what a stupid idea
New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
521–530 of 673 posts
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#522Getting downvoted on this board can sometimes be a mark of distinction. And anybody who complains about golang not having generics is a wimpy whiner, IMO. And as has been said before on this board, Hail Satan.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is right though, I also think your post was a perfect example of gratious negativity. However as this shows, it needs exceptional people with a high level of self reflection and lots of practice at discussions to even realize what is and isnt gratious negativity. For that reason I dont think this new rule will have any effect on this site because there are simply not enough people to vote according to this new rul…
I know it's just a minor mistake, but you have no idea how amusing it is to see a highly pedantic person try to insult me WRT to my ability to communicate correctly, while referring to my negativity as "gratious[1]." As far as the rest of your post goes, communication isn't just a series of code comments for everyone in this world. If every post were subjected to some Critical Thinking 101 interpretation of logic, we…
I think every discussion is a series of code and whether you want to "write clean code" with other people or not shows the value you have for other people. You call it pedantic in the same way that a disorganized person calls an organised person pedantic for making that extra effort.
Ask yourself why I should spend my time reading your comments when you yourself have admitted that you dont think every post you write should be subjected to critical thinking 101. Why should anyone? Unless you think our time is not valuable.
I am this direct with you because you seem to want to be effective, but I believe you are not.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Perhaps you started writing your reply before I amended my post to add "without a single reply to indicate exactly what anyone's problem with such a post could possibly be". It is not generally the practice to comment to explain downvotes, and, IMO -- especially given the absence of collapsed threads on HN, but even if it were present -- it would defeat the point of downvoting and decrease the signal-to-noise ratio…
Well, since you've staked out your reply in direct and total point-by-point opposition to my own, bizarro-world style, there isn't much room for discussion. I will address one thing: > It is not generally the practice to comment to explain downvotes, and, IMO -- especially given the absence of collapsed threads on HN, but even if it were present -- it would defeat the point of downvoting and decrease the signal-to-no…
I disagree, explanation is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of downvoting. I suppose it would make sense if the explanations were hidden and only made visible to the poster whose comment was downvoted, or by activelt interacting with the downvoted post. Otherwise, its polluting discussion of the topic with meta-discussion, compounding further the problem posed by posts that are downvoted.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is right though, I also think your post was a perfect example of gratious negativity. However as this shows, it needs exceptional people with a high level of self reflection and lots of practice at discussions to even realize what is and isnt gratious negativity. For that reason I dont think this new rule will have any effect on this site because there are simply not enough people to vote according to this new rul…
I know it's just a minor mistake, but you have no idea how amusing it is to see a highly pedantic person try to insult me WRT to my ability to communicate correctly, while referring to my negativity as "gratious[1]." As far as the rest of your post goes, communication isn't just a series of code comments for everyone in this world. If every post were subjected to some Critical Thinking 101 interpretation of logic, we…
I know that's what you think. At some point, you picked up a very linear path in life, and you think any deviation from that line constitutes some form of imperfection. It's why you're probably great at coding or math, but suffer in some other areas of life.
Why should you listen to someone who doesn't write like a robot? For one, it is boring to listen to people who communicate that way. Read some Gaddis or Pynchon. Read XKCD. Listen to music from all eras and cultures. Hell, listen to a joke, or watch a stupid cat video, or go skiing, or fuck a pretty girl, or a guy, or try some peyote. Life is filled with sensory perceptions that are worthwhile outside of the context of accumulation of knowledge or money or whatever you're optimizing for.
I choose to speak the way I do because I would rather risk alienating people like you by being myself than to allow the world to mold me based on some ill-informed[1] perception of what I think the other people in this world are like.
[1] Which, I guarantee, you and me and everyone we know are ill-informed on this topic.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#526I 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, I see so many comments downvoted to oblivion simply because the comment betrays a lack of rockstar ninja coding ability even without being egregiously wrong. Downvoting should be reserved for trolling, bullshit, and objectively wrong information.
Ironically this comment has been downvoted a few times. Point made.
EDIT: try giving a reason for downvoting. Apparently opposition to downvoting is not a popular opinion.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#527Rah Rah Rah! If your startup is not winning, just pivot, and be positive enough, and you will inevitably win. Selection bias doesn't exist and was made up by negative Nancys. Seriously though, stick a fork in HN. It's over. Enjoy the echo chamber that this place will inevitably become.
If you've been following HN for 4+ years then you will have noticed that, in some ways, HN is already an echo chamber.
The same regular startupy stories with different titles crop up as each new batch of folks discover HN. I'm talking about things like...
- How I increased my conversion funnel by x%
- What I learnt from my 3 failed startups
- [Entreporn Startup] Raises 50m
- How I earned $500k as an indie games developer
- Etc.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#528> Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing of value to the community.
That's a comparison of apples and oranges. Critical thinking is something you do, i.e. an action. Cynicism is an attribute of a person.
This essentially tells that a cynic, i.e. the person as a whole, should not contribute in the case he/she is shallow. Whatever 'shallow' means in the context of a point of view developed from years of experience.
So even if such a 'shallow cynic' is critically thinking he/she is excluded as per that statement.
I'd rephrase that statement using a word like sarcasm (that is actually an action and not a statement about a person) since the guidelines should not criticize persons but their actions, which is – by the way – the right way to phrase negative feedback.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does your opinion about Recurse's financial aid program have to do with whether their community guidelines are good? Either the isms rule is good or it isn't; its validity does not depend on you agreeing with the rest of their actions.
Their behavior (in having a racist and sexist policy) serves to subtly redefine their community guidelines. This type of hypocrisy leads to redefining of rules the same way the Seven Commandments in Animal Farm evolved. This post[0] from the Advocate has a great line that is relevant here. The current dialogue around diversity "...propagates something harmful: the idea that gender is simply the lack of maleness, race…
Looks like I was wrong in my other post[0] in this thread about people using downvotes to moderate posts they merely disagree with. Apparently those interested in intersectionality, refuse to consider the possibility that discrimination against white cisgender males and asian cisgender men is a thing.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not anti-diversity. I'm actually a huge proponent of diversity. I just believe that hypocrisy and reserve discrimination is the wrong way to get there. And I believe that there are many more dimensions in which someone can contribute to the diversity of a group besides gender, race and sexual identity. Cognitive and cultural diversity for example are examples of two other vectors in which someone can contribute to diversity. What happened to MLK's dream of focusing on content of character instead of color of a person's skin? At the end of the day characteristics of like gender, race and identity are merely a few of the many factors that contribute to the sum total of experiences that makes someone who they are and who they will be become. The are just superficial proxies for the type of diversity we should be seeking out and celebrating and that's diversity of content of character.
What kind of message are we sending our kids when things like this can happen:
Last year, his school offered a robotics class for girls
only. When my son asked why he couldn't join, it was
explained to him that girls need special help to become
interested in technology, and that if there are boys
around, the girls will be too scared to try.
My son came home very confused. You see, he grew up with a
mom who coded while she breastfed and brought him to his
first LUG meeting at age seven weeks. The first time he
saw a home-built robot, it was shown to him by a local
hackerspace member, a woman who happens to administer one
of the country's biggest supercomputers. Why was his
school acting like girls were dumb?
Thanks so much, modern-day "feminism", for putting very
unfeminist ideas in my son's head. [2]
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#530It is with great joy and positive vibrations that I receive this real world implementation of a few worthy ideas from the amazing Psycho-Pass[1] anime series. Cynicism is not conducive to peaceful productivity and it should be gracefully eliminated. Preferably by silencing gratuitously negative voices, for the common good of the cheerfully desperate community of Silicon Valley and by extension - the world. [1]: http:…
Psycho-Pass-Words!i
(I missed your social-emotional commentary because, well, hacker news lacks and blocks access and permission to basic data open filters needs sadly.)