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Hacker News is depressing

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Re: Hacker News is depressing

#351

Post by moshdixx »

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…

>On the other hand, I do think the meanness of programming communities is a the biggest problem we have.

This is very true. I don't know what it is about it, I'm pretty sure it's the lack of social skills that is prevalent with us nerd-types, but it could also be the anonimity of the internet.

But yeah, programming forums can get WAY too snarky for their own good.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#352

Post by pjscott »

micampe wrote: post #31
Udo wrote: post #12

I'm very sorry it has come this far. It's easy to forget we have a tendency to make remarks about people online that we would never bring up in a personal conversation. I'm not excluding myself here, I too feel I'm sometimes harsher online than offline - and it sadly also happened in the Dave Winer thread yesterday. People can come across in a certain way through their writing that we would never attribute to them if…

I agree with Dave. Many people on HN don't even try to apply critical thinking and judge facts as they are. They prefer to go with conspiracy theories or versions of stories that fits their existing ideas or make their favorite team look good, without considering any other possible explanation.

That criticism applies to most people, everywhere. Shockingly lazy thinking and blind tribalism are the rule, not the exception. Just look at any popular discussion forum, or most news stories involving politics or famous people, or almost anyone who is angry.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#353

Post by doorhammer »

vacri wrote: post #328
doorhammer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can cut out a lot of bullshit without being an asshole; it's just another set of social skills. Being an asshole also doesn't inherently cut out bullshit.

However it should also be pointed out that being polite doesn't inherently mean being worthy. The top comment in this thread is polite, is complaining about the hacker culture not being polite... and is making flat-out lies to promote the case.

Yeah, you're right. Being polite doesn't make you more honest or sincere than being an asshole.

I'd say that they're just not as correlated they seem to be at times.

I'm always suspect of any solution that goes to any extreme.

I also think there are enough micro-cultures in the programming space, themselves crossing a myriad of geocultural contexts, to defy broad generalizations.

I think it's most constructive and useful to approach it as a way of generally dealing with people and not a specific group. We haven't developed in such a way to easily and rationally react to abrasive responses in conversation. I don't think it creates a social atmosphere that optimally takes advantage of our modern context.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#354

Post by sirclueless »

StavrosK wrote: post #338
gosu wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh God, I have had a similar experience with #C. I know very little C, it was four in the morning and I was trying to get something finished, but it wouldn't work for some reason. I joined #C to ask for some help, but people were trying to get me to discover the solution on my own, which is well and fine if you want to learn, but at that point I just wanted the trivial fix (it was something about an incorrect type, i…

To be fair, they had no obligation to help you in the way you wanted, and in fact probably could not do so without sacrificing a great deal.

It sounds like #C has chosen as its mission to teach people the C programming language. To that end, they see it as a derailment of their existential purpose to help people who "just want the trivial fix." To them, it's rather like going to a math tutor with your homework and saying "I don't want to know how to do it, I just want the answer." Correctly or incorrectly, they think that helping you in the way that you ask won't teach you anything, and that it will ultimately hurt you on the final.

Even among communities whose mission is to help people with specific questions, like StackOverflow, the folks answering questions still require a certain amount of buy-in: evidence that you've thought about the question enough to understand precisely what the problem is, and evidence that the problem doesn't have an easily found solution on Google. Without that buy-in, the social environment they've set up will inevitably devolve until it's really difficult to separate the genuine difficulties that can be solved from the white noise of people asking the same question over and over.

So while I wouldn't defend the people in #C wholesale, and there may be plenty of vitriol there, a refusal to help when someone just wants a quick answer doesn't sound unreasonable, and in fact may be all that holds their community together.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#355

Post by StavrosK »

sirclueless wrote: post #354
StavrosK wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh God, I have had a similar experience with #C. I know very little C, it was four in the morning and I was trying to get something finished, but it wouldn't work for some reason. I joined #C to ask for some help, but people were trying to get me to discover the solution on my own, which is well and fine if you want to learn, but at that point I just wanted the trivial fix (it was something about an incorrect type, i…

To be fair, they had no obligation to help you in the way you wanted, and in fact probably could not do so without sacrificing a great deal. It sounds like #C has chosen as its mission to teach people the C programming language. To that end, they see it as a derailment of their existential purpose to help people who "just want the trivial fix." To them, it's rather like going to a math tutor with your homework and sa…

> To be fair, they had no obligation to help you in the way you wanted

Sure, but they didn't have to be dicks about it. They could have said "we don't want to tell you if it won't teach you anything" and I'd have left. Berating me wasn't very productive.

> fact probably could not do so without sacrificing a great deal.

It was a "you're using sprintf("%d") when you need sprintf("%u")" sort of thing. Not exactly that, but very easy.

> it's rather like going to a math tutor with your homework

Not really, given that I don't ever work with C. It's more like asking for help with a flat tire and having the person say "I will ask you questions until you figure out how to do it". Thanks, but I just want to get to my job interview on time.

> the folks answering questions still require a certain amount of buy-in

I had done all the debugging I could and narrowed it down to that specific line, but doing anything more would require reading a large amount of material (which I didn't know where to find) on the intricacies of the C standard/compiler/etc, so it wasn't like I just went in saying "help me I don't remember the for loop syntax".

> a refusal to help when someone just wants a quick answer doesn't sound unreasonable, and in fact may be all that holds their community together.

I doubt that's what holds a community together, and I agree that it's not unreasonable. However, the way they treated me was.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#356

Post by prawn »

"One of the main reasons it doesn't work is that people don't ask questions to clarify. They jump to conclusions, some of which are very wrong."

Do people realise that Winer reads and replies on HN? Would they ask a question to clarify if they knew he would?

Even when there is a general submission, it is not always obvious that OP or Original Author is participating. Reddit highlights the OP in a discussion which can be helpful.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#357

Post by spc476 »

krapp wrote: post #241
brymaster wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree but wouldn't it be nice if we could keep it changing for the better? Locking a forum down doesn't change anything. It seems like you're just wanting to censor dissent.

And of course, it wouldn't censor dissent, it would just prevent new people from dissenting. Unless you follow it up with a constant shifting of the line in the sand between the "acceptable community" and "unacceptable community", perhaps by deleting the accounts of anyone as old as, or newer than, anyone within the circle who voices an unpopular enough opinion. Or have every thread be invite only, or set to only all…

Or do like alt.hackers (USENET group)---it's moderated, but there is no moderator. To post, you have to figure out how to post to a moderator-less moderated group.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#358

Post by raylu »

StavrosK wrote: post #355
sirclueless wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, they had no obligation to help you in the way you wanted, and in fact probably could not do so without sacrificing a great deal. It sounds like #C has chosen as its mission to teach people the C programming language. To that end, they see it as a derailment of their existential purpose to help people who "just want the trivial fix." To them, it's rather like going to a math tutor with your homework and sa…

> To be fair, they had no obligation to help you in the way you wanted Sure, but they didn't have to be dicks about it. They could have said "we don't want to tell you if it won't teach you anything" and I'd have left. Berating me wasn't very productive. > fact probably could not do so without sacrificing a great deal. It was a "you're using sprintf("%d") when you need sprintf("%u")" sort of thing. Not exactly that,…

I suspect that a lot of that context (or "buy-in") was missing, as it was when you explained it the first time here, which is why you got the response you did.

A lot of people show up in programming communities asking for help with their intro programming homework. Once you see a few dozen of those, it's understandable if your knee-jerk reaction is at least somewhat insulting.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#359

Post by sirclueless »

pfortuny wrote: post #259
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…

No, being impolite does not come with the profession, this is an easy excuse which sidesteps the problem. The difference between: "You cannot use a pointer without previous initialization becuase it may lead to corrupt memory, or some other error". and "Nobody with a f king idea of C would dereference a pointer as you have done" is politeness. And the first one helps, the second one just offends. Both are right, but…

There's plenty of legitimate reasons to give brusque, dismissive answers.

It's tough to distinguish between someone dismissing an idea because he sees the inevitable problems that make it unworkable, and someone dismissing an idea that falls outside his comfort zone.

It's tough to distinguish between someone giving an abrupt answer because her time is too valuable to spend on a detailed one, and someone giving an abrupt answer because she doesn't have the understanding to formulate an actual rebuttal.

And of course it's impossible to tell any of the above from a nice guy having a shitty day.

There's a lot of gripe about our shitty community, and I often wonder whether the griping is just a byproduct of having so many conversations in permanently archived public fora, or whether there really is some force at work that makes impolite people choose programming or makes programmers impolite.

Re: Hacker News is depressing

#360

Post by StavrosK »

raylu wrote: post #358
StavrosK wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, they had no obligation to help you in the way you wanted Sure, but they didn't have to be dicks about it. They could have said "we don't want to tell you if it won't teach you anything" and I'd have left. Berating me wasn't very productive. > fact probably could not do so without sacrificing a great deal. It was a "you're using sprintf("%d") when you need sprintf("%u")" sort of thing. Not exactly that,…

I suspect that a lot of that context (or "buy-in") was missing, as it was when you explained it the first time here, which is why you got the response you did. A lot of people show up in programming communities asking for help with their intro programming homework. Once you see a few dozen of those, it's understandable if your knee-jerk reaction is at least somewhat insulting.

I think I had told them that I narrowed it down to that line, as they specifically offered to help me debug it. I said I got the error pinned down to line X, but still... It might have been a fluke, though, as I think there was one person who instigated this whole bad treatment. Apparently he was well-known for it, because someone said something like "heh, hell will freeze over before X will just hand out a solution".
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