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Hacker News is depressing

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Re: Hacker News is depressing

#211

Post by Fuzzwah »

Udo wrote: post #114
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 write to my standard. You write to yours. We each get little buttons where people vote. That's the deal. But that's also the problem. HN has a way of rewarding toxic comments. I particularly notice this in drive-by-comments where presumably-long-time users create a new account just to make a flame post. Turns out, this kind of cloak and dagger isn't even needed most of the time, because you can see how they're ge…

I had a quick look at using the hnsearch api to build some kind of filtered return of comments, which removed posts from any user who had just created the account (or had a I couldn't work it out quick enough to warrant further time investment, because I'm not convinced if it is actually a good solution.

Having not been in the same situation as Dave Winer I don't know how I'd actually respond. I like to think that I've been on the internet long enough to realize that toxic anon comments should roll off like water on a duck. But maybe I'd get super depressed and go cry in a corner.

I probably won't find out any time soon, because I have nothing which would gather a huge focus on HN.

Final question on the end of my ramble, is this all #famouspeopleproblems?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#212

Post by danilocampos »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #206
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 w…

I can see why you'd feel that way, but I'm specifically referencing his conduct in threads when I describe his sense of self-elevation. To wit:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5739469

If you had to reach a certain level of accomplishment in order to engage in criticism, the world would be pretty dull indeed. There's also intellectual dishonesty there. Marissa Mayer is infinitely more accomplished than he but he nonetheless criticizes her in his post, especially the cheap line where he telepathically infers her associates were embarrassed when she left the call.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#213

Post by larrys »

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…

"I see people being horrible to confused newcomers, instead of steering them in the right direction."

Side thought - this happens in many communities as an indoctrination ritual (people laughing making fun of the newbie). So I'm wonder what the basis of it is (rooted in survival or human nature?) because there must be one.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#214

Post by karl_gluck »

[deleted] wrote: post #203
shadowfiend wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

That's not a particularly good analogy, because both roles require significant commitment to practice and study. Trying to achieve both would take would likely render you worse than most at either. Being a good programmer takes training and effort; being respectful and understanding does not take any superhuman effort. It just requires understanding that demeaning people is not acceptable behavior.

vs.

SHUT UP. Your analogy is awful and I never want to hear that kind of drivel from another HN poster EVER again. Go rtfm on English lol

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#215

Post by smrtinsert »

jbail wrote: post #132
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…

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.

Agreed. Playground take downs have no place in this forum.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#216

Post by brudgers »

Udo wrote: post #159
brudgers wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

I'll let you say it. I believe I understand.

Strong emotions spark passionate writing, and passionate writing is entertaining. Being offended, angry, or insulted is an easy state to achieve.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#217

Post by opminion »

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…

That's not, like, a slam on his family or a dig about his person. That's just a linguistic observation

It is reasonable to expect that people with that family name might think otherwise. That's why it is usually considered very bad taste to comment on people's names, even when you don't mean it that way.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#218

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#219

Post by gosu »

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…

I agree that people should be talking more about this. As an older student who hangs out on IRC a lot, I see two phenomena:

- People get initiated into programmer culture pretty young, before they learn to stop being pretentious. They really like how meritocratic programmer culture is, but they get carried away with it the same way that people who say "gays should go to hell" or "the weak have no place in society" get carried away. And maybe some people never grow out of it because we've reached asshole critical mass and they find themselves surrounded by like-minded people; and because they're rewarded for technical merit even when they behave badly. The result is your typical Dickensian villainy.

- The meanest IRC channel that I know of, #C, is full of people who are honestly not very smart. Every time that I've patiently and kindly tried to teach someone - while the rest of the channel was busy being huge dicks to that person - I've regretted it because the person just wasn't able to absorb and synthesize information. I'd argue that you can't give a $5 dollars to every beggar, and some people should be firmly kept out of the community until they get better, so as to avoid harming the community in the long run. It's a tough situation, and handling it well is tough even for mature people. Being rude isn't an unreasonable tool if your goal is specifically to scare people away (and hopefully towards a more productive endeavor for them).

The point is that there are imperfect people on both sides of our social boundaries. But note that this is a very specific point, and rarely justifies the vitriol that comes out of people in #C.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#220

Post by itsybitsycoder »

duaneb wrote: post #201
itsybitsycoder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As jgrahamc mentioned, you can choose to block incoming traffic with HN as the referrer (although this is not foolproof for a number of reasons); you do not have the right to download other people's content without restriction. Also, you do not have the right to have your discussion hosted on HN; if pg chose to, he would be well within his own rights to implement a feature like this.
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