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Hacker News is depressing

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Re: Hacker News is depressing

#201

Post by duaneb »

itsybitsycoder wrote: post #89
jgrahamc wrote: 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…

Does it matter whether it's a loss to HN? When people/groups abuse their privileges, taking those privileges away is not a bad thing. Maybe having a few good sites block HN would cause commenters to think more carefully before posting vitriol, or upvoting it. I missed the thread the first time around, but I looked it up, and it's pretty disappointing. Despite there being lots of top-level comments about the actual co…

Linking is not a privilege. If you put your stuff out on the internet you can't choose who gets to discuss it.

I don't approve of HN's conduct at all, it's one of the things I detest about internet communities, and HN, though the best of them, is no exception. But asking HN to change because someone was offended by the most predictable behavior is silly.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#202

Post by rahoulb »

orokusaki wrote: post #165
thenomad wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Internet is not yours. If you put content on the PUBLIC Internet, consider yourself to be consenting to any abuse the Internet as a whole wishes to dish out in return.

So if I see you walking down a PUBLIC street and you are talking loudly, it's acceptable for me to smack you round the head with a baseball bat for being too loud? Or do we expect people in a civilised society to have some higher standards of behaviour?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#203

Post by [deleted] »

shadowfiend wrote: post #141
zeteo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

There is no fundamental incompatibility between being honest and being respectful and understanding. You can tell someone “you suck, go back to the corner of the Internet you came from, I don't have time for this”, or you can tell them “your skills don't seem to be quite at the level where we can accept your contributions; in particular, you don't understand X, Y, and Z very well and it shows in your code. I'm short…

[deleted]

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#204

Post by protomyth »

tspike wrote: post #90
gwgarry wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have as much right to defend the behavior as you have to attack it. It's an arbitrary questions of norms and of tolerance to criticism. In modern society it seems that we're so isolated and insecure in ourselves that we can't handle criticism and meanness. That everyone must be over socialized to be overly concerned about what everyone else thinks and not be concerned about the objectivity of what we're trying to…

I think you're conflating criticism and being mean. It's quite possible to offer kind, empathetic criticism, which I would argue is more effective. When the person receiving criticism doesn't see it as an attack, he/she is far more likely to listen to it.

It is the difference between some drunk on the street yelling at you about your behavior or one of your friends sitting you down on a park bench and saying "we've been friends for a long while and I think you need to hear a couple of things..."

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#206

Post by ryguytilidie »

danilocampos wrote: post #88

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…

> 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.

1) If someone wrote a scathing criticism about you on the internet, in a thread about you on the internet, it might be worth responding to. Writing 750 words takes a decent programmer very little time. This point seems petty and childish on your part. 2) I could not disagree more. Did you even read what he wrote? He said that he was annoyed you guys were making conclusions based on half truths and that you didn't know what you are talking about, which is factually correct. Your response is that "his accomplishments somehow elevate his words beyond criticism". So disingenuous.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#207

Post by redblacktree »

ionforce wrote: post #115
smacktoward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's important to acknowledge that most commenters on HN do not behave that way, but some do and they are very loud." I think part of this is just the dynamics of community-moderated comments. In my experience, the way to get upvotes in any such forum (not just HN) is to express an opinion in the strongest terms you possibly can. "X is dead" gets upvotes. "X has some challenges to overcome, and it might" doesn't. Pe…

You fix it with heavy-handed moderation that actively punishes curtly written content.

This is true. It works very well for reddit.com/r/AskHistorians. This is, by far, one of the highest-quality sub-reddits on the site, and it's because of active, heavy-handed moderation that enforces a strict rule set. (e.g. no speculation)

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#208

Post by doorhammer »

shadowfiend wrote: post #141
zeteo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

There is no fundamental incompatibility between being honest and being respectful and understanding. You can tell someone “you suck, go back to the corner of the Internet you came from, I don't have time for this”, or you can tell them “your skills don't seem to be quite at the level where we can accept your contributions; in particular, you don't understand X, Y, and Z very well and it shows in your code. I'm short…

Completely agree.

You don't have to be a fluffy bunny about everything.

You stop and realize that your momentary investment in sincerity and tact reap rewards for your personal image, which people want to work with you, who is going to feel like taking a bit of extra time to help you out when you need it, and the general good will and atmosphere of the community, which inspires growth and adaption while lubricating the flow of ideas (as another response said; I'm stealing that).

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#209

Post by drunkpotato »

shadowfiend wrote: post #141
zeteo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

There is no fundamental incompatibility between being honest and being respectful and understanding. You can tell someone “you suck, go back to the corner of the Internet you came from, I don't have time for this”, or you can tell them “your skills don't seem to be quite at the level where we can accept your contributions; in particular, you don't understand X, Y, and Z very well and it shows in your code. I'm short…

It also takes quite a lot of self-control on the part of the receiver to get something constructive out of derision. Frankly, it's exhausting.

A specific example: I was looking for some help with a bash script a while ago. I am no bash expert. I got heaps of abuse for my terrible script. At first I got emotional, and a good 75% of the time I would have stopped there, feeling grumpy and hating assholes on the internet. This time I took a deep breath, posted my whole script as a gist, and said to one of the most abusive but seemingly knowledgable IRC citizens, "Ok, I see it's not as robust as it could be, so I would appreciate some help. What am I doing wrong? How can I improve this?" The script was much improved in robustness and readability.

I got a good script but I was drained by the effort. If I had gotten your second response instead of the first, think of how much time and good will would have been saved.

Being respectful and understanding is not a waste of time, and being rude is not cutting through the bullshit. Your point regarding derision is spot on, except I don't think it makes the derider feel better either.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#210

Post by smrtinsert »

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 its not honesty as you're implying - its blind vitriol. Anything that turns off communication which is always a Bad Idea, especially when dealing with subjective topics.

Also I find it disturbing that you connect bug fixes to a world view, the two couldn't be more separate.

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