Whatever.
[waiting]
New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
241–250 of 673 posts
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole site needs rewriting and modernizing. Considering the audience, it's kind of shocking how stale it is.
I disagree. A lot of HN's character and culture are a result of how unmodern/unconventional it is. For example, not being able to get reply updates by email means you have to come back to the site to check, for example. Is that good or bad? I don't know the answer, but it selects a different audience. A modern HN would be a different HN community and culture.
It is actually possible to get e-mail notifications via this external service: http://hnnotify.com/
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you nailed the real problem, which is that people have become so quick to write off anyone who ruffles their feathers at all. Drew Houston describes the HN feedback he received for Dropbox as all the motivation he needed to keep going. He also explained that he knew it was a hit because of how many people were saying negative things. Today though, any truly critical comment means you're either a hater or a tr…
> I think you nailed the real problem, which is that people have become so quick to write off anyone who ruffles their feathers at all. I'm quick to write off people and I won't apologize for it. I have better things to do with my time than to give everyone the same amount of time and respect. If HN has decided to be touchy feely than this most certainly isn't the place for me. I prefer actual discourse where bullshi…
(For me) the kicker in your response was:
than to give everyone the same amount of time and respect
Who then, is worth of your time and/or respect?
What is your criteria? Fine by me to have your opinion. But at least be able to back it up with some substance.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#244> 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…
> Is it just regular negative of me to say statements like that one are horrible, or it is gratuitously negative? That is gratuitously negative because you are not contributing anything to the conversation except your opinion. While everyone tends to think their own opinion is an incredibly valuable gift to the world, the world rarely receives it as such. > Am I being a critical thinker when I say that, whenever I he…
>That is gratuitously negative because you are not contributing anything to the conversation except your opinion.
That doesn't explain at all why something would be "gratuitously negative".
I can contribute my opinion that the sky is blue and provide no evidence or arguments. But if I only say "The sky is blue," and nothing else, then it doesn't look like I'm being "gratuitously negative".
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#245Earlier 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.
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.
This is either a non sequitur or a wildly uncharitable read of the remark you're replying to.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#246Earlier 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.
I think you're being a bit optimistic here. Downvotes will happen regardless of how well reasoned your argument is, and they'll come in a hurry if you hold an unpopular opinion on a sensitive/political subject. It's definitely my biggest gripe with HN -- there's too much of a political echo chamber here.
My unpopular opinions frequently get early downvotes, but it seems that it'll swing back into the black given enough time/eyeballs, if I've made a good argument.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you nailed the real problem, which is that people have become so quick to write off anyone who ruffles their feathers at all. Drew Houston describes the HN feedback he received for Dropbox as all the motivation he needed to keep going. He also explained that he knew it was a hit because of how many people were saying negative things. Today though, any truly critical comment means you're either a hater or a tr…
> I think you nailed the real problem, which is that people have become so quick to write off anyone who ruffles their feathers at all. I'm quick to write off people and I won't apologize for it. I have better things to do with my time than to give everyone the same amount of time and respect. If HN has decided to be touchy feely than this most certainly isn't the place for me. I prefer actual discourse where bullshi…
> I'm quick to write off people and I won't apologize for it. I have better things to do with my time than to give everyone the same amount of time and respect.
Well, if a comment/post doesn't deserve your respect, why do you take time to reply to it to begin with?
I always oppose to non tech savvy people saying "there are horrible things on the internet" that those are sorted out by themselves : what is bad is ignored. A bad thing becomes a thing from the point you give more attention to it than it deserves.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#248Can we extend this to the rest of Silicon Valley?
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#249Must comments be soothing and agreeable to be appreciated at all? Is it okay to be caustic if you're also making a good point? For example, I often say intentionally chaotic things in relation to Microsoft stories because we have a history and this reflects my current impression of that company. That said, I find a lot of their recent changes, open source contributions, and future plans very agreeable and sometimes a…
No, they merely need to be substantive.
This is a sensible policy only until you have to define what is and isn't substantive.
Since "substantive" tends to evaluate to "it changed my mind or I don't believe it to be completely wrong," it becomes a subjective game very quickly.
Arguing something that many people disagree with outright is inherently going to look negative no matter how 'substantive' it turns out to be.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first three rules are fine, but the fourth ("No subtle -isms") strikes me as rather hypocritical given the Recurse Center's policy of offering financial support only to favored minorities. They write [1] We want the Recurse Center to be a space with as little bigotry as possible in it. and yet their financial aid policies are explicitly discriminatory [2]: The Recurse Center is free for everyone, and we offer nee…
What does your opinion about Recurse's financial aid program have to do with whether their community guidelines are good? Either the isms rule is good or it isn't; its validity does not depend on you agreeing with the rest of their actions.
Their guidelines are hypocritical, i.e., bad. To spell it out explicitly: the -isms rule is probably fine as far as it goes, but if HN is going to be inspired by the Recurse Center's policies, it should go a step further and officially discourage the Recurse Center's brand of pious discrimination as well.