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Hacker News is depressing

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Re: Hacker News is depressing

#231

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

#232

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

#233

Post by pfortuny »

dmor wrote: post #150
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…

In my journey as a programmer I discovered that sometimes people who told me my ideas sucked turned out to be wrong, and many of the folks who leaned on superior background were stagnant and became institutionalized in a way that is similar to a professor who relies on tenure for credibility. There are a lot of false idols to be worshipped in programming if you are looking for someone else to tell you what to do. The…

This is the proverbial: if someone smart starts by telling you that they are unsure or that it depends, (in a field you are quite sure they know something), then you had probably better listen to what they say: at least it will not be rubbish.

On the other hand, dogmatism is frequently a way to relieve insecurity.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#234

Post by pfortuny »

rahoulb wrote: post #191
tbomb wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,"

Or even better "I'm not sure about your idea because..." as that leaves the door open to it being a misunderstanding on my part, which is always a possibility.

This is always a good way to start a conversation because at least the other party feels safe and that he will be dealt with as a person with ideas, not a donkey.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#235

Post by MartinCron »

danilocampos wrote: post #228
rockmeamedee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm another guy on the internet, and I just want to tell you, you don't have to be mean to people on the internet. You don't have to write nice things to everybody, but mean things just suck. Writing mean things just makes the world more mean. I'd rather not read mean things, and I'm sure you'd rather not write mean things. There's too little time in life for that. How do you think Dave's going to take this post? He…

Do you think he was nice to Marissa Mayer in his post?

Do you think that absolves you from being nice to him?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#236

Post by MartinCron »

brymaster wrote: post #72
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…

> Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point Huh? So what's the cut off date then? I noticed your account was only created 86 days ago. Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion.

Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion

It might, but at what cost?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#237

Post by abraxasz »

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…

I understand that this might be specific to me, but I'd actually rather have someone tell me:

"You're useless. For god's sake stop contributing until you get your sht together"

rather than:

“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 on time, but if someone else has time to explain why that would be great.”

I don't have a good explanation why that is. Maybe it's because I feel some condescension in the second while the first one is just plain raw "I don't have time to deal with your sht. You're an adult: fix it and come back later".

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#238

Post by pfortuny »

gwgarry wrote: post #64
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…

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…

The fact that something is 'artificial' (i.e. a product of art, essentially) does not mean it is 'arbitrary' (i.e. just a product of freedom or authority -arbitrium-). Do not take social norms as 'arbitrary': they usually have deeper meanings than what we usually assume.

I am not saying you are obviously wrong. I complain about the 'arbitrary'.

In Western cultures, educated criticism is always enveloped in smoothness, and language is an important part of this envelope. This is not evolutionary, it is cultural and we do it because, in the long term, society has noticed that this is useful.

Academia is the classical example of this: one may hate his colleague in the same Department, and also his ideas, but one is not going to bully him linguistically in a paper. Because the time spent in explaining the insults is not worth it.

Unless one is a simple bully, obviously. But this is not the usual state of affairs.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#239

Post by gosu »

mwfunk wrote: post #190
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…

I think people are talking about multiple phenomena here. Yeah, there's the whole blunt/direct/borderline asshole behavior when someone is making a mistake and someone else is trying to correct that mistake in the most efficient way possible, hopefully educating the person making the mistake and maybe being a jerk about it to highlight for everyone what a huge mistake it is so everyone else remembers not to do that t…

I qualify as a Linus defender, but I disagree with your "he's the boss and it's up to his contributors to leave" idea. The whole point of these discussions is to use reason to encourage problematic people to change themselves, rather than cutting those people off entirely, as you suggest.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#240

Post by brymaster »

MartinCron wrote: post #236
brymaster wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly I feel like the only option is to just stop accepting new members at a certain point Huh? So what's the cut off date then? I noticed your account was only created 86 days ago. Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion.

Making a forum an invite-only clubhouse doesn't improve discussion It might, but at what cost?

You'd get no users, content or discussion. Just look at lobste.rs
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