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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

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Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#91

Post by moe »

striking wrote: post #73
moe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do adjectives have to do with commenting?

Not with commenting but with classifying the comments.

As maxerickson said we'd have additional votes for adjectives like e.g. "mean", "interesting", "funny" and others, but the hard part would be to choose a meaningful set.

I think almost any set would probably feel arbitrary and limiting quickly, so I'd rather stick with very few, very basic ones and see how that goes.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#92

Post by pain »

One of the most passive-aggressive habits is avoiding negativity experiences and emotional developments to feel positively correct.

Maturity realizing empathy seconds, that line numbers need to grow exponentially for any form of -logy, requires a deeper stance for tense problem solving pain points.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#93

Post by Karunamon »

chippy wrote: post #77

There is nothing to worry about. I do think it is indicative of a certain kind of new diversity friendly, "safe space", slightly censorious attitude which is rooted in normal human group psychology, keeping the tribe safe and secure and also swayed by whatever flavour of popular radical politics is operating at the time. It's nothing new. I wouldn't worry about this affecting Hacker News but if it does, we will notic…

Does that even follow, though? HN's community has traditionally (thankfully!) flatly rejected the "safe space" PC game whenever it's attempted to be played here, either in the comments or the submissions.

Remember that the guideline is against "gratuitous negativity", not "negativity" in general. HN will still be a place where actual crap gets called crap, but hopefully this means that we'll see less middlebrow criticism and more actually substantive comments.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#94

Post by kolbe »

> Negativity isn't the problem--gratuitous negativity is.

Is it just regular negative of me to say statements like that one are horrible, or it is gratuitously negative? Am I being a critical thinker when I say that, whenever I hear people make statement like that one, they are usually weaseling into some businessey doublespeak that roughly translates into "people like me can be negative, people like you cannot, but I refuse to say that outright." Or is that shallow cynicism?

I get your general message, Sam. And while I don't agree with it, I see how enforcing some unwritten "gratuitous negativity" code could improve HN discussions (I just don't think it would). But I do not know of any place on the internet where I find better discussions on daily news; so my opinion: when it's this great already, why do some vague micro-morality-management thing like this to try to change it?

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#95

Post by bane »

You know what, I think this is a good idea. I definitely get into "I'm the world's biggest asshole today" mode too frequently. Maybe if I get called out on it more it'll help make me a better person. I know the rest of the civil discourse rules here on HN have helped me become more thoughtful in other modes of interaction.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#96

Post by bitcrusher »

zk00006 wrote: post #79
dreamweapon wrote: post #14

It's not just a good idea for HN. It's a good practice to apply in one's everyday life, generally.

There is a good reason to be negative a priory in real live. Consider you start a thorough discussion on any problem that you encounter during the day. You wouldn't be doing anything else and die of hunger. In my opinion, people must be negative and quickly reject stuff that does not make sense to them. Forcing them to discuss about stuff that don't make sense to them is waste of time for both sites. For this reasons…

Dismissing things that don't make sense probably isn't a good idea. Some of the most interesting things I've learned have been from working hard to discuss and understand something that didn't make sense to me at the time.

Also, there are often cases when someone has an idea or thought that isn't necessarily framed with the right wording. That doesn't make the idea invalid and it is often worth exploring to understand what they were trying to express.

These things is a 'waste of time', in my opinion. In fact, it is often the direct opposite: A wonderful use of time.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#99

Post by Karunamon »

throwawaymaroon wrote: post #85
jseliger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disagreeing with the hivemind Using terms like "the hivemind" (which doesn't exist) is actually a good example of the thing the new guideline covers!

...What are you doing? Talking about 'the hivemind' isn't under some sort of blanket ban, and you're shutting down a right to a viewpoint simply because you think it's 'too negative'? This is exactly the kind of thinking that becomes prevalent in the atmosphere towards negativity engendered by HN.

The parent poster is perfectly entitled to their viewpoint, but calling a community "the hivemind" is terribly insulting and needlessly inflammatory.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#100

Post by jsmthrowaway »

300bps wrote: post #47
Udo wrote: 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…

rampant negativity...seems to have gotten less common recently HN does do a good job of weeding out uselessly negative comments and other trolling behavior. If you want proof of that, go to your profile and turn on "Show Dead". It is amazing to see how many people are shadow banned yet continue to post on a daily basis. I've seen several accounts that have posted daily for years completely unaware nobody is seeing an…

> I've seen several accounts that have posted daily for years completely unaware nobody is seeing anything they post.

I may be in the minority here, but I do not consider this a good result for anyone.

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