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Hacker News is depressing

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Re: Hacker News is depressing

#151

Post by bennyg »

thenomad wrote: post #107
Nursie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you talked to your spouse like that it would be called abuse. And if you hit your spouse like boxers do in the ring then that would be abuse too. It's almost as if there are different rules for different situations. (No, I'm not saying that kernel development is like boxing)

The difference is consent. Now, of course, that sparks off a question about whether submitting your post or your startup to HN is de facto consenting to be verbally abused. But I think that's a pretty useful conversation to have.

Whenever you put your own work in the world, then expect criticism. It doesn't mean verbal abuse should be the norm - it just means that criticism is most likely gonna' happen. HN isn't the only online community - and it's most likely not your target market for a startup. So pushing a product that's not intended for HN users as a target demographic, and bleeding over every critique here is the wrong move. If anything, you'll understand your tech stack and scalability concerns by doing a Show HN here. It shouldn't be your go-to source for pushing your startup.

I like to think of HN as one big subset of focus group users. Get another subset of people with a similar psychographic/demographic trait and you're likely to face just as much criticism, just of a different bent than you would receive here.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#152

Post by lifeisstillgood »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #91
Udo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is simply a problem of aggregating tens of thousands of content consumers in one spot and trying to have a single conversation. If I may offer a counter point. One of the complaints about users on HN is how they treat Show HNs. The worst thing is arguably working on something and getting totally ignored. The second worst thing is probably getting verbal abuse for your project, from people you respect, no less.…

What concerns me is that the appearance of knowing what the hell you are talking about and actually knowing what the hell you are talking about is not that different An example: many times I offer startup advice. Now, if you read my profile, you'll realize that all I can do is feebly try to repeat what I've read. I'm nowhere near an expert. But sometimes I feel that the things that I've read could be helpful to other…

That's probably a really important insight

We do get crap articles being posted (there is less decent meat on HN)

But we want the comments to be insightful and relevant. Which basically means rewarding those who have domain insight / experience. Which is hard.

FOr example, if there is a thread on web security and cookies, I would like to see tptacek's comments near the top so I can see them

But how to automate that? Its feasible I suspect but not easy.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#153

Post by DanBC »

danilocampos wrote: post #145
jbail wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday, in response to Dave's post, you wrote, "As a meta comment, Winer is a unfortunate last name..." If that's the standard you hold yourself to, I'd encourage you to expect more from yourself.

Would you like to explain what about that you find so offensive? Because that whole line of indignation really felt like so much pearl clutching to me. Dude writes really whiney content. And then there's his name. That's super unfortunate. That's not, like, a slam on his family or a dig about his person. That's just a linguistic observation. If I made compost bins, for example, that's a completely legit parallel for…

Why don't you just flag articles from his domain?

Why don't you restrict yourself to commenting on the things he's sad rather than commenting on him?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#154

Post by smacktoward »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #37
vxNsr wrote: post #11

Yikes, pg is not gonna be happy. Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point, because above a certain tolerance it stops being a community and becomes a city. CIP: I'm in a rural town for a couple days and everytime I walk outside everyone I pass says "Hi" or "Good Afternoon," the first time that happened I was kinda surprised I tried to figure out if I knew that pers…

At the very least, there needs to be a rudimentary troll block. I so tire of HN comment threads littered with discarded opinions from one-off accounts. Make accounts read-only for the first two-weeks and make sure they're actually being logged into and aren't being harvested.

There is a rudimentary troll block at HN. It just doesn't work very well.

The troll block here is "hellbanning." http://toway1234.tumblr.com/post/16021243707/hacker-news-hel...

The problem is that since hellbanning is inherently passive-aggressive -- nobody in the community knows it's been applied, not even the person who's been banned -- it doesn't teach the community lessons on what behavior is beyond the pale. The banned person simply disappears. This makes life easier for the admins (since it lets them avoid both having to confront the person being banned and a time-consuming discussion of why that person was banned), but at the cost of not putting forward an example of How Not To Be for others to learn from and follow. So people make the same mistakes over and over again.

If people really do need to be thrown out of the community, it'd be healthier to have at least some of that happen via public executions rather than silent disappearances. At least when you see someone up on a gibbet, you get the message not to be like that person if you don't want to end up there yourself.

Full disclosure: I was partially hellbanned myself (submissions only, not comments) for a period, despite having 4,000+ karma at the time. I still don't understand what I did wrong, really. The experience knocked my opinion of HN down a few notches.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#155

Post by tbomb »

zeteo wrote: post #84
simonsarris wrote: post #25

This is curious, maybe a little too reactionary[1], but I think we could use the introspection. On the one hand, being argued about is a problem a lot of people would like to have. I spent two years making a large canvas diagramming library and I would have loved for it to have frontpage'd on HN, even if everyone just told me it was terrible. On the other hand, I do think the meanness of programming communities is a…

>the meanness of programming communities is a the biggest problem we have Or maybe it's our biggest asset. In a world filled with bullshit (how many people you think really empathize with you - vs. just going through the motions?), it's refreshing to have a little corner where they honestly tell you why your ideas suck and your background is deficient. It kind of comes with the profession, yes. Only a relentlessly cr…

But you can be honest about a bad/terrible idea without being and asshole about it. I thrive on the criticism I get from others and look forward to speaking with people who think my ideas are no good, as long as they can explain their reasoning. There's a world of difference between "Your idea sucks." and "Your idea sucks because,"

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#156

Post by DanBC »

Uchikoma wrote: post #142
DanBC wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I thought I'd respond to personal accusations.

Respond to them how you like if you're doing it there. But here? People prefer better conversation.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#157

Post by mnicole »

FreeBird wrote: post #70
simonsarris wrote: post #25

This is curious, maybe a little too reactionary[1], but I think we could use the introspection. On the one hand, being argued about is a problem a lot of people would like to have. I spent two years making a large canvas diagramming library and I would have loved for it to have frontpage'd on HN, even if everyone just told me it was terrible. On the other hand, I do think the meanness of programming communities is a…

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…

Female here. I'm not going to speak on behalf of everyone, but I use dick-sucking, cirlejerk and all sorts of various illustrative language to get the point across. We had this issue come up with Linus re: a female dev before (re: "circlejerk"). It really doesn't matter to me what terminology people use as long as it is about my intentions and not about me personally.

I guess my language caused this comment to be [dead]? Heh.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#158

Post by brown9-2 »

It's worth considering if the meaning of this article/complaint changes at all if you replace the words "Hacker News" with "Internet messageboard".

Is this something unique to HN, or something that many popular messageboards with anonymous posting features have in common? My guess would be the latter.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#159

Post by Udo »

brudgers wrote: post #138
danilocampos wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I write to my standard. You write to yours. We each get little buttons where people vote. That's the deal. I personally find Dave's attitude of self-entitlement to be very toxic. Coming first doesn't elevate you above reproach or scrutiny. Success and progress require questioning and even defying authority. I'm incredibly distrustful of anyone who would discourage that. So he's going to demand people be impressed – a…

I think Udo's reference to standards is a bit misleading. "Angels of our Better Nature" improve HN, and I take that to be his context. That said, I find it difficult to delete comments that have been upvoted. OK, I find it impossible to do so. Upvotes convince me that I am right.

> "Angels of our Better Nature" improve HN, and I take that to be his context.

I think that's what I meant but just to make sure: when I'm talking about standards a part of it is to make an effort to contribute to a fruitful discussion. It's about trying to raise the level of the discussion rather than lower it.

I see it as a problem that polemic comments have a tendency to get easy upvotes, and that's ultimately a cultural issue around here. What makes this problematic is the fact that ultimately it's a self-defeating behavior. It's not enough to just push personal responsibility aside and point at the voting buttons as a source of morality and motivation (as I believe Danilo just did). To keep a community valuable, more effort is required than simply relying on populism and the conviction that the other users have to accomodate you.

And just because I'm probably sounding pretty sanctimonious, let me repeat that I don't think I did particularly well in this regard up to now either.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#160

Post by orokusaki »

simonsarris wrote: post #25

This is curious, maybe a little too reactionary[1], but I think we could use the introspection. On the one hand, being argued about is a problem a lot of people would like to have. I spent two years making a large canvas diagramming library and I would have loved for it to have frontpage'd on HN, even if everyone just told me it was terrible. On the other hand, I do think the meanness of programming communities is a…

Why does anyone care whether one group of people (e.g., women) wants to participate? I love how the antithesis of "equality" and "fairness" is always creeping its way into every sector under the misnomer of the latter two.

    "Here, be fair to everyone by limiting what you say so that women can participate."
If you want to participate in a community, do so, otherwise don't. A community is an emergent whole comprised of the free will of its constituents, not some inorganic machine that should be influenced by special interest groups (e.g., 's Rights Advocacy).

TL;DR - If you don't like our community, go the fuck away or make your own "community" wherein your dogma can be enforced.

Alt TL;DR - If you love something let it go...

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