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

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#441

Post by brazzledazzle » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:15 AM UTC

mreiland wrote: post #286

oelmekki wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Well, if a comment/post doesn't deserve your respect, why do you take time to reply to it to begin with? I always oppose to non tech savvy people saying "there are horrible things on the internet" that those are sorted out by themselves : what is bad is ignor…

I didn't say comment or post I said people. See, this is why people get dismissed, because they do things like quote me and then attack something I never said.

So you write off people, but not what they say? Since this comment was made in the context of HN, I assume your avenue for determining if you're going to write them off is their posts and comments.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#442

Post by pekk » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:16 AM UTC

krebby wrote: post #163

switch007 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. This reminiscent of a manager that wants to make a mark by creating arbitrary, vague rules out of the blue. This a community. Was there a "we think we may have a gratuitous negativity problem" discussion? Thin end of the wedge, perhaps. I hope not. (From the article) "Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb." If negative, a…

> If negative, anonymous feedback here disuades and disenchants them, what hope is there? Absolutely. See Dropbox's Show HN, the slashdot iPod announcement, and every other worthwhile product ever. As a community we're pretty bad at picking successes.

People are also erroneously overrating things all the time. The problem with our predictions isn't a skew to negativity, just the normal inability to predict the future due to lack of knowledge.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#443

Post by beefsack » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:17 AM UTC

I hope this doesn't affect the unique pragmatism you find around here. I've seen a lot of ego-stroking back-patting around here recently which don't add substance to conversations, should we have a guideline around gratuitous positivity too?

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#444

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:19 AM UTC

castis wrote: post #436

pain wrote: post #382

How does a steel man reflect? How does a steel man reflect about problems? How does a steel man reflect about problem solving? How does a steel man reflect about problem solving if it is broken? How does a steel man reflect about problem solving if it is broken (and hurting to describe (something unsaid (difficult to (just block (list (listen))))? Robo swears robo cares a (alpha proto) race is healthier. Recreating r…

You wouldn't happen to know of a tutorial on how to understand all the things you just said, would you?

[deleted]

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#445

Post by pekk » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:22 AM UTC

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 .

Doesn't that depend on whether Linus is posting gratuitously negative stuff to HN? I don't think it matters to this guideline whether Linus bawls out kernel lieutenants on kernel mailing lists.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#446

Post by paulhauggis » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:24 AM UTC

"New work and new ideas are fragile. Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb. Obviously, we want Hacker News to help startups and people doing new work, not hurt them. Building stuff is hard, and you'll always need a thick skin. But we see no need for Hacker News to make the problem worse."

I see it different way. I think many times, people with terrible startup ideas get led along too far because they haven't been told enough it's not a very good idea. The result can be very harmful: life savings lost, dropping out of college, investors money lost (which could be friends and family).

"The human trait of being unhappy with other people's success is something we’ve all felt and should all try to avoid"

I don't think the negative comments is an example of this. Most of the negative comments I have seen are before a person is successful, not after.

Even so, they are just words. If overly negative comments discourage you from starting a company, maybe you shouldn't be starting a company. You just aren't ready. Negative comments, unless constructive, are meaningless. I just wish more people stopped taking these comments so personally and seriously.

Is this new policy also going to apply to the negative comments I see every day toward opposing political and ideological views?

Many communities have started this policy online, but I have found it's a tool used to silence critics and opposing viewpoints. I just hope this doesn't also happen to the HN community.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#447

Post by jlees » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:24 AM UTC

hyperpallium wrote: post #279

wamatt wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment brings to mind the concept of the the steel man [1][2] . Steelmanning an argument means to go one step further. In addition to selecting the most charitable parts of another person's argument, one seeks to improve on it, by making it the best possible representation of the other persons position. From there, one can offer their own counterpoint, to this improved version. [1] https://themerelyreal.wordpre…

Theatre Sports (competitive collaborative dramatic improvisation) has the concepts of offer , accept , and block . Accepting an offer means to build on it in some way, as a real part of the scene - in the way you mean. A block is when you ignore or undermine the offer , denying it instead of building on it. There's temptation to do so for a cheap laugh. The uncharitable negativity of HN seems similar.

One thing that took me a while to understand as a player - accepting doesn't always mean ignoring conflict. If you offer me something, I accept that your version of reality is true; I don't have to agree with specific parts of it.

For example, if someone starts a scene with "Isn't it lovely to be here in Paris?", I accept that we are in Paris, but I don't have to think it's lovely.

The takeaway from this to non-improv discussions is that I'm more aware of the fact that although I might disagree with the comment someone makes, I accept that the writer has that opinion and that they believe it to be true, and if I want to challenge any part of it then I'm going to have a much better time of it if I start from their version of reality.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#448

Post by Retra » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:28 AM UTC

Crito wrote: post #206

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.

Downvotes not being for disagreement is an absurd redditism. Upvotes are used for agreement, so it is only natural that downvotes are used for disagreement. PG has stated in the past that downvoting things you disagree with is proper usage on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 I don't know if 'dang has changed this policy, but if so I haven't heard about it.

I would think that it would be fairly obvious that trying to assert that down-votes are not for disagreement is extremely futile. It's human nature to react to things they disagree with, and if down-votes don't mean disagree... then what? People aren't allowed to disagree? The only way to disagree is to actually invest significant amounts of your time?

Sounds great in theory. But then a small number of zealots can derail just about every thread with minimal effort. I image it would really degrade a community in a heartbeat. So it's probably a good thing nobody has found a way to enforce such a policy.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#449

Post by oldmanjay » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:29 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #327

mreiland wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, hypocrisy. You don't get to pick and choose who to interpret charitably unless you want to be a hypocrite. But here's the thing. That idea is valid even though your dislike of my post is going to drive you to continue attacking me unnecessarily. and that is why I have a tendency to dismiss people.

"Charitable reading" is not synonymous with "ignore abuse and snark". Edit: oldmanjay - I can't reply yet, so editing here: mreiland is basically arguing that abuse should be let through because of 'charitable reading'. I'm commenting against that concept, not chiding mreiland for being abusive. However, mreiland is definitely being snarky - if you wanted to read this comment as chiding the behaviour in this thread,…

Oh I assumed it would be inferred that I agree that there is snark. I just don't see abuse.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#450

Post by brazzledazzle » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:34 AM UTC

jakejake wrote: post #400

mreiland wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hate being that guy but when I see people that are inexplicably angry I try to understand where they're coming from and that inevitably involves being a creepy internet stalker.

I couldn't find anything that would concretely explain the anger but I did find that they seem to have a consistent chip on their shoulder, to the point where I had to stop reading because the negativity was starting to make me quite angry for the people that have interacted with this person.

The final straw was a post where she/he asked for help with PowerShell and then bit the person's head off because they had the audacity to treat her/him like he/she doesn't have a CS degree when they had absolutely no idea what his/her qualifications are. This is highly speculative but I can only guess it's insecurity strengthened by every negative interaction they have, perhaps cementing this idea that they're a misunderstood genius in a world of idiots. I genuinely feel bad for them.