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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

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Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#311

Post by danellis »

SCHiM wrote: post #208
danellis wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole site needs rewriting and modernizing. Considering the audience, it's kind of shocking how stale it is.

I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, the looks of HN have helped protect the community against trolls. Everybody knows internet commenting is crude, rude and awful more often than not. In my opinion HN is a glorious example of an online community done right and I'm not sure we should change the site. But who knows, maybe it will even be better if it gets a little make-over.

I think features can benefit the individual without damaging the community. For example, AJAX enabled replies would leave me in the place I was reading, rather than taking me back to the top of the page, requiring me to hit 'back' twice after every comment. It would be nice if the 'next' link always worked too, instead of just throwing an error if you're browsing too slowly.

Email replies are covered by HN Notify, which, while hacky, does the job. It would be nice to have a simple Reddit-style red envelope, though, rather than clicking my username, then 'Comments' to see if I've had replies.

Of course, there are people who will say, "How much effort is it to click the back button?" but the irony is that these are exactly the kind of bad UX choices that the HN community would criticize any "Show HN" for.

I find the dissuasion away from multiple levels of replies as though in-depth discussion is a bad thing to be bewildering. Comments like "Replying here because I can't reply deeper" shouldn't need to exist. Apparently it's to prevent arguments, but collapsible comments would hide away anything you don't want to follow further.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#312

Post by dang »

Jimmy wrote: post #266
dang wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, no question. But by "getting the idea" I mean the intent. Reasonable people are always going to differ on the precise meaning of these terms. That doesn't need to be a problem. If everyone makes a good-faith effort to avoid gratuitous negativity however they best understand that, HN will be fine.

>But by "getting the idea" I mean the intent. I'm suspicious of the intent. That's why I want a more formal criteria.

I don't know of any way to formalize things like this and am skeptical that it's doable. Simple principles, plus a request to the community to do its sincere best with them, seem likely to produce the best outcome.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#313

Post by ndesaulniers »

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…

Another issue is that text is quite poor at conveying tone, both on HN and elsewhere. Saw something recently about adding emoji's for tone.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#314

Post by stefantalpalaru »

It is with great joy and positive vibrations that I receive this real world implementation of a few worthy ideas from the amazing Psycho-Pass[1] anime series. Cynicism is not conducive to peaceful productivity and it should be gracefully eliminated. Preferably by silencing gratuitously negative voices, for the common good of the cheerfully desperate community of Silicon Valley and by extension - the world.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#315

Post by CodeMage »

mreiland wrote: post #204
staunch wrote: post #39

Earlier 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…

edit: shit you guys, can't you go with the reading my comment charitably or will you hit that downvote button again, thereby showing your hypocrisy?

I think you misunderstood the new guideline. My takeaway was that people should try to interpret things charitably and not react blindly and impulsively, especially when their reaction is to write a comment. I can't find anything in the guideline that suggests that people shouldn't disagree with you. That's what's I believe is happening to you: people read your comment, try to interpret it charitably and find that they still disagree with you enough to downvote it.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#316

Post by mreiland »

dasil003 wrote: post #284
mreiland wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ017D_JOPY&t=3m15s But I honestly fall into the other camp that believes respect should be given freely. BUT that lasts until you open your mouth and say something stupid. I've had "discussions" with people about whether or not MAtz Ruby had a GIL. You don't get my respect for holding that opinion and I have better things to do with my time than worry about your feelings. There's a cl…

You're setting up a huge strawman. The new guideline is not asking you to suffer fools. It's to give people the benefit of the doubt, because in online conversation, there is dramatically more room for interpretation than in face-to-face conversation. HN doesn't have a problem with listening to knowledgeable people and speaking the blunt truth. It does, however, have a problem with civility, and addressing that by as…

My comment being downvoted so harshly is evidence to the contrary.

And I get it, you're going to explain to me why my "tone" or some other such thing is the reason it's getting downvoted.

But here's the thing. I don't give a shit. internet points aren't my thing.

But what I do know is that I gave a "straightforward honest" response and it got downvoted to hell by the very people asking for others to "be charitable".

As to the specifics of your response, you can't quote me saying anything about the guideline not allowing me to suffer fools. You can't even quote me implying it, but you responded to that idea anyway.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#317

Post by throwawaymaroon »

Squarel wrote: post #297
throwawaymaroon wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I run with "Would I say this to their face using these exact words if I was introduced to them in a room" If not, then perhaps I should rephrase it, to convey the same message, but perhaps without it being a personal attack.

Online discussion simply isn't the same as being in a room with someone, or more precisely, it's a type of 'room' all its own.

We're not being introduced to each other by mutual acquaintances who then have to get along with one another for the remainder of an evening. We're not even at a house party in a city we've never been to before meeting people that may become good friends. Nor are we at a press conference asking questions of a PR representative.

Instead we can take up and discard facets of these situations as we see fit.

...I'm not saying it's a bad idea to consider your hypothetical when talking with other people online. It's probably a good idea in almost every discussion.

But this room also allows us to be marvelously direct. The questions that everyone is thinking but don't get asked in a press conference can be addressed.

That's why I back the right to be negative so heavily. Even if it means that we have totally rude, toxic threads that no one likes, I'd rather have that if it means we get to keep our online rooms open. (Partially because we're going to have those toxic threads anyway.)

Everyone's an equal in the comment section, even if that means we're all equally poisoned.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#318

Post by abalone »

tptacek wrote: post #274
abalone wrote: post #236

Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity? Seriously, it's a slippery slope. "Nothing of substance" is a term that needs more clarification that what that post provides. It seems to suggest that if the criticism is too harsh, then it's no longer substantial. I think there's a better guideline than that. The best ideas not only can withstand criticism, they get better with criticism. If you examine what's…

The post you're responding to is at pains to explain that the new guideline isn't "no negativity", which seems to moot your concern pretty much completely.

Not at all. You've highlighted the problem with your phrase "isn't no negativity". It's a poorly defined slippery slope of a criterion. Where is the line drawn?

Banning personal attacks, but allowing unlimited criticism of ideas, is more of an objective guideline.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#319

Post by pavlov »

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.

I would like downvoting to require an explanation. It could be a single-line text box with the label "Explain why".

If you're serious about downvoting, it's no trouble to type in a short explanation such as "incorrect", "not funny", "obvious troll", "unnecessarily rude". (Those seem to be some typical reasons for downvotes.)

And if you're not quite sure why you're downvoting, having to explain would certainly serve as a determent.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#320

Post by panic »

Kalium wrote: post #306
panic wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a good rule is: the smaller the pedantic, nitpicky detail you address in your feedback, the more you should include other details as well. Instead of "this is wrong because detail X" say something like "this handles detail Y well and I think detail Z is clever, but detail X is wrong".

I think your ideas are good and your intentions are laudible, but I question what purpose is served in asking people to wade through excessive verbiage in order to arrive at what could otherwise be concise and direct criticism.

The idea is to give the reader a more complete picture. Often we skip over what we think is good about something and focus on the problems. I'm not saying you should come up with feel-good bullshit to make something fundamentally flawed seem like a good idea. I'm just saying that, when something is "mostly good but with one problem" we can learn just as much from why it's "mostly good" as we can from what the problem is.
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