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Be Kind

boz.com

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Re: Be Kind

#241

Post by jorgearturo »

latchkey wrote: post #179
jorgearturo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I'd be less annoyed by a downvote from pg, because I probably deserved it, than a downvote from someone completely random, who I might not care about. I admire PGs work too, but don't you think this criteria would introduce to the community a herd-like mindset of following perceived moral leaders instead of evaluating ideas for their own standing?

Sorry, I don't understand the relationship you're trying to make between votes and mindset. If someone important likes what I said, I'm going to think that I made a good comment. If they dislike it, then I'm going to reconsider what I said a bit more deeply. Neither of these would change my mindset from a simple up/down vote. I'd want a comment or discussion to take place first.

I find many things troubling in your statement, I'll explain myself as constructively as possible without sacrificing pragmatism (I hope all the following doesn't come as condescending, I'm just trying to help here).

1st of all. This is not facebook. Upvotes and downvotes are not likes/dislikes.

That said, here's another way to explain what I meant: Commenting is not about pleasing readers (is also not about displeasing, so be kind, like the post recommends). If "someone important" likes or dislikes what you said, should not have such an impact that would make you consider changing your mind, your mind should be changed by feedback in the form of comprehensive information, that kind of feedback is much more meaningful than someone else's emotion (or even disagreement by itself without feedback provided).

There can be many reason/motives to upvote/downvote, but emotion is not reason, acting on emotion alone is just compulsive.

I don't think PG would ever downvote you if he dislikes what you said, I'd like to think he's more sophisticated than that; he would either have an interest (motive) on muting the info you introduce to the conversation (but that's sketchy), or even better he would provide feedback (reason) on why he disagrees with you. (But I have absolutely no idea on how would PG make decisions, I'm just being rhetorical here and using PG as an example of "someone important")

So my point is:

You should not make comments expecting PGs approval (or any other figure you consider "someone important", which is what I stated as a "perceived moral leader"), because that's the very definition of a "herd-like mindset of following perceived moral leaders", if HN introduces tools that allow that mindset, the community's value will suffer. Being inspired by leaders is cool, but allowing them to make your mind just by liking or disliking what you said is very dangerous (and immature).

You should participate in a conversation with confidence, and to obtain confidence you need to be well informed and prepared to test your ideas.

EDIT: Rephrased a few things, but didn't change substance I hope.

Re: Be Kind

#242

Post by mhink »

salgernon wrote: post #78
baby wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why smileys were born. But some people tend to be elitist and frown upon them. :)

The effectiveness of emoticons has been greatly diminished by interfaces that rewrite them as emoji. While I can cope with someone adding an accent to their writing with an emoitcon, when it turns into an emoji I completely discount the writing. Something about the yellow pacman face in various poses ruins a conversation for me. Oh, and it blows to copy-and-paste code into one of those blasted chat programs... hatefu…

Totally agree, if I'm using a smiley and not an actual emoji.

It's really weird, but in Hipchat, it always throws me off a little bit when I include an emoticon, but the resulting graphic conveys a slightly different connotation than I was expecting.

Re: Be Kind

#243

Post by cookiecaper »

fsk wrote: post #216
cookiecaper wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. We should be under no illusion -- employment is a popularity contest. In non-startups, the only thing that matters is how much the people around you, especially the high-ranking people, like you. Other things matter only in the most extreme circumstances -- every normal value can be hand-waved away if the boss likes you enough. If you want to be a successful employee, view yourself as a politician and run a s…

Why bother learning how to write software? I should have focused on sales if that's the only skill that matters.

There are a lot of successful sales people who'd agree with you. Choosing a non-sales field makes it so you don't have to focus on this as much since much of your work is non-social and you have a good excuse to be in a corner staring at the screen, but the social element is still the most important part of maintaining and improving your employment status. Your social status is much more important than the quality of your actual work product.

Re: Be Kind

#244

Post by 0throwaway0 »

morgante wrote: post #175

This is a fantastic post and hits really close to home. I'm currently going through almost the exact same situation, where I'm effectively being demoted due to my general lack of kindness. It's also important to note that if boz is anything like me, he probably had to be almost fired for the lesson to go through. For most of my life, people have been telling me I need to be kinder (especially my parents), but I've ne…

> I'm effectively being demoted due to my general lack of kindness

I am posting on a throwaway and I'm going to offer some unsolicited advice:

You need to change jobs now.

If you want to do a better job at politicking, you've already poisoned the well at your current company.

Once you've been branded as being unkind and it's stuck, you can't recover from that with the same people.

Sorry if that comes across as unkind, but I feel it's worth pointing out explicitly in case you haven't discovered it on your own yet.

Re: Be Kind

#245

Post by jorgearturo »

mkramlich wrote: post #232
ryandrake wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A subset of your (a) that I see here a lot is when I write a 500 word essay arguing some point, and the first reply comes in and says something to the effect of: "On word 348, you said 'all'. Here's a counter-example that proves that you should have said 'some' instead! I found the word that is wrong in your statement! See? Your entire argument is invalid!" Nit-picking and pedantry is toxic in real life and on messag…

Great nuance and insight! That feels like part of it. When I'm wearing the Software Engineer hat, yes, the entire world can fail if a single nit is imperfect. But when we wear the Human Conversing or Persuading hat I expect and indeed enjoy seeing and using a more fuzzy logic. I expect more buffer and assume-I'm-not-an-idiot-kid-please-get-off-my-lawn-been-there-done-that-have-the-tee-shirt-thanks. Compilers and CPUs…

Unfortunately, I don't think "aha!-you're-not-exactly-right" kind of people are going away anytime soon, they've been around on the net since I first laid mouse on it (the 90s, I'm not that old) and they've conquered the technical forums for a reason. Some people simply have that sort of mindset, one just needs to wear the "deal with it" hat and get over it.

In fact, those people are very useful and most of them have helped me from time to time, so I'm grateful for them.

Side note: >> assume-I'm-not-an-idiot-kid-please-get-off-my-lawn-been-there-done-that-have-the-tee-shirt-thanks

Thank you for that, I'll use it sometime, not sure why or when, but it's so funny I must! :D

Re: Be Kind

#246

Post by hashtree »

pdkl95 wrote: post #226
thisisboz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, this post is about the start of a journey that is still ongoing for me. It still takes work and I still lose focus and do poorly and tried to call that out at the end. To your specific point, I probably was even worse in 2008 than what you experienced in 2010. That's probably true at every point since. I'm getting better, but I am sure you can find people even in the last year who would say this post doesn't ref…

> Being kind is fundamentally about taking responsibility for your impact on the people around you. > the start of a journey that is still ongoing Then you still have a long way to go on that journey, because you apparently have no idea the damage you've done to the world with Facebook. You have help lead people into undermining their own privacy, straight into the hands of a surveillance state. So keep on that journ…

I really hope there is a joke in there I am missing, besides the obvious irony in relation to the article content.

Re: Be Kind

#247

Post by ridgeguy »

fsk wrote: post #216
cookiecaper wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. We should be under no illusion -- employment is a popularity contest. In non-startups, the only thing that matters is how much the people around you, especially the high-ranking people, like you. Other things matter only in the most extreme circumstances -- every normal value can be hand-waved away if the boss likes you enough. If you want to be a successful employee, view yourself as a politician and run a s…

Why bother learning how to write software? I should have focused on sales if that's the only skill that matters.

I'm a lifelong techie, and your remark resonates.

An old and dear friend, who started out as a brilliant civil engineer but moved to marketing where she has spent most of her professional life, would completely ratify your second sentence.

Unfortunately, I find it harder and harder to refute her assertion that in the end, it all comes down to marketing.

Re: Be Kind

#248

Post by ridgeguy »

OT, but I want to thank everyone for their comments. I've found them unusually thoughtful and challenging. Merci.

Re: Be Kind

#249

Post by hellbanTHIS »

Maybe this is a low blow but if there's one place that needs a little less kindness and a lot more truth it's the Facebook News Feed. It's real nice that they only show you news they think you'll like but it seems pretty irresponsible.

If they really want to make the world a better place they should come up with some way of spotting some of the verifiably false news stories that get posted there. They could do it nicely, maybe: "Hey did you know this story may contain many factual errors? Check it out on Snopes.com!" Facebook could even set up their own fact checking service if they wanted to, it would be good PR for them.

And it's important to be nice but you have to be able to say "this sucks" sometimes too. With a guy like this Boz who's doing a good job but has a natural inclination to steamroll people maybe they should have set him up with some sturdier folks and let them fight it out instead of creating an atmosphere where he's afraid of being fired for being direct. That sounds like poor management, IMO.

Re: Be Kind

#250

Post by yllow »

roflc0ptic wrote: post #57
btilly wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Text does not communicate tone" is a huge problem. You can solve that by deciding that certain types of communication should be done face to face. Being kind can be more concise. Here is an example that my fiance recently pointed out... I think the single biggest mistake people make in communication is reminding the other person they are incorrect when that does not change the content. "As I told you Monday, the rea…

Based off of my vague memory, in "How To Win Friends and Influence People", one main point is not to contradict people. In text or in person, never tell someone they're wrong. In general, when I want to correct someone's understanding I frame it as a failure of my own understanding. Like, hey, I'm the asshole here, would you do me a favor by going over this one more time for me? This is great because it allows the ot…

The fundamental key for a communication is respect, if this breaks, nothing else would ever work to maintain a relationship.
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