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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#471

Post by lucaspiller »

brudgers wrote: post #263
dsugarman wrote: post #15

I think the downvote functionality is holding back the utility of HN more than anything else. It is grossly overused and very rarely for guidelines violations like it was designed for. Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. It's an awful experience and is the main fuel in a negative feedback loop that travels with users from thread to thread.

I have a difference of opinion on the matter of downvotes. A long time ago I decided to try to treat downvotes on my own posts as editorial feedback. In the best case, it just meant I was unclear. In the worst, case I said something stupid. In between there are cases where I knowingly wrote something likely to get downvotes. I believe downvoting a comment that I disagree with is often far better for HN than expressin…

Side note: How do I know if someone downvotes my comments? On Reddit it's easy as you can see the score, but here? Am I missing something?

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#473

Post by dragonwriter »

deciplex wrote: post #466
skwirl wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been that my comments that are posted to disagree with highly upvoted (often top) comments have been my most upvoted comments. I feel like most people on HN disagree with a comment by upvoting a counterargument, which causes a back-and-forth flow to a thread where the strongest counterargument to each reply is the top child reply. This flow is what often makes threads here great. I'm actually surpri…

> I'm actually surprised to see people here complaining about downvotes being used to disagree with comments. It is quite common and gets really annoying after a while. Some of my comments in the past have broken the rules. Fine - downvote those. But quite a lot of them have most certainly not, and were written in all earnestness with intention of productive dialogue. And too many of those were still downvoted to a v…

> were written in all earnestness with intention of productive dialogue.

That doesn't mean downvotes were for disagreement. Just because you intended it to contribute to productive dialogue doesn't mean that downvoters didn't think that it failed to provide a substantive contribution.

Your argument seems to recognize that people can disagree with you on your message, but seems equally to fail to recognize that people can disagree with you over whether the message was, independent of agreement or disagreement with your point, a substantive contribution.

> It is a subtle aggression perpetrated by the forum software against every user here,

Its not an aggression at all, and, if it was, it would be perpetrated by the downvoters, not the forum software. The only way it can be seen as an aggression by the software (or, more accurately, the forum operator) is if you think you have a right to be protected from seeing (or perhaps having others see) an indication of whether other members of the community think your comment is worthwhile. But that opinion is directly opposed to the entire idea of participating in a public discussion forum.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#474

Post by brudgers »

lucaspiller wrote: post #471
brudgers wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a difference of opinion on the matter of downvotes. A long time ago I decided to try to treat downvotes on my own posts as editorial feedback. In the best case, it just meant I was unclear. In the worst, case I said something stupid. In between there are cases where I knowingly wrote something likely to get downvotes. I believe downvoting a comment that I disagree with is often far better for HN than expressin…

Side note: How do I know if someone downvotes my comments? On Reddit it's easy as you can see the score, but here? Am I missing something?

The only way to know is by noticing the comment's score changing.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#475

Post by dragonwriter »

prawn wrote: post #342
dsugarman wrote: post #15

I think the downvote functionality is holding back the utility of HN more than anything else. It is grossly overused and very rarely for guidelines violations like it was designed for. Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. It's an awful experience and is the main fuel in a negative feedback loop that travels with users from thread to thread.

pg a few years back commented: I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 I don't know if he's made another comment on this issue since then. Shouldn't flagging a post/topic be generally used for a guideline viola…

As I understand it, flagging should be used for egregious violations of the guidelines, but borderline or minor violations, simple lack of substance, or (per pg's comment) perhaps even mere disagreement are suitable uses for downvotes.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#476

Post by lotharbot »

xienze wrote: post #120
cheald wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience tends to be that if you can hold a dissenting opinion respectfully, and back up your assertions, HN treats it favorably in the long run. Holding a dissenting opinion without being willing to defend it with awareness of your audience's hostility to your ideas rarely goes over well in any forum, though.

I think you're being a bit optimistic here. Downvotes will happen regardless of how well reasoned your argument is, and they'll come in a hurry if you hold an unpopular opinion on a sensitive/political subject. It's definitely my biggest gripe with HN -- there's too much of a political echo chamber here.

Of particular note, sometimes expressing an unpopular opinion on a sensitive subject (or a subject on which some people have very strong feelings, even if it's not sensitive to most people) can trigger a cascade of "revenge downvotes". So while the original comment might get upvoted back to positive, comments on completely unrelated topics might pick up undeserved downvotes.

I once had a few week period where I noticed the majority of my comments drop by exactly 2 karma, usually around the same time of day, regardless of how many upvotes they'd received or how heavily trafficked the thread was. My best guess is that I'd upset two people (or one person with two accounts) and they kept clicking back on my profile until they got bored with it.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#477

Post by mreiland »

throwawaymaroon wrote: post #367
ZenoArrow wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then let's discuss what I missed, perhaps I did misunderstand you. Let's start again from this, do you agree with the golden rule? What does it mean to you? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule

You're not going to get anywhere by throwing discussion questions at him like this is a school exercise. You missed his point and he's gone. Edit: Oh, don't mind me, I'm just dwelling on how you seem to be in some starry-eyed optimistic we're-all-in-this-together quest to "further understanding" in a pit of petty verbal combat.

no you hit the nail on the head, I chose to ignore him specifically because of his questions.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#478

Post by pain »

dragonwriter wrote: post #347
pavlov wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like downvoting to require an explanation. It could be a single-line text box with the label "Explain why". If you're serious about downvoting, it's no trouble to type in a short explanation such as "incorrect", "not funny", "obvious troll", "unnecessarily rude". (Those seem to be some typical reasons for downvotes.) And if you're not quite sure why you're downvoting, having to explain would certainly serve a…

I don't see an existing problem that this would in any way make better.

Commit logs ask questions without hurting anybody.

If there was ever a psyhotechnological empathic determination of medico-lego "Do No Harm" principles, commit logs are the definition of info emo sec.

Bitcoin/factum public transaction messaging (uncomplete) is also equal to power for votes of parts of speech are important news triggers.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#479

Post by angersock »

MartinCron wrote: post #259
mreiland wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you nailed the real problem, which is that people have become so quick to write off anyone who ruffles their feathers at all. I'm quick to write off people and I won't apologize for it. I have better things to do with my time than to give everyone the same amount of time and respect. If HN has decided to be touchy feely than this most certainly isn't the place for me. I prefer actual discourse where bullshi…

shit you guys, can't you go with the reading my comment charitably or will you hit that downvote button again, thereby showing your hypocrisy? The whole "why won't you be tolerant of my intolerance?" paradox again. Cute.

The whole "why won't you be tolerant of my intolerance?" paradox again.

Without going into further detail, it's not really a paradox. In fact it's a reasonable if somewhat mean, observation to make.

Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

#480

Post by malandrew »

tptacek wrote: post #238
lexcorvus wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first three rules are fine, but the fourth ("No subtle -isms") strikes me as rather hypocritical given the Recurse Center's policy of offering financial support only to favored minorities. They write [1] We want the Recurse Center to be a space with as little bigotry as possible in it. and yet their financial aid policies are explicitly discriminatory [2]: The Recurse Center is free for everyone, and we offer nee…

What does your opinion about Recurse's financial aid program have to do with whether their community guidelines are good? Either the isms rule is good or it isn't; its validity does not depend on you agreeing with the rest of their actions.

Their behavior (in having a racist and sexist policy) serves to subtly redefine their community guidelines. This type of hypocrisy leads to redefining of rules the same way the Seven Commandments in Animal Farm evolved.

This post[0] from the Advocate has a great line that is relevant here. The current dialogue around diversity "...propagates something harmful: the idea that gender is simply the lack of maleness, race a lack of whiteness, sexuality a lack of gayness."

When someone establishes rules and does not adhere to those rules, they end up redefining the words in those rules until they no longer carry the literal meaning they once did.

The policy reads:

    Our last social rule bans subtle racism, sexism, homophobia, 
    transphobia, and other kinds of bias.
... but now means:

    Our last social rule bans subtle racism (except against white 
    people), sexism (except against cisgender men), homophobia, 
    transphobia, and other kinds of bias (except any bias against 
    white cisgender men).
The experience of that individual from the Advocate demonstrates that terms like diversity, racism, sexism and bias are being warped and redefined by society to allow for exceptions that don't include white, straight, cisgender men (and Asian men in the context of engineering).

Language evolves, and the actions of people can shape how it evolves.

[0] http://www.advocate.com/politics/commentary/2011/01/20/im-wh...

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