New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity • Hacker News Board

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#401

Post by freehunter » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:00 AM UTC

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.

That, and the inability to change a vote. There are many times I've hit the down arrow when I meant to hit the up arrow. After just one downvote, the comment starts to turn grey, which leads to more downvotes.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#402

Post by acheron » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:01 AM UTC

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…

Off topic, but the idea that the HN "groupthink" is libertarian seems ridiculous to me... Other than the NSA stuff which is superficially libertarian, I don't see it at all.

The prevailing attitude here is sort of vague lefty-"liberal", basically what you'd expect from, well, a bunch of college students and recent graduates who don't take politics too seriously and live in places like SF and NYC.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#403

Post by blazespin » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:04 AM UTC

I think this is an effective idea for building community, but it is not rational or scientific if carried to far. An important principal in science is falsification. Actively attacking an idea provides a critically important perspective and those who avoid that perspective are doomed to failure.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#404

Post by dang » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

throwawaymaroon wrote: post #317

Squarel wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 aski…

The flaw in your argument is its assumption that the community would remain intact under such poisoning.

When the threads degenerate, smart people leave. When smart people leave, the threads get less substantive. That vicious cycle leads to the death of the community, not the vital online place where people are free to speak their minds which you're positing.

HN started as [1] and remains an experiment in seeing whether an internet forum can avoid that dynamic. It's more fragile than your comment implies.

I do think we can have the benefits you're talking about, such as people bringing up the questions they're really thinking, as long as the bulk of the community will consciously practice the values of the site. Those values are substantiveness and civility, and there's nothing in the good parts of what you're talking about that contradict them. Unleashing the online id, though, is another matter.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#405

Post by corysama » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #371

tptacek wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited criticism of ideas is fine as long as it's substantive. Critical comments must contribute something to the discussion. A reader unfamiliar with the topic of the discussion should be expect to learn something from critical comments, more than "a commenter named $foo doesn't like this thing".

Perhaps what abalone is referring to is anything seemingly positive that doesn't add any value to the discussion should also be pointed out. In other words, gratuitous comments in general, positive or negative, should not be supported. For example, we see lots of "XYZ just raised $10mil" on here and the comment section is littered with "Congrats Jim!". Should we not be downvoting those too so we keep the consistency…

> the comment section is littered with "Congrats Jim!". Should we not be downvoting those too

That is a good example of an edge case. It's already pretty accepted that "Nice article!" comments should be downvoted as noise. "Congrats Jim!" is pretty much noise as well. The difference is that "Nice article!" can be a very, very common occurrence if it's not moderated because it can occur in pretty much any post. Whereas, "Congrats Jim!" is at least celebrating something rare and very much worth congratulating in the specifically entrepreneurial focus of HN. Also, maybe you see "Congrats!" comments more than I do. But, my impression is that they are at least 10x less common than "Nice!" comments that are already widely downvoted.

There's a fine line between moderating noise and being the "HN Fun Police". There's room for fun and occasional silliness in HN. What I'd prefer there not be room for is the permeating noise of snacky/snarky "cleverness" that constantly drowns discussion in Reddit.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#406

Post by johnhenry » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

"How are we going to enforce this? By asking the community to do so. Gentle reminders by peers are the best way we know to make the culture better." I like this approach because this, itself, is a gentle reminder to the community. Perhaps the best way is to avoid active censorship and encourage us to reflect upon ourselves. However; I do fear that this will, at least on some threads, lead to a passive aggressive string of comments that's no more helpful than what we are trying to avoid in the first place.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#407

Post by lancewiggs » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:07 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #277

ZenoArrow wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Soon there will be!

That's a wonderful change to consider, thank-you.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#408

Post by Gatsky » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:07 AM UTC

The guideline has some vaguely politically correct overtones, which seems to be putting people off a little, but I think this is unwarranted.

Good comments seem to me to have the same characteristics - insight, good will, lessons from experience, novelty, thoughtfulness. Strongly held, polarising and poorly explained opinions aren't one of those characteristics.

I myself have written comments which start with a negative comment, and then through fleshing it out arrive at a more moderate position at the end... at which point I go back and change the first sentence. Don't just write the first sentence...

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#409

Post by comex » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:08 AM UTC

angersock wrote: post #167

dang wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I try to interpret comments in the best possible light? Because doing so contributes to the community and not doing so harms it. When you respond to the strongest interpretation of a comment, you're responding to what's most substantive in it. That raises the signal/noise ratio for everybody, and curiosity is what we're trying to optimize for.

There is a different between the "strongest" interpretation of a comment and the "best possible light". For example, if somebody tells me "Angersock, you can go happily fuck yourself", I'm not going to expect them to be wishing me a rousing and cheerful round of masturbation--that is the "best possible light", but not the "strongest interpretation". Properly handled, assuming the worst of a comment, articulating the…

I can't help but suggest that your pretty nitpicky distinction between "interpret[ing] in the best possible light" and "rebutting the argument you think is being made" is, perhaps, not interpreting the argument for the guideline in the best possible light.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#410

Post by im2w1l » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 12:13 AM UTC

mwilkison wrote: post #52

I really like Recurse Center's (formerly Hacker School) social rules: https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-rules They address some non-obvious behaviors that tend to stunt conversation. It'd be nice to see some of those guidelines bleed over into the HN community.

I like the rule "no feigning surprise". "No well-actually's" and "No back-seat driving" to me seem designed to help the linear flow of IRL interaction. But in a threaded discussion forum like HN, the important main thread can still go on unimpeded despite "no well-actually" side-notes.

The "no-subtleisms" rule is designed to hinder the spread of information about the differences of different groups. "It's so easy my grandmother could do it" is supposedly bad because it reminds us that there is a group, old people, who are not like us. Focusing on differences can create a hostile us-vs-them climate. But it can also remind us that there is a world outside of SV. That there are other people with other abilities and skills, with other problems that need solving. In this particular case it can remind us that if we want to target old people with a product, to make sure it is easy to use.