Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HN comments are underrated

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 383 posts

Re: HN comments are underrated

#181

Post by GrinningFool »

jordanpg wrote: post #42

The bellwether of a bad but possibly technically interesting HN comment is one that begins with a humblebrag: "One time a Fortune 500 company hired me to re-write their entire web tier using Django" or "last year, for fun, I wrote a fully-functioning TLS implementation in node". Such nonsense (or at best, unneeded information) is intended to provide credentials so that the reader will take what follows more seriously…

More and more I'm trying to take those at face value - a statement that translates as: "I have opinions on this, but before I give them let me explain why I think I am qualified to do so.

For most, perhaps it's a bit of both. And is that a bad thing? Is there something wrong with asserting your right to wield a technical opinion while also showing off a thing that you're proud of having done?

On the other hand, if I had prefaced that opinion with the following , it would be been a bit over the top:

I've been reading comments for years. Not just on HN, but all over the Internet. In fact, once I spent 60 hours in a week, just reading comments.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#182

Post by wfeui3 »

delluminatus wrote: post #147
wfeui3 wrote: post #71

I lost faith in HN crowd when hyperloop started. California can not even replicate 40 years old TGV, but somehow it will build space-like technology for fraction of price. And than there are politics. Entire world should accept millions of refugees. But SF is different, and should not even host 400 homeless who arrive every year.

It shouldn't be about faith. Every "crowd" has all kinds of people, and even the very smartest people aren't always right. By reading critically (and following up with research if necessary), you can decide what's right and what's wrong. In my experience, H.N. comments have a lot of wrong. But when the content is good, it can be truly great.

"Faith" that HN comments is relevant source of information, sifting through hundreds of post to find one relevant is not worth it.

I get better results from Twitter, Reddit...

Re: HN comments are underrated

#183

Post by _puk »

xenadu02 wrote: post #178
hiou wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Seen both many times. The positive enforcement causes no one to share any negative thoughts after a while and the company smiles it's way out of business. Unfortunately people who will not speak up out of fear are toxic to company culture. The creative process is immediately destroyed when people need to second guess everything they say or do since it is impossible to know if you are about to say the wrong thin…

First your anecdotes are not persuasive compared to two incredibly successful companies and one incredibly successful industry. Second, you missed the point. It isn't about prohibiting anyone from expressing a negative opinion or sugar-coating things. That's a false dichotomy. It's about not attacking the messenger and not looking to place blame. It also means accepting valid criticism. You can be 100% honest without…

This brings to mind the three whys, and why it is important to ask them for both positive and negative situations.

Blame culture is extremely toxic, but negative feedback can have as much benefit as positive if approached from the correct angle.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#184

Post by 3pt14159 »

pjc50 wrote: post #180
anexprogrammer wrote: post #3

HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who…

I keep meaning to scrape my comments over the years, collate the most upvoted ones, then publish in a blog/ebook somewhere with a bit of commentary on what it appears that HN "likes". The API doesn't quite facilitate this, unlike most sites which will just let you sort your comments by votes. On HN politics, while the comments often have a substantial presence of doctrinaire libertarians, I feel that the voters skew…

I've also had this idea.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#185

Post by forgetsusername »

wfeui3 wrote: post #71

I lost faith in HN crowd when hyperloop started. California can not even replicate 40 years old TGV, but somehow it will build space-like technology for fraction of price. And than there are politics. Entire world should accept millions of refugees. But SF is different, and should not even host 400 homeless who arrive every year.

>I lost faith in HN crowd when hyperloop started.

HackerNews flies off the rails when it comes to anything Elon Musk related, or anything banking/finance related. Musk invented everything and is infallible; the bankers are ruining everything and are irredeemable.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#186

Post by 3pt14159 »

frik wrote: post #159
B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This and the "karma" info on people's profile page - bring it back. Your wish has been granted, you have a "karma: 4406" line

I meant the karma ratio (or what it was called) that was on the profil page, a percentage value as far as I remember - ...maybe dang can explain it?

Yeah, that had a major drawback: it discouraged helpful replies deep in the thread. I'm glad they removed it.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#187

Post by hiou »

xenadu02 wrote: post #178
hiou wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Seen both many times. The positive enforcement causes no one to share any negative thoughts after a while and the company smiles it's way out of business. Unfortunately people who will not speak up out of fear are toxic to company culture. The creative process is immediately destroyed when people need to second guess everything they say or do since it is impossible to know if you are about to say the wrong thin…

First your anecdotes are not persuasive compared to two incredibly successful companies and one incredibly successful industry. Second, you missed the point. It isn't about prohibiting anyone from expressing a negative opinion or sugar-coating things. That's a false dichotomy. It's about not attacking the messenger and not looking to place blame. It also means accepting valid criticism. You can be 100% honest without…

The problem is that many people who are hurt easily by cynical and sarcastic behavior(which is very different than being as asshole) typically take themselves very seriously and it's a sign that they are very self focused and place their own concerns way above those of the team.

I wonder if there is a language barrier but cynical and sarcastic is very very different from putting people down.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#188

Post by j1vms »

dorfsmay wrote: post #38
Jimmy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic If you stay off the default subreddits and only go on the intellectual/debate subreddits, then I honestly think reddit is better for this. The amount of expertise on reddit is astounding. It's very easy to find someone to rigorously challenge any view I have. I'd go…

Reddit is the new Usenet with all the good, the bad and the silly. The advantage of small subreddits over HN is that links don't get buried.

> Reddit is the new Usenet with all the good, the bad and the silly.

And none of the decentralization that was Usenet unfortunately.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#189

Post by edmccard »

nabla9 wrote: post #33
shubhamjain wrote: post #10

I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments that floods several discussion forums that I have come across. "Nice article", "Great write-up" and the next thing you know, you have created a place where people are only interested in submitting their articles and getting it upvoted rather than make meaningful contributions. People want to make good contributions here and that's something that differenti…

".. the measure of a healthy organization is probably the degree to which negative thoughts are allowed. In places where great work is being done, the attitude always seems to be critical and sarcastic, not "positive" and "supportive". The people I know who do great work think that they suck, but that everyone else sucks even more." ­­-- Paul Graham

>In places where great work is being done, the attitude always seems to be critical and sarcastic

It can be tricky, though, to be critical and sarcastic without using a jeering tone.[1]

[1]https://twitter.com/paulg/status/789066303566929920

Re: HN comments are underrated

#190

Post by criddell »

tunap wrote: post #173
coldtea wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have them in other forums -- e.g. Reddit if I am not mistaken. Do they work that well there, or do they make the forums a competition for points and popular comments, in other words a popularity contest?

WEB 2.0 turned online discussions into popularity contests. Period. I preferred the older, smaller communities sans likes & upvotes where you knew most in the community and had the ability to 'ignore' MUs. Of course, that had it's drawbacks and is much more difficult to scale as the site gains popularity & evolves. I do not have the answer other than self-moderation, yet, most(including myself) fail sometimes in the…

As sad as Slahdot is these days, I still think they have a superior moderation system. I like that every vote comes with a reason and that you can use that information to do things like filter out the jokes.
Post reply on HN