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You can't impress developers

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Re: You can't impress developers

#61

Post by philjackson »

kevinflo wrote: post #41
latch wrote: post #12

Took a break from HN (and others) for about 8 months at the end of 2012 and start of 2013. The HN I came back to feels very different. Everyone knows better and is eager to prove it by putting others down. Comments are no longer about the OP, but about how the OP is laughable, let me tell you how to do it . So sad.

I've noticed this as well and I've always felt it had to do with the fact that you cannot downvote comments. Comments systems that allow for only upvoting seem to skew towards surfacing loud comments versus reasonable comments. The silent reasonable majority (that is less inclined to comment or even vote) needs a way to help curate when things get unbalanced. Think about how you might not end up actually clicking upv…

I actually think Reddit's /r/programming shows that a potential downvote for everyone doesn't do anything to bring about reason. It used to be a vibrant, smart, collaborative community. Now you need the skin of a Rhino to post there.

Re: You can't impress developers

#62

Post by latch »

seabee wrote: post #48
kevinflo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this as well and I've always felt it had to do with the fact that you cannot downvote comments. Comments systems that allow for only upvoting seem to skew towards surfacing loud comments versus reasonable comments. The silent reasonable majority (that is less inclined to comment or even vote) needs a way to help curate when things get unbalanced. Think about how you might not end up actually clicking upv…

But you can downvote comments, if you have sufficient karma. So is the problem that the people with the power don't exercise it, or that people don't upvote the reasonable comments in a sufficient ratio to push the bad comments down? Meta-HN is not my favourite topic but perhaps it's time we had a review to account for how the community has changed since the last one.

The problem is that if someone forcefully demeans another while sounding or being authoritative, it's intimidating for others to speak up. Maybe he really does know best, they think.

And, to be honest, sometimes they really do know best. When it comes down to it, it isn't about being right or wrong. If someone makes an OSS project, or a post, or anything, and you don't agree with it (or they are flat out wrong), just don't be a dick about it. No one knows everything and we're all just trying to do our best and get better.

Re: You can't impress developers

#63

Post by davewiner »

Aardwolf wrote: post #60

I wonder if this applies to other professions? E.g. what does a master chef think about the dish by another master cook? Does an architect respect the buildings of another? What about painters, musicians or writers?

Those are great questions, and I've wondered about it myself.

In movies for example, teams form for projects that last in total a couple of years, but for individuals, their work might just be a couple of months. I've often wished programming worked like that, at least commercial projects. I know a lot of programmers I'd like to try working with. But we don't do it that way.

Also, there is a sense of history in most of those activities that isn't present here. A young basketball player can tell you about all his role models, going back many generations. I've seen it (thinking of Iman Schumpert on the Knicks).

They listen to each others' music, eat each others' food, I'm sure there's a lot of pettiness to the discourse, but in software, it's not uncommon for people to compete with products they've never even tried. I can see that in competitive products!

I think it will eventually get better. It is getting better over time. When I was starting the idea of an individual creating software was VERY radical, and there wasn't much support for it. Until I came to Calif, and met other people who believed in the idea. Nowadays, they make movies about people doing that. I would have told you 30 years ago that day would come, and people really didn't believe it. Esp programmers. :-)

So it is getting better. I just wish it would get there faster.

Re: You can't impress developers

#65

Post by k-mcgrady »

It seems a lot of people in the comments here are complaining about a decline in the value of discussions on HN. Although I've noticed this I don't think it's the fault of the people commenting. The quality of links posted to HN has declined.

Rather than fact-based technical articles, useful new tools, and cool side projects there are a lot of crappy articles repeating the same things we've heard thousands of times about productivity, standing desks, work/life balance, meditation. The articles rarely present anything new, they are mostly anecdotes presented as fact.

I still find great things on HN and participate in interesting discussions but sometimes when I look at the front page it seems more like a site for people interested in self-help guides.

Re: You can't impress developers

#67

Post by waterlesscloud »

akkartik wrote: post #8

You can't impress developers on HN . There's something about the social dynamics of large groups of developers online that causes relatively-uninteresting criticisms to dominate. But when somebody's actually trying something out, rather than just kibitzing? They're a lot friendlier. If you couldn't impress developers we'd never switch to new technologies. And yet here we are, with rack and sinatra and cucumber and no…

That's my main problem with the tone that's coming to be more and more apparent-

The criticisms just aren't interesting.

It's disappointing to open a discussion thread and have the top couple of comments be some negative nitpick of something that's shallow or irrelevant.

Next time you're about to post, ask yourself if it's the most interesting thing you could say about the topic. If it's not, why not think for a moment and then post what is most interesting?

Re: You can't impress developers

#69

Post by flipcoder »

philjackson wrote: post #61
kevinflo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this as well and I've always felt it had to do with the fact that you cannot downvote comments. Comments systems that allow for only upvoting seem to skew towards surfacing loud comments versus reasonable comments. The silent reasonable majority (that is less inclined to comment or even vote) needs a way to help curate when things get unbalanced. Think about how you might not end up actually clicking upv…

I actually think Reddit's /r/programming shows that a potential downvote for everyone doesn't do anything to bring about reason. It used to be a vibrant, smart, collaborative community. Now you need the skin of a Rhino to post there.

I agree. Reddit has changed for the worse. It seems like HN is changing as well. If only there was a way of keeping out those types of people.

Re: You can't impress developers

#70

Post by verroq »

seabee wrote: post #48
kevinflo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this as well and I've always felt it had to do with the fact that you cannot downvote comments. Comments systems that allow for only upvoting seem to skew towards surfacing loud comments versus reasonable comments. The silent reasonable majority (that is less inclined to comment or even vote) needs a way to help curate when things get unbalanced. Think about how you might not end up actually clicking upv…

But you can downvote comments, if you have sufficient karma. So is the problem that the people with the power don't exercise it, or that people don't upvote the reasonable comments in a sufficient ratio to push the bad comments down? Meta-HN is not my favourite topic but perhaps it's time we had a review to account for how the community has changed since the last one.

No it's who ever has the majority wins. Not even the top 1% can make a difference when 99% of the users are upvoting something.
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