One of the most negative habits is in my opinion the failure to read a comment charitably (to make an effort to interpret it in the best possible light). Instead, people often tend to misread or miserunderstand what's being said, only to use the opportunity to write a "correction" based on that false impression. A worse flavor of the same problem is a misunderstanding that is then used to justify outrage or personal…
New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
61–70 of 673 posts
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#62Feels like the conflict of interest of a general news forum being run by an investment firm with PR interests is beginning to rear its ugly head.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9318001
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#63I think the downvote functionality is holding back the utility of HN more than anything else. It is grossly overused and very rarely for guidelines violations like it was designed for. Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. It's an awful experience and is the main fuel in a negative feedback loop that travels with users from thread to thread.
I agree about the downvoting. The harm it's doing has increased in recent months, and it's common to see perfectly reasonable satements of fact (much less opinions) that someone else doesn't like be downvoted. It's discouraging to see when it's not even your comment, and really offputting when it is. It's gotten to a point that I'm not sure downvoting is a net positive for the community any more. EDIT- example, this…
An "I agree" or "hear, hear" should be downvoted.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#64Random idea: How about an extra pair of vote-buttons to classify a comment as "positive/negative" (karma-neutral)? I often find the karma-system frustratingly one-dimensional. Experiments in that direction are of course a slippery slope, but what place other than a hacker forum could be a better petri dish?
If we have extra buttons, let's have them be toggles like flag/unflag and name them something like "mean", "inane" and "misleading".
I just think it's very hard to choose meaningful adjectives/dimensions (the slashdot set also quickly feels limiting). That's why I'd start with the most basic sentiment(s) first (positive|negative, agree|disagree, ...), see how that goes, and possibly extend from there.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#65Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#66I agree that we should try to reduce "this is a stupid idea" comments, but does that include "this doesn't belong on HN" comments?
Parallel comment is also correct - just flag it
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#67Random idea: How about an extra pair of vote-buttons to classify a comment as "positive/negative" (karma-neutral)? I often find the karma-system frustratingly one-dimensional. Experiments in that direction are of course a slippery slope, but what place other than a hacker forum could be a better petri dish?
If we have extra buttons, let's have them be toggles like flag/unflag and name them something like "mean", "inane" and "misleading".
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#68Feels like the conflict of interest of a general news forum being run by an investment firm with PR interests is beginning to rear its ugly head.
This isn't a general news forum. The history of this board is not one of general news but items of specific interest and relevance to startups.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#69I suppose adding the guideline can't hurt, because it might at least make people more strongly consider their comments before posting them. Unfortunately, reasonable people can disagree about where the threshold is between appropriate skepticism/criticism and gratuitous negativity. Since "gratuitous" means unjustified or inappropriate, it by definition should be avoided. The trick is figuring out which things are ina…
Right. Trolls aside, everyone thinks their negativity is completely appropriate...
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#70Only scam artists, people wanting something from you, or people who don't give two shits about life will act or pretend to be positive.