We are sorry to inform you • Hacker News Board

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#21

Post by munin » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 6:56 PM UTC

there is a dangerous tendency to say "someone told me my idea is dumb, but lots of smart people have had their ideas ridiculed and later gone on to success".

it's true, many good ideas have been ridiculed by simple minds. however, you never hear about "I had a dumb idea, people laughed at it, and then it went nowhere", and that has (probably) happened far more than the ridicule of world-changing ideas ...

so while it is probably useful to your ego and mental health to respond to negative criticism with "they just don't understand", you should probably be prepared to accept that your idea is just not that good ...

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#22

Post by kamaal » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 6:56 PM UTC

Most of these rejection would have happened because there a lot of people who randomly take a decision and then try to justify it backwards with whatever reason they can come up with.

This happens for a lot of reasons eg : Bias, partiality, over confidence in self, under estimating the candidates ability.

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#23

Post by balloot » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

mechanical_fish wrote: post #14

arjunnarayan wrote: post #3

I'm pretty sure this isn't actual rejection notices for these papers, but made up ones in jest.

Yes, and as a result I'm afraid I find the whole joke rather uninteresting. Historical irony is only fun if it's historical . Otherwise it's just fiction. It's easy to imagine a bunch of philistines who unfairly reject a piece of brilliant work. Indeed, plenty of academics imagine that every day. It's a cliché.

Agreed. This reads to me like an attempt by a professor to show that his research being rejected makes him no different from all these other greats in the field. In reality, the vast majority of great papers are acknowledged as such soon after their release.

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#24

Post by kamaal » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 6:59 PM UTC

munin wrote: post #21

there is a dangerous tendency to say "someone told me my idea is dumb, but lots of smart people have had their ideas ridiculed and later gone on to success". it's true, many good ideas have been ridiculed by simple minds. however, you never hear about "I had a dumb idea, people laughed at it, and then it went nowhere", and that has (probably) happened far more than the ridicule of world-changing ideas ... so while it…

That might happen once or twice, but if you are stubborn, you don't give up and keep trying.

Someday you would have run through sufficient iterations of failure/success and internal feedback loops. After some time by the virtue of all this the person will succeed.

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#25

Post by tptacek » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 7:07 PM UTC

mechanical_fish wrote: post #14

arjunnarayan wrote: post #3

I'm pretty sure this isn't actual rejection notices for these papers, but made up ones in jest.

Yes, and as a result I'm afraid I find the whole joke rather uninteresting. Historical irony is only fun if it's historical . Otherwise it's just fiction. It's easy to imagine a bunch of philistines who unfairly reject a piece of brilliant work. Indeed, plenty of academics imagine that every day. It's a cliché.

Plus, the reviewer is right about Codd. ;)

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#26

Post by kingkilr » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC

In the same spirit (but not the same), one reviewer wrote on a conference paper about PyPy (paraphrased), "this covers some exceptional engineering results, but we wish there was more novel conceptual work". We were very proud of that paper :)

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#27

Post by kasra » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

Similar story about Kalman.

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#28

Post by smokinn » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 7:19 PM UTC

ChristianMarks wrote: post #11

As an uncompensated journal reviewer, I have to say that these look like genuine reviews to me.

If the journal you work for is behind a paywall, why do you do it?

I mean it as an honest question, I've always wanted to know why someone would work for free for an organization that works for profit. I understand why the academics submit their papers; it's necessary for career advancement, but why do people review for free?

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#29

Post by tsotha » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 7:20 PM UTC

Meh. Some of the criticisms are related to the paper itself and are probably valid. "You need to show why we would care" is a rejection of the way the paper is written, and not of the concepts it contains.

Re: We are sorry to inform you

#30

Post by killerdark » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 7:32 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #24

munin wrote: post #21

there is a dangerous tendency to say "someone told me my idea is dumb, but lots of smart people have had their ideas ridiculed and later gone on to success". it's true, many good ideas have been ridiculed by simple minds. however, you never hear about "I had a dumb idea, people laughed at it, and then it went nowhere", and that has (probably) happened far more than the ridicule of world-changing ideas ... so while it…

That might happen once or twice, but if you are stubborn, you don't give up and keep trying. Someday you would have run through sufficient iterations of failure/success and internal feedback loops. After some time by the virtue of all this the person will succeed.

Assuming the person has the ability to learn from his mistake. Unfortunately this is not a quality everyone possesses.