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Hacker News is depressing

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121–130 of 398 posts

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#121
Talking about the technical aspects: is this really something Paul Graham can do? Wouldn't blocking inbound links be handled on the client side, perhaps via mod_rewrite or something along those lines? Come to think of it, isn't scripting.com doing exactly this?

Yeah, it's not perfect: it's actually really easy to get around, because all you have to do is copy/paste the link. But the overwhelming majority of the abusers won't even do that much work: they'll assume the link is dead, the nerd-rage will cool off, and they'll go elsewhere, leaving nothing on your site but a line in the server log.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#122
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nothing. Check these comments, anywhere else you would get summarily fired for emails like this. http://www.muktware.com/5276/linus-torvalds-secure-boot-supp... "Guys, this is not a dick-sucking contest. If you want to parse PE binaries, go right ahead. If Red Hat wants to deep-throat Microsoft, that's your issue..." What if that email was to a female kernel dev? What if a whizkid reads the kernel dev mailing…

You 're implying that women don't swear?

I think you missed the point.

Go ahead and repeat that quote to the nearest woman and see if they share your view.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#123
post #57

This is tricky. On one hand, Hacker News, despite being one of the best of its kind, is a programming community, and programming communities (or similarly populated communities: online gaming, etc.) are possibly the most overwhelmingly negative and vitriolic I find online. (Huge exception: StackExchange.) I find it perplexing that the business & finance communities I visit are consistently more civil and constructive…

Would you mind telling me what business and finance communities you've found interesting?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#124

Dave is the victim? "They assumed that I was being "egotistical" for thinking that Google ever cared what I thought, and arrogant that I think they should care what I think now." As this might be about me, as I wrote "No, it's typical for your ego." Several years ago I've sent Dave mails with ideas, which one of them he posted without attribution or credit to his blog. With some mistakes I've made included. In an ong…

How he behaves elsewhere is not relevant to people here making direct personal insults.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nothing. Check these comments, anywhere else you would get summarily fired for emails like this. http://www.muktware.com/5276/linus-torvalds-secure-boot-supp... "Guys, this is not a dick-sucking contest. If you want to parse PE binaries, go right ahead. If Red Hat wants to deep-throat Microsoft, that's your issue..." What if that email was to a female kernel dev? What if a whizkid reads the kernel dev mailing…

> What if that email was to a female kernel dev? So it is okay to swear at men but not at women? Why in this context? Really, this is ridiculous. Why would something become acceptable/inacceptable simply because of the gender/religion/haircolour/height/taste in music of the recipient?

It's not OK for anyone (in my opinion). However, because it's a sexualized email sent from a man it would have a not insignificant chance of being interpreted as sexual harassment (i.e., meeting the legal definition for creating a hostile work environment) towards a woman.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nothing. Check these comments, anywhere else you would get summarily fired for emails like this. http://www.muktware.com/5276/linus-torvalds-secure-boot-supp... "Guys, this is not a dick-sucking contest. If you want to parse PE binaries, go right ahead. If Red Hat wants to deep-throat Microsoft, that's your issue..." What if that email was to a female kernel dev? What if a whizkid reads the kernel dev mailing…

> What if that email was to a female kernel dev? So it is okay to swear at men but not at women? Why in this context? Really, this is ridiculous. Why would something become acceptable/inacceptable simply because of the gender/religion/haircolour/height/taste in music of the recipient?

> Why would something become acceptable/inacceptable simply because of the gender/religion/haircolour/height/taste in music of the recipient?

There are some things that might (for instance, a reference that had a widely accepted meaning in general usage but also a specific use in the context of a particular group might be less appropriate to use to a member of that group where the context might be ambiguous enough to support both the group-specific and the more general use, while being perfectly fine otherwise), but I don't really see that being the case for the particular email in question.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#127

As a top-voted dissenting opinion on Dave's piece yesterday, I find myself compelled to chime in. > I honestly don't care what the HN trolls, and the people who upvote them, supposedly "think" about me. If that's true, why 750 words on the subject? The issue I take with Dave Winer is that he seems to feel as though his accomplishments or contributions somehow elevate his words beyond criticism. I will say again what…

You don't hold Winer in high regard. That fact is not very interesting. Paul Graham's opinion doesn't change that. Fascinating is not communicative. Being unrepentant doesn't make you unique either.

Share your snowflake. Doing so is what makes Winer's blog interesting. Laziness, impatience and hubris - he's like any other programmer, only more so.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#128
post #6

So I have a suggestion for Paul Graham, the guy who runs Hacker News. Give sites the option of blocking links from Hacker News. That could certainly be implemented (either on Hacker News, or by the site owner doing a redirect to a permanent 404 based on the referrer). But that seems like a loss. It's a loss to HN if links to scripting.com were forbidden. Also, within the thread that he is talking about there was a gr…

It seems like there are some more subtle ways of doing it though. If Dave had a mechanism for proving to HN that he was the owner of a particular URL (e.g. by adding something to its html), then perhaps he could tell HN what to do with that url: Don't allow links to it at all; Link, but don't have a comment thread, etc. Come to think of it, if it was successful this could be generalized to a mechanism that all forums…

What’s wrong with using robots.txt directly or possibly something like fora.txt, following basically the same syntax as robots.txt? – allowing you to forbid all aggregators/social somethings/fora/a specific whatever to link to you.

Not that I would be particularly fond of a web where you have/are expected to check with a given site in order to be allowed to link to that site…

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#129
The biggest problem with the "this is how we are, deal with it because it's efficient and direct" is that it's just not true.

There is nothing efficient about being a dick.

There are basically two ways that being a curt dick can be functional: [1] The other parties involved are extremely empathetic and look past the messenger to understand the message. [2] The curt dick has enough power to brow beat / intimidate / badger others into getting their way.

Neither of these are long term sustainable solutions, because empathy between parties is a two-way street. Simply put, you can't sustain empathy unless the other party grows.

Hackers pride themselves on the "fuck you" attitude that disrupts stuff, and I get that, and I like it. But the flip side of that is that an inflexibility to understand and communicate with others ultimately will dull your edge and you'll wind up short of what you want to achieve.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it - not because it's a nice feel good thing, but because how you say something is incredibly important in efficiently disseminating your message, and often time the success of your goals depends on it.

Writing off people who push back on you being a dick is writing off an entire population of people who don't see the world 100% your way... you know, like everyone besides you on the goddamn planet.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if that email was to a female kernel dev? So it is okay to swear at men but not at women? Why in this context? Really, this is ridiculous. Why would something become acceptable/inacceptable simply because of the gender/religion/haircolour/height/taste in music of the recipient?

It's not OK for anyone (in my opinion). However, because it's a sexualized email sent from a man it would have a not insignificant chance of being interpreted as sexual harassment (i.e., meeting the legal definition for creating a hostile work environment) towards a woman.

So I can send such an email to a woman as I am gay? But if I sent it back to Linus, it’s sexual harassment?

As I said, ridiculous.

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