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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#181

Post by weinzierl »

bengali3 wrote: post #103
dman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. Conflating disagreement with downvoting seems to be mixing unrelated concerns. It is currently inconvenient (in karma terms) to hold dissenting opinions.

Interesting, what if in downvoting a comment you had to pick a reason? What are all the reasons one would downvote something? "I do not agree" "I do not believe this adds value" "Inappropriate conduct" "I think you are being mean / rude" "Bad attempt at funny" "Off topic to parent" "Off topic to post" "Difficult to understand/Noise"

Another idea is to make down voting cost karma. Stackoverflow does this.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#182

Post by nostrademons »

guelo wrote: post #62
nostrademons wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Try to explain why this conflict of interest is not in your interests, as a user of Hacker News.

Sam's post seems like it tried to anticipate this by explicitly stating that "Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing of value to the community." They're not asking you to turn off all critical thinking about YC companies, YC startups, or the Silicon Valley investment community. They're asking that you think critically - that doesn't mean blanket dismissals, it means pointing out specific elements that are objectionable which they should change.

For example, something like: "Could you clarify whether the following types of posts might be acceptable?

1. We've had a negative experience with a YC startup that we believe the community should know about.

2. A new idea that someone posted has obvious theoretical flaws that have been encountered and documented in the literature.

3. The policy that you just wrote an essay espousing will lead to the following consequences a, b, and c, which will have these negative effects on society."

I have no connection to YC, but I'm guessing the responses to that would be "1.) e-mail the founders and try to work out your dispute with them personally fails. If that doesn't work, e-mail sama@ycombinator.com. 2.) these are fine, but link to the theoretical findings so everyone else can understand and judge them for themselves 3.) also fine."

The point is that then, your comment is specific and actionable, and readers learn something useful from it, rather than simply learning "guelo is a cynic".

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#183

Post by micampe »

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…

Yup. Not just comments, always trying to find the alleged negative aspects of everything and clinging only onto that, without so much as acknowledging other possibilities.

This is the reason I stopped reading HN as much, just as I stopped reading comments everywhere else on the internet. I don't want to tiptoe through arguments trying to preventively push aside all possible misinterpretations or people trying to put words in my mouth.

This is not critical thinking, this is just cynic criticism.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#184

Post by tptacek »

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.

A bigger project than HN that has put a lot of time into the norm we're talking about today is Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#185

Post by throwawaymaroon »

chc wrote: post #141
guelo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Your comment looks like a lot like FUD to me. You're implying a lot of bad without even attempting to establish that anything bad has happened. It seems to me that the way to say negative things without being accused to gratuitous negativity is to have the negative things be substantial and useful rather than just an expression of one's own cynicism. For example, if a conflict of interest had actually reared its ugly…

So, no, guelo, there isn't. :)

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#186

Post by WhitneyLand »

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.

Think about the possible outcomes:

Wrongly assume the best: It quickly becomes apparent, things move forward, you may even steer things in a better direction.

Wrongly assume the worst: You look like a jerk, possibly demotivated people or made them feel bad, and now there is an air of conflict that needs to be ventilated by unnecessarily defensive comments.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#187

Post by ZenoArrow »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #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, n…

"Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, no?"

No, your comment would be fine. The idea is, if you're going to be negative, at least be thoughtful about how you want to say it. Looking at it a different way, if you're negative, do you take the pleasure from being honest or from being dramatic? If you take pleasure from being honest, there's nothing stopping you from being both honest and welcoming. If you want to be dramatic, do it as a joke, but don't do it to boost your ego, and go after the idea rather than the person. There are ways to have your cake and eat it.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#190

Post by dragonwriter »

noir_lord wrote: post #116
bengali3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, what if in downvoting a comment you had to pick a reason? What are all the reasons one would downvote something? "I do not agree" "I do not believe this adds value" "Inappropriate conduct" "I think you are being mean / rude" "Bad attempt at funny" "Off topic to parent" "Off topic to post" "Difficult to understand/Noise"

Slashdot does this. What generally happens is that instead of one argument about been downvoted/upvoted you end up with even more arguments about whether something is +5 funny or whatever. I've no idea how you solve this in the general case tbh.

So far, while it may not be ideal, I think HN actually hits pretty close to the sweet spot.
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