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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

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Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#391

Post by OmarIsmail »

ryanx435 wrote: post #345
OmarIsmail wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was struggling to define exactly what is meant by "gratuitous negativity", so thank you for giving what I think is a perfect example. It'd be great if you could answer the following questions about your comment to I think really get to the heart of the matter: What were you trying to accomplish with your comment? In what way does your comment move the conversation forward? What are possible useful responses to your…

Interesting that you perceive this as "gratuitous negativity" as that was not my intention. answers to your questions: 1) pointing out that you shouldn't always believe those in positions of power, especially when they are attempting to control the narrative. you may not know this, but dang works for HN and his job is literally to censor comments and articles to ensure they follow the guidelines. 2) by reminding ever…

I have two choices in how to take this most recent reply. I can be the cynic and "think critically" and think you're just trying to come up with justifications for your snide remark after the fact. OR I can be charitable and believe that you're being honest, and really were trying to not be negative/overly cynical and instead acting as a reminder.

What you'll notice is that in your original comment you were not charitable to dang. He made a very clear statement that this change was not a reply to a specific comment. And your reply to that is effectively "you're not trustworthy". You are reinforcing this last point in your most recent reply by reiterating that dang's "job is to censor comments ...". Inferring that someone is untrustworthy is the opposite of being charitable, and falls squarely into "negative" territory.

You may feel that "calling someone out" and thus reminding people to "think critically" justifies the negativity of calling someone untrustworthy, but it doesn't. If you can't demonstrate how dang has shown himself to be untrustworthy, then all you're doing is slinging mud. If you know of an incident where he's been untrustworthy, then the constructive thing would be to say "Unfortunately I don't really believe you dang because you've proven yourself to be untrustworthy [here, here and here]."

And if your base reason for adding the comment is to remind people to "think critically" how patronizing is that to everyone that reads that? Why are you making the assumption that we're not thinking critically? Why do you feel it's your role to make sure that us readers are thinking critically?

Do you see the inherent arrogance in your comment, and thus how that adds to its negativity?

I think a corollary to the "don't be gratuitously negative" guideline, is "don't write as if you know better than everybody else"

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#392

Post by dataker »

While I understand the reasons behind the article, I don't think it's a real issue on HN. If someone uses gratuitous negativity, other users generally will comment and refute the fallacious claim. As logic and respect are usually kept, users will rarely feel terrible like other communities and forums.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#393

Post by andrewstuart »

Gatsky wrote: post #390
andrewstuart wrote: post #122

It's "the programmers way" to try to come up with some sort of moderation/policing system to solve this. Please do not come up with a moderation system. There should simply be a confirmation step after hitting submit, reminding the poster that they are valued for their positive contribution and giving the poster the chance to rethink their post and cancel if its too negative. Additionally when posting, require people…

Thanks for this, it's a good idea getting people to rate how negative their comments are... it would certainly be an interesting exercise, although it may just show that those who leave negative comments don't think they are being negative, whereas the people that can be bothered rating the negativity of others are probably more sensitive to negativity.

Self-rating the negativity of your comment is designed to force you to acknowledge that HN wants you to think and be reasonable.

The OP's blog post suggests that "Gentle reminders by peers" will make the culture better. I think these gentle reminders by peers in practice will whip everyone into a frenzy of hunting for negativity, naming negativity, blaming for negativity, being defensive about negativity, judging and feeling judged, anger, outrage and despair with constant accusations and counter accusations about the definition of negativity.

Some negativity is normal and natural and okay. HN wants less of it, so they should just ask people to make their own self assessment of their post at the moment of posting. Problem mostly solved, but it's pointless to try to completely solve it - the concept of negativity is open to interpretation and therefore everyone will have a different opinion.

I think plenty of people will tone it back after being forced to judge their own negativity.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#395

Post by dragonwriter »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #36
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 agree about the downvoting. The harm it's doing has increased in recent months, and it's common to see perfectly reasonable satements of fact (much less opinions) that someone else doesn't like be downvoted. It's discouraging to see when it's not even your comment, and really offputting when it is. It's gotten to a point that I'm not sure downvoting is a net positive for the community any more. EDIT- example, this…

> and it's common to see perfectly reasonable satements of fact (much less opinions) that someone else doesn't like be downvoted.

I don't see why "reasonable statements of fact" being downvoted to be a problem. Something can be a reasonable statement of fact without contributing substantially the discussion. That's a perfectly good reason to dislike it being presented in the context, and a perfectly good reason to downvote it.

pg may have said it is acceptable to use downvotes for disagreement, but that doesn't mean that downvote implies disagreement. Being a fact doesn't, on its own, make something a productive addition to the discussion.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#396

Post by cgaebel »

dragonwriter wrote: post #383
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…

> Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity? We could, but I don't see any evidence that there is an amount of that going around that requires an addition to the guidelines.

You must not live in San Francisco.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#397

Post by dasil003 »

mreiland wrote: post #316
dasil003 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".…

LOL. You're being downvoted because you're not even engaging with my argument, tone is the least of your problems here.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#398

Post by dragonwriter »

ianstallings wrote: post #394

Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person and wouldn't be allowed to post here for very long before he was hell banned. Maybe the issue isn't so much negativity as it is sensitivity .

> Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person

HN guidelines do not address whether a person is good or bad (or "terrible").

> and wouldn't be allowed to post here for very long before he was hell banned.

You assume that Torvalds, if he choose to participate in HN, would apply the same mode of interaction he applies in different contexts with different expectations.

While, certainly, there are people who are unable to adjust their mode of interaction based on what is appropriate in different contexts, I don't see that it is clear that Torvalds is among them.

> Maybe the issue isn't so much negativity as it is sensitivity.

Or maybe the issue is that what lots of people want out of HN isn't the same kind of environment in which the actions of Torvalds to which you are obliquely referring occur.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#399

Post by dragonwriter »

cgaebel wrote: post #396
dragonwriter wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity? We could, but I don't see any evidence that there is an amount of that going around that requires an addition to the guidelines.

You must not live in San Francisco.

> You must not live in San Francisco.

No, but I'm rather familiar with it. In any case, I don't see how that's relevant; the context of the discussion is HN guidelines, not guidelines for San Francisco.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#400

Post by jakejake »

mreiland wrote: post #316
dasil003 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".…

You're being down voted because your posts are mean-spirited and not adding any value. You've made your opinion clear that you don't give a shit and the people have spoken with their down votes. Your posts are quite literally the definition of what HN said they do not want here. You suggested that this might no longer be the forum for you - perhaps that is something to consider further.
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