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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

blog.ycombinator.com

61–70 of 673 posts

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#61
post #8

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…

This goes both ways. If I think someone has misinterpreted me, I usually apologize for being unclear and clarify my statement. I would rather clear it up than start a flamewar, even if someone else might be itching for one.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#62
post #17

Feels 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

Is there a way to express the existence of this conflict of interest without being accused of being negative?

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#63

I 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…

What did your comment add that the OP or the others replying to the OP didn't state previously?

An "I agree" or "hear, hear" should be downvoted.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#64
post #45

Random 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".

Yes, that's actually the direction I was aiming for, a little bit like the Slashdot system.

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

#65
Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior? Doesn't cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo chamber? To me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid criticism--or cynicism (perhaps of startup culture itself, due to Y-combinator's interest in startup culture continuing). Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, no? Even though it's designed to spark an honest debate.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#66
post #38

I agree that we should try to reduce "this is a stupid idea" comments, but does that include "this doesn't belong on HN" comments?

Personally I think it should. HN is not just for technical stuff. If people don't think a submission matters, they won't vote it up.

Parallel comment is also correct - just flag it

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#67
post #45

Random 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".

[deleted]

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#68
post #17

Feels 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.

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#69
post #34
post #19

I 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...

You're right. A corollary is that gratuitous negativity is largely unintentional. That's why we're asking community members to be more active in gently reminding each other when the line is being crossed. Gently!
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