussion' was being led by paid reputation managers who had prepared statements on various things.
Slashdot is dead so far as I'm concerned.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#108As a natural cynic and old ex goth, let me say that being positive is really hard work. But worth it.
I noticed one day in an old job that two distinct things happened when management presented an idea to the engineering teams. Nearly everyone (self included to a greater or lesser extent) would start racking their brains for reasons why this, whatever it is, is a terrible idea that must be argued against, or why it just straight out couldn't work.
All except one guy, a friend and one of the brightest sparks on the team, who would start thinking of how he could implement it and what new, interesting tech he could use to get there. Sometimes he would come to the conclusion it was a bad idea, or impossible, but he didn't look for that first. As a result he did more novel, interesting work than the rest of the team(s) who generally spent their time mumbling and complaining.
That's when I decided to try and be that way too.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#109The more we tolerate this here, the more it will become the norm. HN's most attractive feature from day one has always been the positive, intelligent, supportive community. Those are not traits you tend to find in your typical 9-5 programmer (in my experience, at least), and are the exact opposite of what you find in the communities that most of our early adopters fled from (Slashdot was already hopeless by 2007, and…
I think that there is a clear distinction between pure negativity and "snark" or sardonicism. It is possible to be genuinely, objectively critical of things without being arrogant or sarcastic. Criticism is a necessary facet of discussion, and is indicative of a thoughtful community. "Asshole-sim" is not. I'm of the belief that the discussion on HN tends towards the former. >This behavior sometimes doesn't get swatte…
"Skepticism, contrarianism, criticism, etc. are incredibly valuable tools and are fundamental to HN and to discourse in general. One should not have the merits of their ideas judged solely on the "tone" articulated by them, and HN should certainly not seek to create institutionalized positivity."
Completely agree with you. I've seen way too many comments that where downvoted only because of the tone (even though the content itself was very relevant), or because it expressed a dissident, politically incorrect idea. When I see such a comment being downvoted, I automatically upvote it, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the content. I don't hang out here to read opinions I'm already agreeing with. I'm far more interested in intelligently argumented opinions that contradict mine. So, no it's not fun to be bashed by the sarcasms of someone else, but if the opinion contained in the bashing is relevant, then we should just suck it up, and answer to the content.
Re: The Positive Programmer
#110The more we tolerate this here, the more it will become the norm. HN's most attractive feature from day one has always been the positive, intelligent, supportive community. Those are not traits you tend to find in your typical 9-5 programmer (in my experience, at least), and are the exact opposite of what you find in the communities that most of our early adopters fled from (Slashdot was already hopeless by 2007, and…
I think that there is a clear distinction between pure negativity and "snark" or sardonicism. It is possible to be genuinely, objectively critical of things without being arrogant or sarcastic. Criticism is a necessary facet of discussion, and is indicative of a thoughtful community. "Asshole-sim" is not. I'm of the belief that the discussion on HN tends towards the former. >This behavior sometimes doesn't get swatte…
Observe this thread for dozens of examples of comments that just aren't high enough quality to be on this site:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5453757
Anger, silly jokes, one-liners and memes are all over that thread. The fact that so much of it will still be there at the end of the day is the problem we're facing.
Compare to the discussion on this item, with people stating real arguments using entire paragraphs. Plenty of disagreement, certainly some negativity, but mostly civil (or greyed out).
So no, we're not trying to get rid of negativity. We're just trying to maintain a place where adults can hold civil conversation.