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

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#591

Post by andrea_sdl » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 1:54 PM UTC

jlees wrote: post #447

hyperpallium wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-impro…

I hope the order in which these comments lead to yours will stay this way in the future. for reference: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xh6gdqlm8jargi4/Screenshot%202015-...

Why? They perfectly highlight what's the "good common-sense reply" is like, how we should measure with each other opinions and how to handle disagreements.

HN might as well included the conversation as an example.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#592

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:00 PM 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've noticed a big improvement since dang took off the invisibility cloak. All the famous attempts at replacing HN tried to solve community problems technologically (like public referral trees and user-based discussions), but they all fall short of just having a visible and active moderator.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#593

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:07 PM UTC

fenomas wrote: post #560

washadjeffmad wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this isn't like reddit where the most upvoted comments are elevated in otherwise collapsed threads. I've only read some of the most insightful and interesting comments and discussions on HN buried most of the way down the page because they were available for me to see despite their lack of being voted on. On HN, popularity isn't valuable, the ideas are, and non-precollapsed threads support that.

I'd argue that the main point of collapsible (not pre-collapsed) threads is to support what you're saying. When a comment spawns several pages of discussion on a topic you're not interested it, collapsing it would let you go directly to the next comment you are interested in, surely? Right now, for me at least I often just scroll down to the next top-level comment because it's a bother to find the end of a comment tr…

I use Reddit Enhancement Suite to collapse all child comments by default, then open interesting top-level comments in a new tab to read the full discussion. I probably miss a lot of good discussion on HN because it doesn't support something similar.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#594

Post by protomyth » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:11 PM 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.

"the looks of HN have helped protect the community against trolls."

Trolls just use the add-ons. Trolls will put in effort that normal users would not. A lot of online communities design based on the idea that trolls are lazy, and I think that has not served us well.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#595

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:14 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #152

ohnomrbill wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I try to interpret comments in the best possible light? I could make an effort to interpret them in the worst possible light, too. I have no reason to believe that internet commenters mean well.

Because HN has an international audience where English is often a second language; also cultural expectations can be markedly different to the US.

Even within the US.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#596

Post by danenania » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #496

tptacek wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unwarranted positivity simply isn't as harmful as unwarranted negativity. There's basic psychology behind that, for instance, loss aversion.

I think our industry has seen more money lost, late nights spent, and souls damaged to "Unwarranted positivity" then any other cause.

"Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes.

The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#597

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #586

sjy wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of further derailing the thread, I wonder if there might be a more inclusive term than 'steel man' — I don't feel great about using that phrase to describe 'the best possible representation of a position.' (The issue is fresh in my mind, since I stumbled across the gender-neutral alternative 'straw person'[1] this morning.) [1] http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2013/18.html , para 21.

I was attacked for being "PC" the last time I used straw person here on HN. I just thought it sounded better, but the poster was adamant that I was responsible for all the ills in society. Hopefully, this new guideline will avert similar incidents.

Considering how toxic PC people are to debates (ironically exactly because the gratuitus negativity they bring) that is more than a defence mechanism that any healthy community needs to develop to protect itself.

Political correctness should be considered the same as writing a negative comment.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#598

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:28 PM UTC

sjy wrote: post #547

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…

At the risk of further derailing the thread, I wonder if there might be a more inclusive term than 'steel man' — I don't feel great about using that phrase to describe 'the best possible representation of a position.' (The issue is fresh in my mind, since I stumbled across the gender-neutral alternative 'straw person'[1] this morning.) [1] http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2013/18.html , para 21.

What benefit would that bring? Sure we will be more inclusive to the people who don't understand that steelmanning comes from the (opposite) strawmanning, which comes from strawmen, which have been called so for centuries.

Is a person who gets offended by that really the kind of person you want on HN?

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#599

Post by danbmil99 » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

Good luck with that

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#600

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Apr 04, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #597

mkr-hn wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was attacked for being "PC" the last time I used straw person here on HN. I just thought it sounded better, but the poster was adamant that I was responsible for all the ills in society. Hopefully, this new guideline will avert similar incidents.

Considering how toxic PC people are to debates (ironically exactly because the gratuitus negativity they bring) that is more than a defence mechanism that any healthy community needs to develop to protect itself. Political correctness should be considered the same as writing a negative comment.

You might get fewer downvotes if you define "PC" and offer some examples so we understand your perspective. Most people who rail against "being PC" are walking pits of gratuitous negativity, so people are probably assuming you're one of them.