I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me • Hacker News Board

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#261

Post by tombert » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

mrkandel wrote: post #249

tombert wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I showed up late halfway through the interview, I would almost certainly not get an offer, and if the hiring manager called me out on that fact then no one would call that manager an asshole. I am not “nitpicking every little thing” and I feel like there’s a lot of extrapolation going on there. I do think it’s extremely disrespectful to schedule a meeting and show up very late so that the interviewee doesn’t have…

If the manager told you "You don't value our time, you show up late, how do you expect us to value your time?" Or something to that extent, that would be extremely rude. It's like a line out of Wolf of wall street or those trump movies - "You're fired!".

I have had hiring managers tell me that, almost verbatim actually, when I forgot about the interview and showed up significantly late.

I was embarrassed and yeah I admit that it wasn’t exactly fun to be called out like that, but I would much rather they say that than for them to pretend everything is fine, let me leave the interview thinking I didn’t annoy them, and then have it be a mystery as to why I am declined.

I felt embarrassed in the moment, and I should feel embarrassed. It is very rude and inconsiderate to not show up to meetings that you agreed to show up for and it signals that you don’t take the other person’s time very seriously.

To be clear, it wasn’t like I was being pedantic to the second; I know Zoom and Google Meet can be finicky so I understand being a minute or two late for a meeting and I generally don’t say anything if they are within the “my fucking microphone isn’t connecting gotta fix it” threshold.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#262

Post by throw10920 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #227

rawgabbit wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”What it means in practice is that your colleague can write "this approach is wrong, here's why" instead of "hey, hope you're doing well, I had some time to look at your PR and I just wanted to shared a few small thoughts, please take these as just one perspective, and of course you know the codebase better than I do, but I was wondering if maybe we could potentially consider [useful thing here]" and then bury the ac…

> It is better to be effective This is the key to this whole topic. It doesn’t matter what should be . It matters what is . Humans are emotional in nature and ignoring that is not effective. Also the undertone of this topic is always “I want you to be blunt to the point of rudeness (so I can be too).”

> Also the undertone of this topic is always “I want you to be blunt to the point of rudeness (so I can be too).”

No, it's not. I've met multiple people who subscribe to Crocker's Rules and none of them are intentionally rude. One of them is one of the more polite people I've met.

Don't malicious ascribe false motives to others because you're offended at the idea that they're proposing. That's extremely bad form.

That's not even what Crocker's Rules are. If you had read the article, you would know that.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#263

Post by throw10920 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:56 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #230

npilk wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is saying something different here - that in this mode, the speaker’s feelings about how the recipient will receive a blunt message are the speaker’s problem. In this case the recipient has already reassured the speaker they can handle their own feelings, but still meets resistance from speakers who are guilty or worried about how they will come across if they are too direct.

Eh, I think the author is also exaggerating the problem significantly. “I hope this is okay to bring up and sorry for the long message, I just wanted to flag that I've been looking at the latency numbers and I'm not totally sure but it seems like there might be an issue with the caching layer?” This isn’t a problem of overpoliteness. It’s a problem of almost nonsensical rambling. I’ve never worked with anyone who act…

> Eh, I think the author is also exaggerating the problem significantly.

> “I hope this is okay to bring up and sorry for the long message, I just wanted to flag that I've been looking at the latency numbers and I'm not totally sure but it seems like there might be an issue with the caching layer?”

You're cherry-picking the most extreme example out of the bunch as a way of discrediting the argument. If you actual read the other examples given:

> The Slack message that starts with "Hey! Hope you had a great weekend :)"before asking a technical question or the PR comment that opens with "I'm not sure if I'm missing something here and sorry if this is a dumb question but" before raising a completely valid concern, or that incident text that spends two full paragraphs explaining that the author was sleep-deprived and had a lot on their plate and the monitoring tool had a weird quirk that they didn't know about and their lead had told them something ambiguous three weeks ago, before finally getting around to saying what actually broke and why.

There's no exaggeration going on here. This is the norm for the majority of Slack conversations I've seen online, including my own job - out of the hundreds of people I've interacted with at my job, well over half of them do this.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#264

Post by throw10920 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:58 PM UTC

tracerbulletx wrote: post #177

The idea that how your audience receives the communication is their problem and not yours is entirely why some engineers are shit communicators and seem lost when facing the realities of human culture and politics. You might wish the world would all just think exactly like you but the moods, interest, and preferences of the people around you are YOUR PROBLEM and you need to engage with them if you want to accomplish…

> The idea that how your audience receives the communication is their problem and not yours

What? Literally reading the first paragraph of the post makes it clear that that's not what the argument is advocating for, at all.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#265

Post by throw10920 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

jmward01 wrote: post #142

The writer asks for it, so I will be blunt. They are demanding people have perfectly formed thoughts crafted in a way to give them just the information they wanted with no consideration for the process of thinking or consideration for the person speaking. It is selfish and impossible. Articles like this, I think, expose how bad we have gotten at both speaking and listening. "I personally value directness, so when som…

> They are demanding people have perfectly formed thoughts crafted in a way to give them just the information they wanted with no consideration for the process of thinking or consideration for the person speaking.

No, this is not what the author asks for. There's nothing in their article that says that people need to have "perfectly formed thoughts" or "only give them the information they asked for".

> It is selfish and impossible.

You fundamentally did not understand the point that they made (quite clearly). The thing that they are actually advocating for turns out to be neither.

> Communication is mind control. The point isn't the words, it is literally trying to get a person to do something.

Author also does not say that they think Crocker's Rules should be applied in all cases or that convincing someone of something is unnecessary.

> A second aspect here is that while communicating we are developing our thoughts. We need time to tease out our real intentions and filler conversation helps that.

Author is not (specifically) talking about filler conversation.

And on top of that it's really clear that they're primarily talking about digital communication - where filler conversation is unnecessary, unlike verbal communication.

> The writer asks for it, so I will be blunt.

Before being blunt, try being correct. And responding to the points that the author actually made instead of constructing a whole field of strawmen.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#266

Post by manofmanysmiles » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #241

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ignoring others emotions is not a sign of emotional maturity. I completely agree. > The inability to empathize with others and make meaningful predictions about how their emotions will affect communications is specifically a lack of emotional maturity. I completely agree. > Case in point. You had an emotional reaction to the parent comment, and you responded with an attempt to shame the communication style rather t…

> Yes I did. I am still curious how OP expects that to be received. I’m curious why you perceive their statement to be made as if it’s a pronouncement from God and not a simply a statement of their view on the issue. > I think I agree here too. What do you mean? I mean that you both responded emotionally and communicated with an emotional appeal. You exaggerated what OP actually said and called it a mandate from God.…

> I’m curious why you perceive their statement to be made as if it’s a pronouncement from God and not a simply a statement of their view on the issue.

To me it's basic grammar.

The sentence structure is approximately:

X is Y.

I consider this a statement of fact, or perhaps en equivalence relation. This is what was labeling a pronouncement from God.

(The idea that how your audience receives the communication is their problem and not yours) is

(entirely why

some engineers are shit communicators and seem lost when facing the realities of human culture and politics.) Parsing it more carefully, the word "some" is leaving a hole for a lot of ambiguity that I did not see earlier.

So more careful reading reveals it as

X entirely explains property (are shit communicators) for a subset of the entities designated as engineers.

Even with these qualifies it is stating X is Y, rather than "In my experience X is Y."

I know in school I was taught to write this way. I find it confusing, and reveals something interesting about the person saying these words.

However maybe the real problem is I don't actually know what the words mean.

Perhaps I need to interpret it as the following:

In OPs view of the world, X is Y is true.

Perhaps that is what you're calling a "communication style", with a lot not being said explicitly.

Thank you for your comments, I am going to contemplate.

Edit: I just read my original comment and it is full of X is Y statements. I guess I'm full of shit. I'll try harder next time!

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#267

Post by manofmanysmiles » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

Twey wrote: post #208

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying other people's emotional immaturity is exclusively my problem to solve? Also when you state an absolute like the word of God, how do you expect it to be received? The article seems to imply to me: form relationships where direct truth is welcomed while acknowledging that people do have emotions. Facts can be true and the feelings can be strong at the sam time. Attaching emotions to facts intentionall…

> Are you implying other people's emotional immaturity is exclusively my problem to solve? Emotional maturity (from most standpoints) does not mean being completely emotionally unaffected by other people's communication. Insofar as it is emotional immaturity that gives rise to a particular emotional response it might be ethically that person's duty to work on it, if that's how your personal ethics works. But from a p…

I agree with the pragmatism. I think pragmatically yes, it is my responsibility. In a very real sense, I am able to respond, being aware of the emotions, even if perhaps the person I am speaking to is not.

I guess I have a hard time viewing this as anything but intentional emotional manipulation.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#268

Post by eucyclos » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

dxdm wrote: post #123

eucyclos wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a refutation of the concept of taboos as a useful category, by the definition I use a taboo is something that may not be discussed openly. There's a theory that a culture without taboos is past it's peak in some important way- does crocker have any response to that criticism?

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that taboos should not be examined from within the space where they hold effect, because doing so calls into question the whole concept of a taboo and robs all taboos of their usefulness, and that would summon evidence for, or even cause cultural decline? That sounds suspiciously like something a taboo would say that has something to fear from being looked at. ;) I think…

Not should, can't. The assertion I'm referring to is that once something can be rationally discussed it's no longer a taboo, and once a culture has no taboos it has no real vitality or potential for growth left.

Nothing there about causing cultural decline, just evidence of it, and thereby limits on the kind of culture that can host the attitude you describe.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#269

Post by MarkusQ » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #253

MarkusQ wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the GP, but I'm an avid reader. One of the books I read (Strunk & White's Elements of Style) had this to say to aspiring writers: "Omit needles words."

"Needless." :-D But you're right. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brevity_is_the_soul_of_wit

Dang! A typo, a typo; I do confess't.

Re: I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

#270

Post by eucyclos » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

plasticchris wrote: post #120

eucyclos wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a refutation of the concept of taboos as a useful category, by the definition I use a taboo is something that may not be discussed openly. There's a theory that a culture without taboos is past it's peak in some important way- does crocker have any response to that criticism?

It probably depends on the measure used to define peak, but the removal of arbitrary limits on honest intellectual inquiry has huge benefits, eg the enlightenment, science, etc.

Did the enlightenment not have a taboo around questioning e.g. the fundamental equality of all human beings?