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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

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Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#191

Post by ademarre »

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…

> people often tend to misread or miserunderstand what's being said

This is like the phenomenon examined in this 2005 paper: Egocentrism Over E-Mail: Can We Communicate as Well as We Think?[1]

From the abstract:

> Without the benefit of paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation, it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over electronic mail. [...] this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can.

When we read a HN comment negatively, we should second guess our interpretation of it before we reply. We may not have perceived it the way the author intended.

Likewise when writing comments, we should ask ourselves if our wording might be received more negatively than we realize.

[1] http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/krugeretal05....

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#192

Post by dang »

DanBC wrote: post #152
ohnomrbill wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a much larger factor on HN than I think most people realize.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#193

Post by minimaxir »

jfarmer wrote: post #175
minimaxir wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is off-topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules.

You'll have to trust me when I say that what I'm about to write isn't personal. I have no idea what was going on in your head or heart when you wrote it and don't want to invent a story about your motivations. :) > The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is off-topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules. Although I wouldn't call this comment "gratuitously negative"…

I wasn't trying to make a point?

The original comment was "how is this different from ad hominems?" and the reply with examples of gratuitous negativity were ad hominems, which was contradictory so I elaborated to see if anyone could provide more context, which dang did. (Yes, I missed the intent of the paragraph in the original submission at first.)

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#194

Post by ZenoArrow »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #100
300bps wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed. Wish there was a way to upvote dead comments that I liked to contribute to their status being reconsidered.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#195

Post by smacktoward »

dman wrote: post #86
cheald wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience tends to be that if you can hold a dissenting opinion respectfully, and back up your assertions, HN treats it favorably in the long run. Holding a dissenting opinion without being willing to defend it with awareness of your audience's hostility to your ideas rarely goes over well in any forum, though.

Try saying anything critical about Apple and see if this strategy works out in practice.

I've been very critical of Apple in this forum, and it doesn't seem to have hurt my karma too much.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#196

Post by lambda »

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 the failure conditions are worse.

Let's see, here are the possibilities:

1. Someone means well, you interpret it as them meaning well and respond accordingly. Everything is fine and dandy, everyone's happy. 2. Someone means well, and you interpret them as meaning ill, and respond accordingly. Now you are angry for no reason, they have had the experience of making a well meaning comment and being shot down for it. Everyone is miserable. 3. Someone means ill, and you interpret it as them meaning ill, and respond accordingly. Now they have gotten the thrill of getting through to you (remember, they mean ill, so that is their intent), and you are angry (for a good reason). You've made yourself miserable and a troll happy. 4. Someone means ill, and you interpret it as them meaning well and respond accordingly. Now they don't get the pleasure of having bothered you, you have shrugged it off an it's not great loss to you. You are now happier than option 3, and they haven't had a chance to hurt you like they meant to.

Of course, real life isn't quite a simple as that; but that does cover a very large number of possible interactions on the internet. By biasing yourself toward the most charitable interpretation of others comments, you reduce the risk of a simple misunderstanding leading to everyone being unhappy, reduce the risk of just giving a troll exactly what they want, and contribute to a more positive environment in general.

It really does help out in an awful lot of cases, and reduces friction dramatically if you always assume good faith unless you have very compelling evidence to the contrary.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#197

Post by Karunamon »

throwawaymaroon wrote: post #173
Karunamon wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

In the context of my discussing someone's motivations, that was intended to be an example where those motivations were on topic and in particular not those of another poster. For instance, discussion of the motivations of Sam Altman in creating this suggestion-guideline: is he lashing out after the negative reaction to his bubble essay? That's insulting! It's also fair game! You can argue that as a statement it's ina…

Again, we disagree. By even asking that question (suffixing an accusation with a question mark does not make it less of an accusation - something I'll beat the mainstream media over the head with to my dying breath), you're accusing the other person of taking an action in bad faith: retaliatory creation of a rule in direct response to reasonable criticism.

On top of that, it's unfalsifiable! How would he go about proving that the guideline update wasn't a result of anger over reception of his article?

Now, say that's actually correct. Okay, so? We can't have a substantive discussion how much of a villain you think someone might be. Indeed, the motivations behind the rule are unknown beyond what he tells us, and we can only speculate.

Groundless speculation does not make for very good discourse - hence why it's a bad idea to even go there.

What we can talk about all day long are the implications of that rule and whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. There are plenty of arguments to be made there. Sam's motivations aside, since we don't know them, shouldn't even really enter into it.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#198

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior?

No. In fact, cynicism can be a herd-like behavior.

> Doesn't cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo chamber?

No, it doesn't. It might add another problem on top, but that doesn't actually make things better.

> To me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid criticism

If it is valid, on-topic criticism, it isn't gratuitous negativity.

> or cynicism

Discouraging plain cynicism as distinguished from reasoned criticism is, IMO, a positive benefit.

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

I don't see how.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#199

Post by arca_vorago »

"Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing of value to the community."

I will assure you that my very deep cynicism was reached through long and arduous resistance to such, but critical thinking, logic, rationality, and truth rank higher than happiness in my book. I will continue to be as negative as I see fit, without being constantly "gratuitously negative".

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#200

Post by UUMMUU »

dsugarman wrote: post #15

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.

Agreed. I got substantially downvoted for asking (what I thought) was a valid question about a Privacy Policy update. Seems the downvote is being treated more like Reddit.
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