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Hacker News is depressing

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Re: Hacker News is depressing

#281

Post by WiseWeasel »

pg wrote: post #195

I'm not sure what he's proposing. If he means let site owners specify that people not be able to submit their sites to HN, I've actually daydreamed occasionally about doing that myself for paulgraham.com. But it might not work in practice, because determined submitters would just mirror the text elsewhere and submit that. He's right though that Twitter has a big advantage in that it's easy to ignore jerks. It might b…

It might help to hire some in-house moderators to down-vote mean/obnoxious/unconstructive posts to oblivion, if the community isn't doing a good enough job. Maybe up-voting of comments should be disabled below a certain threshold of karma as well.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#282

Post by angersock »

VonGuard wrote: post #196
steveklabnik wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now 4chan has the reputation of being somewhat of a sewer, /b/ has the reputation of being a sewer, and people who don't frequent 4chan see them as being equivalent. Outside of /b/, 4chan is great. In fact, one of the reasons that /b/ still even exists is that they just post in /x/ and elsewhere. Best to honeypot them.

Thirding 4Chan as a healthy community. My buddy insists it's a great community because the content is always being deleted, and thus, 4chan reinvents itself every day.

Fourthing, and if you need a longer attention span, SA.

The problem with /g/ is that it tends really hard towards mere consumer choices--contrast with, say, the /prog/ board on 7chan, or even the new /diy/ board on 4chan.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#283

Post by aninhumer »

Alex3917 wrote: post #186
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 do think the meanness of programming communities is a the biggest problem we have." It depends. I generally try to be reasonably civil online, but I also think there are valid reasons to be less so. A good example is when people are giving advice to newcomers that has a good chance of putting them in imminent danger. E.g. someone goes to an online mushroom identification forum and posts a picture of some random mu…

I think in the situations you describe it's much more effective to have some kind of authority in place to discipline people for this kind of behaviour rather than relying on abuse. Especially since it's usually done by trolls for whom the emotional response is the objective. I think a brief "This is in breach of rule X, you have been banned for Y days" combined with locking/deleting the relevant comment, is far more effective at discouraging negative behaviour than angry tirades.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#284

Post by angersock »

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…

Yeah, judging from just the quote, that strikes me as decent wordplay worth at least a minor chuckle. Lighten up, folks.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#285

Post by danilocampos »

danilocampos wrote: post #173
DanBC wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Usually I do that. Sometimes I get bored.

(The flagging, that is. As to talking about him, it's hard not to when his favorite subject in his writing seems to be himself, no?)

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#286

Post by angersock »

pg wrote: post #195

I'm not sure what he's proposing. If he means let site owners specify that people not be able to submit their sites to HN, I've actually daydreamed occasionally about doing that myself for paulgraham.com. But it might not work in practice, because determined submitters would just mirror the text elsewhere and submit that. He's right though that Twitter has a big advantage in that it's easy to ignore jerks. It might b…

Following, perhaps, but not blocking.

One of the nice things that HN affords is that it doesn't really support filter bubbles--at least until mods or the community downvotes you to oblivion. Thus, there's a good chance that people at least get exposed to ideas they might otherwise ignore.

Hell, I can think of several posts where I've strongly disagreed with somebody else, only to be in jovial agreement or discussion a few days later. I'm not sure that a blocking mechanism is really needed; if people are being deliberate and abusive trolls, we have ways of dealing with that, right?

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#287

Post by doorhammer »

gosu wrote: post #219
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" ge…

This is what keeps me from getting more involved in a lot of online discussions.

As it stands, I code mostly as a fun thing I like to do (I work it into my day job where I can). It's something I really enjoy. I've got a shelf full of books and an interest in the esoteric. I'll like casually reading about lambda calculus and taking long walks on the beach, but when I run into something I can't figure out, I have a problem.

It's painful to even think about going to some irc channels or forums to ask for advice on something I'm writing, even when it's the most sensible thing to do. I just think about how exhausting it'll probably be to cut through the vitriolic responses and get to some useful information.

I'm typically not looking for a dissertation, even. What I'm usually looking for is "Here's what I'm writing. What am I doing wrong, and what resource/book/article could I read to best get a grip on this problem?"

I don't want to face the prospect of mental exhaustion for something I do for enjoyment.

I think language/framework evangelists usually know about this kind of thing. You never see them say "Yeah, the community is great and if you have any questions head on over to our IRC channel. They're super abrasive in there, but if you really slam your head against them, you'll probably get an answer!"

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#288

Post by jerrya »

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…

Doubled down, good for you!

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#289

Post by corin_ »

DenisM wrote: post #258
danilocampos wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a rule, never comment on something beyond persons control: age, gender, color, nationality, family name, are all off-limits. There are exceptions to the rule, but just following this rule will make a huge difference in how you appear while only losing ability to comment on 1-2% of the content when the persons immutable traits are actually relevant. It's a great tradeoff and a huge win for your image and your peers…

That rule is because people will often be upset (perhaps overly so) by people attacking these topics. Nobody was attacking his surname, and he wasn't upset by anyone mentioning his surname, he was upset by people saying he was whining. They would have been making that comment no matter what his surname is.

I actually liked his piece that was submitted yesterday (and lead to all of this), but I don't get why so many people are making a big deal out of a quick throwaway joke that involved wordplay on his name. If someone mentioned to me that both my names begin with a "c", which is suitable because I'm a cunt, I'd be upset at being called a cunt, not the fact that my name was tied into that.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#290

Post by MartinCron »

yebyen wrote: post #144
gurkendoktor wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At that point what can you do? Take action (remove commit rights), message Mauro in private, call him and let him know you are disappointed and why, ... but having an ASCII-based temper just makes Linux and/or programming look silly. Kernel dev is rough but there is plenty of time to let things cool down and let rational criticism sink in.

These are all ridiculous routes to follow. I remember reading once an author who refused to e-mail or respond to e-mails, because he was concerned that every piece of text committed to a private commentary between him and another person would never have been published in a book, and will potentially even become a privileged (private) conversation, that nobody else can benefit from, ever. There is an obvious differenc…

Now I know that linux kernel devs are not meant to introduce breaking changes into userland, because of the power of his words

And I also know that Linus isn't a person with whom I'll never interact on purpose.

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