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

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#451

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

dasil003 wrote: post #397

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".…

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

So true, and the downvotes are a great example of what one should do instead of shitting all over people/opinions/posts/projects/etc. As long as at least one side in every HN argument is willing to speak less and vote more, reasoned discussion can prevail.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#452

Post by vacri » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:38 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #412

vacri wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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,…

Just so you know, if you want to reply to a comment before the reply link shows up, clicking on the description of post time (e.g. '1 hour ago') will enable the reply feature. It's not very intuitive, but it is a reliable workaround.

I'd hit the "5 comments in a few hours" HN limit, but thanks, I hadn't realised that.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#453

Post by jakejake » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:39 AM UTC

brazzledazzle wrote: post #450

jakejake wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am that guy a lot too - I struggle to understand people who are not kind or don't make any sense to me. But as I get older I try a lot harder to simply move away from such people without giving them any real estate in my thoughts. It's easier said than done to be sure.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#454

Post by ryanx435 » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:39 AM UTC

OmarIsmail wrote: post #391

ryanx435 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 chari…

I didn't realize it before, but this new guideline is probably targeting people exactly like myself. likely why I only have 40 some karma after however many years I've been on here.

so I guess I'll go back to lurking, since I'm not a member of the portion of the population that knows how to comment properly. does this make me bitter? yeah. but I'm human and I'm allowed to have emotions, no matter how irrational. is it for the "greater good" of the HN community? apparently everyone seems to think so.

y'all can go fuck yourselves :)

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#455

Post by marincounty » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:42 AM UTC

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.

I would like to put the downvote to rest. The upvote seems like it would be sufficient? The better comments rise to the top. The lesser comments are left at the bottom.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#456

Post by jsweojtj » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:44 AM UTC

No. No no no no no no no.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#457

Post by Animats » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:51 AM UTC

The musical version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp-IvX8VM8

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#458

Post by jessaustin » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:53 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…

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

Sometimes when I've said something perfectly reasonable and then gotten downvoted, I've realized that in fact my statement was unclear and liable to be misunderstood. The downvotes have helped me to write more clearly, and they're more charitable than rude rejoinders.

[I didn't downvote you. Your statements were perfectly reasonable to me.]

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#459

Post by platz » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:59 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #137

baddox wrote: post #19

I suppose adding the guideline can't hurt, because it might at least make people more strongly consider their comments before posting them. Unfortunately, reasonable people can disagree about where the threshold is between appropriate skepticism/criticism and gratuitous negativity. Since "gratuitous" means unjustified or inappropriate, it by definition should be avoided. The trick is figuring out which things are ina…

Your comment is bad and you should feel bad. :) Niceness/meanness is more often than not entirely subjective, relative, and arbitrary. Trying to create an objective definition for a subjective concept is going to end in frustration for a lot of people. Personally, I started frequenting HN mostly because the community was not only smaller, but also more up-front about its opinions. I've come to expect and appreciate a…

I've realized whenever someone uses a smiley face it's when they have their teeth bared and ready to bite, almost without exception

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#460

Post by intellection » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:07 AM UTC

pain wrote: post #74

Trauma-erasure. It is empathy-violating when classified moderators without logs claim emotional authorities to tone police by calling their efforts psychological. Triggering. Why do psychotechnological toolers resist persistent "shrinks for startups?"[1] versus recreating private wars by demanding forward-looking(-locking) statements and then having our data disappear at trauma random. [1] http://twitter.com/mikellso…

Cryptogrammar calls itself ruler and points at everyone who says something else as crypto (minus grammar). Cryptoempathy?

I learned how to use computers from corporations which speak crypto emotions and tie my hands and words to their terms (then call it an original band-aid).

Where are the psychotchnologists? What would empathy do? What would counting do? What would logging do? What would errors do? What would error logging do? What would record-keeping do?