New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity • Hacker News Board

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#151

Post by andrewstuart » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:51 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #144

andrewstuart wrote: post #122

It's "the programmers way" to try to come up with some sort of moderation/policing system to solve this. Please do not come up with a moderation system. There should simply be a confirmation step after hitting submit, reminding the poster that they are valued for their positive contribution and giving the poster the chance to rethink their post and cancel if its too negative. Additionally when posting, require people…

> There's nothing at the moment that explicitly asks or reminds people of expectations when they post. New users are asked to read the guidelines when they post. I don't know how long that reminder stays there, but there's a linkto the guidelines right under the text entry box.

Some background document doesn't address the users present behaviour. If there is some critical behaviour you want reinforced then you can't hand wave vaguely at some background document. You need to drive people through a process that requires them to confirm that are behaving in the expected way.

"How negative is this post?" 0: not negative 10: it's snarky

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#152

Post by DanBC » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:51 PM UTC

ohnomrbill wrote: post #84

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…

Why should I try to interpret comments in the best possible light? I could make an effort to interpret them in the worst possible light, too. I have no reason to believe that internet commenters mean well.

Because HN has an international audience where English is often a second language; also cultural expectations can be markedly different to the US.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#153

Post by nabla9 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

related matter:

1. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related hacking or engineering projects is not beneficial unless it's very detailed or insightful. If you don't like it, move on. Don't give your two cents if it's critique.

2. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related to science should be default (unless they come from top notch publications like Nature or Science). The quality of science news and press releases related to science is abysmal. People consume science hype almost like religious people listen sermons about heaven and don't even realize it. Popularized science posted in HN is 99% rubbish.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#154

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

throwawaymaroon wrote: post #133

Karunamon wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussing it is one thing, dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as "the hivemind" is at the very least not constructive, at most actively harmful. Where's the proof of this "destructive behavior"? How are we supposed constructively discuss a problem that hasn't even been proven to exist? Put another way, it's an extraordinary accusation (HN has a pro-Google bias) that demands extraordinary evidence. We disagree…

>How are we supposed constructively discuss a problem that hasn't even been proven to exist? We can't even begin if people demolish all introspective criticism. >We disagree that insults are ever necessary. There's insults like "fuckface" and "idiot," and there's "You're nothing more than a rich white guy whose money makes him feel like his opinions shouldn't be criticized." Personally I find the second more insultin…

Generally, getting into a protracted debate about someone's motivations has two effects:

* The thread goes off topic

* Lots of unsubstantiated and unfalsifiable accusations are made. (How would I prove I'm not a Google shill, for instance?)

At the end of the day, you do not know what someone's motivations are for posting. Speculating on them is just meta noise, lowering the standard of discourse, and generally just plain harmful.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#155

Post by bdcravens » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

happyscrappy wrote: post #57

maxerickson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corrections I find the most frustrating are the ones that attempt to frame something that is reasonably a difference of opinion as a black/white, right/wrong issue. A made up example using something that is about as subjective as possible: No, that's wrong, strawberries are awful. (just changing that to "I disagree, ..." gets rid of a lot of the nonsense) There also ends up being a lot of what is essentially squa…

The pedantic bickering is brutal because you cannot collapse threads.

Check out the Hacker News Enhancement Suite for Chrome.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#156

Post by frakkingcylons » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:53 PM UTC

I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of this rule, but I think the better policy is to ban low-effort comments. Either way, glad to see the HN team doing something.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#157

Post by weinzierl » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:53 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Part of this issue is what at Stackoverflow was called the "Fastest Gun in the West Problem" [1].

I think a successful strategy on HN is: Write many comments really quickly and take the risk that some of them are bad or even wrong. The incentive for being an early commenter outbalances the penalty for being wrong sometimes.

[1] http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/10/solving-the-fastest-gu...

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#158

Post by reitanqild » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:54 PM UTC

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…

> One of the most negative habits is in my opinion the failure to read a comment charitably

More generally - the failure to r e a d the article/parent comment etc.

(People who disagree with me seems particularly prone to this :-P )

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#159

Post by flomo » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:54 PM UTC

ohnomrbill wrote: post #84

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…

Why should I try to interpret comments in the best possible light? I could make an effort to interpret them in the worst possible light, too. I have no reason to believe that internet commenters mean well.

Pedantic "corrections" that offer no additional value are seen as pretty contemptible behavior in real life, so you probably shouldn't make a habit of it.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#160

Post by pyrrhotech » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 8:54 PM UTC

A lot of us (I'm at the top of the list) are occasionally hasty to be negative on the hottest new social media startups. As SA says, it's human nature to feel jealousy and sour grapes. "Damn these kids and their stupid chat apps that I could have made in 3 days when I was 16... and now they're raising 10 million dollars???". That's how most of us grinding it out at big companies likely feel when we read post after post of it, but it's not constructive to either ourselves or the community. Instead, I think there are some things to learn about markets, trends and even of how to conquer our own defeating psychosis from these stories.