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Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

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Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#81

Post by pekk »

jasonkester wrote: post #66

My personal favorite is "The plural of anecdote is not data". Correct. The plural of anecdote is conversation , which is exactly the reason we're here. I think this one comes down to people misunderstanding the reason we're here in the first place. If you start to notice that the discussion here resembles the sort of conversation you'd have around the watercooler, that's probably has to do with the fact that Hacker N…

The water cooler is a place for things like gossip, stupid jokes and discussions of television shows. I hope we don't all begin to assume this is what HN should be, particularly when consequential topics are being discussed (vaccination, etc.)

If I apply a corrosive black salve to my face and I feel that this saved me from cancer and really want to share it as advice, my story actually does nothing to establish self-application of black salve as an advisable practice. It is indeed an anecdote, not data. It should not be taken as data. This is very important, or people will be misled and burn their noses off.

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#82

Post by cstross »

moomin wrote: post #4

Cliches like this are OK. What really annoys me is that the top rated comment is invariably a straight-forward contradiction of the original article's thesis. Like this comment here.

Cliches get to be cliches because they're a good idea that everyone wants to reuse. And recycle. Until they're familiar and then over-familiar.

The top-rating issue is simply symptomatic of the lack of insight of many of the folks clicking the little arrows over their first morning cup of coffee. News delivers a brief stimulus; commentary even briefer: the spasmodic twitch of the mousing fingertip merely signals the assent (or dissent) of the mayfly mind.

Mea culpa: I'm guilty of this, too.

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#83

Post by ritchiea »

moomin wrote: post #4

Cliches like this are OK. What really annoys me is that the top rated comment is invariably a straight-forward contradiction of the original article's thesis. Like this comment here.

I think the worst is is when the top rated comment is a correction or contradiction of a peripheral assertion in the original article that fails to address the broader implications of the original article.

Though I acknowledge this is a really tough pattern to battle since it's much easier to be certain a quick factual correction provides concrete value than it is to assess a reply with a complicated or nuanced argument. And there is nothing wrong with comments that make a factual correction, it just leads to poor results at the top of the discussion page.

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#84

Post by nodata »

pekk wrote: post #69
saurik wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inevitable comments about Bettridge's law of headlines every time a title ends in a question mark are not helpful. They don't make an argument, as the article is hardly ever arguing for the question. It is just indicating "look at me, I know of this exotic jargon term, and it happens to apply to this article title". Like, this article could have been "would hacker news improve if we stopped posting certain kinds…

Sensationalized, misleading titles are not helpful.

I think "X (is|are) not helpful" is overused.

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#85

Post by alexchamberlain »

Good summary: This article sums up some of the comments that annoy me too, but not because the comments is wrong or inherently annoying, but because the comment is simply incomplete. For example, "Correlation is not causation" is one of my more favourite sayings, but one should explain what was wrong in that case too.

I, also, get annoyed with comments that are far too long for the point being made - go write an article in response if you want. Expletives are also a no go.

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#87

Post by pekk »

pavlov wrote: post #44
raverbashing wrote: post #31

HN sometimes looks like an Asperger's meetup. I understand this is a place for serious debate and constructive criticism, but sometimes it's more uptight than getting interviewed at a border control. I visit and get value from it, but this article is spot on. Well, I still think [citation needed] is relevant sometimes, in the case of a legitimate/interesting (or maybe questionable) citation that would produce more va…

Yes, sometimes you want to see a source, but why would you use that phrasing? The passive form doesn't feel like a conversation. Like the original poster wrote, it comes across as passive-aggressive. Imagine someone walking into a coffee shop and ordering coffee by saying: "Coffee required" -- while drawing imaginary square brackets around his head with his fingers.

It isn't a request for a source. It is like saying 'if you want others to believe this thing you are claiming publicly, you need to back it up better than asking us to take you on your word.'

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#88

Post by DanBC »

> "If you're not paying for it, you're the product"

This also sometimes misses the point. EG, when YouTubers complain about being cut off from monetising they're not the customer, nor the product. Google is the customer, choosing whether to buy the product or not.

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#89

Post by Too »

citricsquid wrote: post #13

The biggest problem with Hacker News comments -- actually, make that all comments -- is fundamental: the sort of people that leave comments are (more often than not) people that want something, ANYTHING, to say, not people that have something to say.

I think the karma system can also be a contributor to this. Any comment you make has the chance to get a few upvotes, regardless of how little it contributes to the conversation. So people just spam comments to get a few points here and there.

This phenomena can be seen in forums without karma also but i think in places with karma it is usually worse, worst offenders being digg and reddit where everybody tries to make a silly joke as those are easy points.

A better algotithm calculating the karma as an average over all your comments maybe could help..

Re: Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing

#90

Post by crevadi »

Too wrote: post #89
citricsquid wrote: post #13

The biggest problem with Hacker News comments -- actually, make that all comments -- is fundamental: the sort of people that leave comments are (more often than not) people that want something, ANYTHING, to say, not people that have something to say.

I think the karma system can also be a contributor to this. Any comment you make has the chance to get a few upvotes, regardless of how little it contributes to the conversation. So people just spam comments to get a few points here and there. This phenomena can be seen in forums without karma also but i think in places with karma it is usually worse, worst offenders being digg and reddit where everybody tries to mak…

Yes you are correct. Most people just add comments to get points and karma. Especially when they are new to HN like me.
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