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Trolls (2008)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Trolls (2008)

#211

Post by ShirtlessRod »

aidenn0 wrote: post #135
figgles wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope your bank account isn't stored as just an int(!) But seriously, it is a representation of something physical. Money. Money which can in turn be used for other physical things. Reputation "karma" isn't. It /is/ meaningless in this context, because you can never log into HN again and your life will go on. I don't think the argument was "anything digital is pointless."

I read the argument precisely as "anything digital is pointless" "One of the best things about the 'net is that, frankly, none of this really matters. None of it. It's a big joke. My twitters and my wikis and my posts don't mean anything. They're bits in the stream." I Really don't see any other way to interpret that. The "bits in the stream" are having an increasingly large amount of impact on the world outside the…

I think the implicit assumption is that he was referring to the more social aspects of the internet (forums, blogs, etc.).

Re: Trolls (2008)

#212

Post by mixmax »

Technical tweaks may also help. On Reddit, votes on your comments don't affect your karma score, but they do on News.YC. And it does seem to influence people when they can see their reputation in the eyes of their peers drain away after making an asshole remark.

After points stopped being shown on comments this point seems ironically moot.

Any chance of getting them back? Personally I think it's the worst decision in the history of HN.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#213

Post by lookhard »

teej wrote: post #203
nirvana wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had 3.5k karma before beginning this experiment and you're a cofounder of a YC funded company! You're already part of the "in" group. The first comment prior to this one on your comments feed starts of with: "Your entire comment is bullshit and it pisses me off. You've never worked at Zynga, so to purport that you know exactly what it's like to work there is bullshit. Your comment reflects exactly what Silicon Va…

To be clear, my "foundership" of a YC company wasn't publicly knowledge until 4 weeks ago. My last comment isn't my greatest accomplishment. I'd hope that my behavior would be looked at in whole, instead of cherrypicked. That being said, I was characterizing the general feeling of HN as a whole. Of the 100k+ readership of HN, very few are actual Zynga employees. So in that light, I defend my comment. There is a large…

"Don't criticize Zynga because you don't have any actual real-life experience with what it's like! And don't criticize me and my comments with actual real-life experience of my comments! You're just being spoonfed the message that whale-hunting "social" "games" aren't actually good for you!"

Re: Trolls (2008)

#214

Post by emmelaich »

edw519 wrote: post #147

Discussions like this remind me of my favorite scene from "Roadhouse", the best bad movie ever. Discussion forums are kinda like bars and hackers are kinda like coolers... All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One: never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two: take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three: be nice. Come on. If somebody get…

Here's a real life example of a bouncer being nice and firm. Like the top rated comment says, it's as if he is a doctor in psychology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWfetF1jCO4

Re: Trolls (2008)

#215

Post by kin »

I definitely feel like the term isn't used correctly in the context of the article but in any case there is definitely a certain attitude of nastiness on HN that I experience all the time. I always find myself carefully choosing words and being incredibly specific because any amount of vagueness can lead to flags on my comment. Sometimes I just delete everything and say "I agree" or "Congrats!" or "Good work" and I get a few points. Toss in a "but..." and I get flagged. How about reply to my comment and ask my why I said what I said? And actually most of the time I say something I say why I say it and I still get a backlash.

Anyway, it doesn't happen all the time but it's definitely out there.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#216

Post by emmelaich »

emmelaich wrote: post #214
edw519 wrote: post #147

Discussions like this remind me of my favorite scene from "Roadhouse", the best bad movie ever. Discussion forums are kinda like bars and hackers are kinda like coolers... All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One: never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two: take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three: be nice. Come on. If somebody get…

Here's a real life example of a bouncer being nice and firm. Like the top rated comment says, it's as if he is a doctor in psychology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWfetF1jCO4

And here's a similar event related in the hacker/online context.

http://pugs.blogs.com/audrey/2009/08/my-hobby-troll-hugging....

Discussed here on hackernews: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=786874

Re: Trolls (2008)

#217

Post by to3m »

m0th87 wrote: post #202
zedshaw wrote: post #179

I normally find that, unless an essay is about mathematics, if it is based on a binary argument then it's just false because it's too simplistic to be based in reality. In this case saying there's only "trolls" and "super awesome people!" is childish. There's a much more interesting spectrum of human behavior online that doesn't fit into these convenient categories. To then say there's only two types of "trolls" is a…

Are you suggesting HN's ranking algorithm biases toward YC-related content? Because that is a serious accusation. I realize YC job posts can disable comments, and there is a separate tab for open jobs. That's no big deal because the behavior is externally visible and obvious. If HN actually re-ranks articles to support YC content though, that is a big deal. And it's scary how that might subtly affect the Valley, give…

Interesting viewpoint. I'd always assumed that YC-specific "stuff" would get automatic preference, or would at least be marginally sticky. Is that not the case?

While this site does permit random people to submit random links, and then allow more random people to comment on the articles, I'd just assumed it was fundamentally a source of marketing for Mr Graham and his activities. After all, it IS part of ycombinator.com...

Re: Trolls (2008)

#218

Post by zobzu »

The issue with votes is that they don't fix all that much. People often downvote other people they simply disagree with. In fact, most often do that.

So it does not just shut off the "trolls" as in the "assholes". It also shuts off any unpopular opinion.

That is sad, because unpopular opinions are generally interesting by nature, and sometimes insightful. That is because popular ones are well-known, thus cannot be "interesting".

For example, if you bash a popular company by saying what they do is wrong (whichever it is, Google, Apple, you name it), you will get down voted a lot. No matter how insightful and righteous you were.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#219

Post by eldude »

vaksel wrote: post #108
interlagos wrote: post #91

I've been hellbanned here on HN on at least three different IP addresses and accounts...that I am aware of. Probably more. In each case nothing I'd ever said would be considered trolling by any rational observer. Here on HN, however, as with most communities where you start to recognize the regulars (tptacek, raganwald, etc), "trolling" is redefined to simply mean "going against the grain". There was one discussion t…

what does hellbanned look like on HN? Can't login? Can't post? Can post, but noone can see it?

It doesn't look like anything to the banned individual apparently, as I just now discovered that my account was banned. Awesome.

http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3354475

Re: Trolls (2008)

#220

Post by [deleted] »

sukuriant wrote: post #10

Personally, I "troll" in real life. It's usually among friends and just taunting them, lying to them, etc, for the purpose of teasing them. They're trolls too, and it's a bit of a game between us. Really, in communities I frequent, there are so many trolls, we troll them back. Perhaps we're using the term differently from how pg is?

[deleted]
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