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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

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Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#331

Post by ZenoArrow »

mreiland wrote: post #304
ZenoArrow wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than getting yourself wound up with faulty thinking over something that's clearly wrong, is it not just better to show them the facts? It's quicker than arguing too.

Do you seriously think someone who dismisses people so quickly gets wound up about it? The entire point of dismissing them is to avoid wasting time on them, what in the world gives you the impression I'm getting emotional about it? To answer your question, I'm 36 years old. I've been online for a quite a while. It took me a lot of years but I did eventually learn the lesson. On the internet people are never wrong and…

The "live and let live" approach you're describing works, I agree that it's a necessary part of being online, arguing with everyone you disagreed with would be tiring.

Couple of points...

1. You said before that you have had conversations with people about whether MRI had a GIL. In hindsight, do you agree it would've been preferable to link to a recent article about that GIL and then leave if it was wasn't sinking in?

2. I know I've made mistakes in the past. If I make a mistake in something I've said, does that exclude me from being able to learn from it? How will you know who is capable of learning without exploring their reasoning?

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#332

Post by burger_moon »

smacktoward wrote: post #195
dman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the topic is also important. Was the topic about a positive apple article, or a positive android or windows topic? You are more likely to draw a crowd that relates to the title's indicated company. Having a negative view point about windows is sure to get a better response in a topic that is praising an apple product.

I'm making assumptions here on anecdotes of course.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#333

Post by lackbeard »

"Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb."

This is melodrama. Ignoring the negativity in comments on an internet message board has got to rank as one of the smallest possible challenges a startup can face.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#334

Post by dang »

nikcub wrote: post #117

being a cynic with startups and new tech is an easy way to appear wise and correct since ~90% fail, so it is no surprise many take it up as a position as you can appear a genius while offering no actual insight, base it on little actual understanding and it doesn't require much thought.

It's such an important point, and I think it applies to new ideas and projects as well as it does to startups. You can maintain a high correctness percentage simply by negating everything, but this is guaranteed to destroy expected value.

One psychological aspect of this is the need to feel that one is right. Smart technical people can become addicted to this, but it's the wrong thing to optimize for if you care about curiosity, which it kills.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#335

Post by dman »

brudgers wrote: post #298
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.

There are threads where expressing a well formed, well reasoned, well supported but contrary opinion runs the risk of downvotes to greyness. The root of the problem is inevitably that the topic of the thread is a poor fit for HN at that particular point in time [and perhaps always]. A symptom of the problem is that such threads tempt so many people to express their opinion for the sake of expressing it. I get lured i…

What about topics that are important and relevant to HN but invoke a polarised opinion on HN?

My concerns can be summarized into a single question - If HN had existed historically with the rules as they exist currently, would Georg Cantor have thrived in it?

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#336

Post by dragonwriter »

cpncrunch wrote: post #138
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…

A related issue is people downvoting comments that they haven't properly comprehended. Instead of asking "why do you think x" or "do you mean x" they just downvote the comment. Sometimes it happens with controversial comments, even when the controversial comment is based on facts. Sometimes going against HN groupthink (e.g. saying something bad about libertarianism) results in downvotes. EDIT: I'm surprised that I go…

> EDIT: I'm surprised that I got a downvote on this comment. I think that illustrates the problem.

I think it illustrates the problem with "sometimes UI elements get clicked without intent" and "HN has no way to undo up/downvotes".

In fact, I can say that with authority, since I was the one who made the accidental click.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#337

Post by vacri »

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.

The site in general is good, but the user moderation system is utterly awful. A 'disagree' mod double-functions as a censor, and there's no need because there's also a separate flagging system. My profile page has a bit of a rant about the shortcomings of the mod system here with more detail.

The autodetection algorithms probably need tweaking as well - from time to time I see users with polite comment histories mysteriously getting shadowbanned. Sometimes another user will look into it and post a comment to that effect, but without a user-to-user messaging system or a method to reply to dead comments, there's no guarantee that a shadowbanned user will see a friendly message.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#338

Post by throwawaymaroon »

Karunamon wrote: post #197
throwawaymaroon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

We are actually very close to agreement here. I agree, it is an accusatory question.

Do you see how you've reduced the relevance of Sam's motivations to whether or not discussion of them is well grounded?

I'm simply saying that it is anyone's right to argue that a criticism is grounded, just as it's anyone's right to contest that criticism.

So it's fair for you to say "I don't think Sam's motivations are relevant" and then go on to engage discussion of what we all think Sam's motivations are and how that does or doesn't inform his actions. (Supposing, of course, that I had made a more thorough argument instead of alluding to a hypothetical starting point for one.)

But it's not fair to take this guideline and say "This is unacceptable because it is criticism," which is what jseliger did.

It is not the inflammatory nature of a comment that makes it acceptable or unacceptable. You're trying to set up a filter on what's acceptable that is affected by what you personally believe.

And when anyone in a position of power tries to set rules on discourse, we have every right to examine what that does to the shape of discourse.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#339

Post by dang »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #82
briandear wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a general news forum. The history of this board is not one of general news but items of specific interest and relevance to startups.

You may be describing what the board /should/ be, or what it set out to be, but judging by the threads actually being upvoted by users, you are incorrect. We've seen everything from tech pieces to startup culture threads to general interesting news being upvoted to the main page.

One needn't look far to find out exactly what HN set out to be: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. It's interesting how much of that language was copied into the current guidelines wholesale, and has stayed there.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#340

Post by lackbeard »

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.

Expressing disagreement is an appropriate use of the down vote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171.
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