New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

Even so I'll take the good with the bad, you still get great insights on technology. It just morphs for the worse when YC companies post, or the topic turn to getting into YC.

In fact, from a certain point of view poison is a valuable resource, and needs to be harvested. Good criticism is hard to find. Limiting it to that which is polite towards you is a good way to end up in a filter bubble, especially if there is a one-sidedness in how politeness is determined.

This thread divides commenters into roughly two camps. There's the "Yes, sir! Let's all get along!" camp, and there's the "You can't make people get along, why are you trying?" camp. And I suppose it might be a good idea to stoke the enthusiasm of the first camp, so maybe I'm just not the intended audience.

But in that case you're either just stirring the pot, or you're actively driving away those that favor substantive criticism when it's called for. Maybe those people aren't really listening to the specifics of what Altman is saying, but that just means it's being communicated poorly.

Smart people leave for a multitude of reasons. I've been rate-limited, or maybe you've got this topic rate-limited, or whatever, but you responded to me: doesn't that mean you want to hear my point of view? I mean, maybe I'm not smart, maybe I'm just presumptuous and acerbic.

But either way, you've got policies that increase the poison. I'd have been done with this topic by now, but having had another comment written up already I'm not going to discard it. I'm going to wait, and grow irritated that your system is attempting a patronizing herding tactic to 'tame' discourse. A tactic that isn't working, because the poison always leaks through, and this topic is already poisoned, why are you even bothering to stop me from responding to you?

And I think... it's true. You're just another authority, making sure that points of view you agree with are given preferential treatment. You don't want me here. You don't want dissent. I'm not free to speak my mind here, because you don't like the bitterness I want to share earnestly and substantively.

You're poisonous.

Another group of shunners shunning other shunners. And the poison concentrates: if I can never make this comment, I'll still have the poison from having been treated like this, and it will spill over some other way. Maybe in a meaner way.

Or you'll succeed in driving off everyone that stirs up trouble.

I sympathize with you because internet moderation is an unsolved problem because people are an unsolved problem. It sounds like you have some awareness that the current penalties are too much (when you talk about rescuing flagged or downvoted or hellbanned comments).

But there's a difference between moderating the id and amputating it.

This topic doesn't moderate the id because the cheerful collaborative people you're not worried about are the ones theorizing on how to make conversation better.

It does, however, successfully marginalize people that disagree and honor the process of disagreement. (Which is funny, because we're not even talking about practical policy enforcement, we're just socially reinforcing what was already a general guideline. Nothing changes for this site as a result of this discussion, the discussion is the only end result of the discussion.)

---

Here is some fragment of the comment I had written, in response to your comment here (https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=9318451)

---

Sometimes the other isn't in good faith, or it's necessary that that good faith be constructed or established in a critical environment.

I sympathize with you, because there's something utopian you're striving for, and I mean that as mostly a compliment.

But I don't want to live in your utopia, because living in a community where people never take their negative feelings out on one another is equivalent to a community where no one has negative feelings.

Here's an example: homeopathy. If someone believes in it, then you can give counter statements without calling them an idiot. You can explain that you believe it's without basis through reasoned argument, and you absolutely should show respect for the other person. You don't even have to respect their opinion - heck I have zero respect for homeopathy - but that other person might have reasons for their stance.

At the end of the day, Hacker News works because it allows the free flow of ideas through discussion. HN knows that being wrong and failing are important to innovation because there are so many things that are non-intuitive that you need to give people space to think and act outside the box.

To allow for innovation needs robust discussion where you freely share your wild and unorthodox thoughts in a safe environment. A safe environment is one where you invite criticism and allow others to point out the flaws of your ideas, but you do so in the knowledge that they are doing it out of respect to try to help you improve your theories, plans or projects - not to treat you like a complete idiot not worthy of any respect. On the other side of the coin, you should be able to freely and constructively criticise without fear that you will be penalised by the community and that your criticism is given to help the other party limit their failure, or think of ways of improving their idea by ironing out flaws.

In essence, when you call another person an idiot, or treat them as such, you break the very model that makes HN successful. So with the greatest of respect, if you can't get your point or view across without denigrating the other party, I don't think HN was or ever will be the forum for you.

#Meanreal. #Votereal. #Censereal. #Sensereal. #Centreal. . #Traumareal. #Painreal.