I was thinking that the only possible effect that this policy could have is the complete removal of outsiders (I consider myself one, rarely chiming in on HN), and eventually even insiders will simply migrate elsewhere for meaningful discussion that is not happening on this website.
New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
631–640 of 673 posts
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#632Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's an old saying that poison is in the dose, not the substance. Many things are therapeutic in one quantity, fatal in another. An innovative community needs some of that nootropic "poison" once in a while. We already have social pressure and technical mechanisms (upvotes and downvotes) to deal with these differences of opinion about whether negativity is warranted. Over-policing such things, by declaring critici…
You needn't worry on either score. There's no question of lurching to an opposite extreme—it wouldn't be doable and is not how we think about HN. As for over-policing, we don't have the staff, don't want the staff, and the staff we do have don't like police work.
I might believe that if our one previous interaction hadn't been a case of selectively over-applying the "no gratuitous negativity" guideline before it was even announced.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#633Earlier quoted context omitted.
...and you got downvoted. It's absolutely ridiculous that a forum like HN supposedly frequented by the best and brightest has so many immature children.
I've lost almost all of my karma on this thread and not a single comment as to why I'm being downvoted (-7 points or so). The original article is right that HN has become an incredibly negative community. Downvoting is the internet equivalent of saying "fuck you." So many people want to tell me to shut up but no one will actually say one word why?
From the FAQ:
Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#634Earlier quoted context omitted.
You needn't worry on either score. There's no question of lurching to an opposite extreme—it wouldn't be doable and is not how we think about HN. As for over-policing, we don't have the staff, don't want the staff, and the staff we do have don't like police work.
I might believe that if our one previous interaction hadn't been a case of selectively over-applying the "no gratuitous negativity" guideline before it was even announced.
Not to beat a dead horse or keep a totally unproductive thread alive longer than it has to be, but, if this is you:
(from your profile) you seem like an interesting person with a lot of experience and perspective to contribute.
So with that said: why not be specific about the selective over-application you're talking about? I couldn't find it in the comment history.
People probably won't agree with you but it would probably be helpful for them to at least know where you're coming from. It has to be better than just resigning yourself to the idea that the moderators are working in bad faith against you.
For my part, if it helps you to know this: I'm one of several people who have been leaning on the mods for literally years to add something about negativity to the guidelines. They pushed back on suggestions for a long time out of many of the exact same concerns people are voicing on this thread. It's not a sudden decision they've made.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#635One issue with this regulation is that hacker news is an international community and there are strong cultural differences in what is perceived as being too negative. In the US, people have a very low threshold and there is always a high pressure to be positive and supportive. People from Europe perceive this as phony and they tend to be more direct with their criticism. I lived in both cultures and observed that in…
This is an important point and one reason why we have no interest in overdoing this. HN already is a composite of the kind you're talking about. It's not perfect—there is cross-cultural friction—but it is workable.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#636Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think our industry has seen more money lost, late nights spent, and souls damaged to "Unwarranted positivity" then any other cause.
"Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes. The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.
> The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.
That has nothing to do with anything I have said. You have unfairly added an assumption to my comment and asserted I said something I did not. Saying that going too far on one side of an activity is bad does not imply that the other side is better. You have basically said because I don't think running 50 miles a day is healthy that I am advocating sloth.
> "Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes.
Our industries greatest successes have come from a place of optimism but been realistic in their thinking. Most programmers have suffered from people, including themselves, giving estimates that were "Unwarranted positivity".
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#637Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes. The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.
> The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible. That has nothing to do with anything I have said. You have unfairly added an assumption to my comment and asserted I said something I did not. Saying that going too far on one side of an activity is bad does not imply that the other side is better. You have basical…
Just a reminder that this subthread is litigating the value of unwarranted and insubstantial negativity.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#638Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that would be going too far. There are many ways to comment substantively and civilly. Being supportive and friendly isn't absolutely required.
Interesting choice of metrics. I'll just point out this community culture difference: - Mods on sites like PH tend to measure quality by the results of how the comments are likely to affect the post's creator. E.g. Could a comment contribute to preventing the next AirBnB from happening. No metrics that can be gamed to get around that. - HN mods seem to be measuring quality through simple crude metrics like civility a…
> Trying to put this in the nicest way, the HN mods come across as autistic and emotionally detached
The nicest way? :)
Assumptions that work at one scale stop working at the next, which is one reason this stuff is hard. You're making assumptions about "regular persons" and what's "very easy" that aren't true of the HN community as a whole. We couldn't enforce those by decree even if we wanted to.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#639Earlier quoted context omitted.
You just keep talking at him. You don't seem to understand that he's winning . Everything you're saying just slides off him. He's stated his position and believes it's confirmed by how he's been downvoted and flagkilled. For what it's worth, I think he's right, I think that whatever you think of his comment, the reception was disproportionate; but that doesn't matter now: he's gone. And you jabber on and on. You find…
"But I'm trying to teach you something about how your constant search for a middle ground is in reality pretty condescending." Good. So why is it condescending? What do you find offensive about being reasonable with those you disagree with?
Sorry this took so long. I was rate-limited and still rate-limited before I went to sleep.
>What do you find offensive about being reasonable with those you disagree with?
To start, here it feels like you're trying to put words in my mouth. I didn't say it was offensive to be reasonable with those you disagree with.
Now I can see, on closer reading, that you're just extending what I said about finding a middle ground. And it's a good way to detect where a miscommunication is by saying what you think I meant (that is, you're telling me how you received it).
But it causes a miscommunication in that I receive it as an uncharitable reading: the tone of "I'm lightly incredulous that this is what you mean, please clarify" becomes "You believe something utterly and obviously ridiculous."
But that's not really what this has been about. More to the point, I think the problem you're having is that you assume someone has to want to meet you in the middle. There isn't any rule that says this about discussion, even if it's generally assumed and often true.
mreiland made his point and then he didn't want to spend any more time with you.
>Your post perfectly shows part of the problem, which is... you can give it, but you can't take it. If you're not prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt, why would you expect something different in return?
>>You missed my point, have a good day.
In some ways it's unfair of him to do this, but at least he did it directly and honestly. And you still had, in my opinion, a chance to re-engage him. You tried:
>>>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
Why did this fail? I think it's at least partly true that you weren't being fair to him. You are trying to find middle ground, it's true, but it's middle ground you're beginning with conditions favorable to you.
And more importantly it's a bit absurd to ask him to move to a discussion on basic ethics terms. That's where I got the 'school exercise' bit: you're asking him to jump through hoops to satisfy your desire for a peaceful resolution, or a 'further understanding,' or whatever it is your goal was.
Rereading your comments more closely, I'm starting to think maybe the problem is that you're charmingly naive (and I mean that well): you're a genuinely positive person with thick skin and an earnest desire to communicate. Maybe today that reacted badly with a gruff and grumbling persona; maybe in communicating with friends you can successfully get people to sit down with introspective and meditative discussion questions like this one:
> I know I've made mistakes in the past. If I make a mistake in something I've said, does that exclude me from being able to learn from it? How will you know who is capable of learning without exploring their reasoning?
"Let's go around the circle and share an experience, shall we?" -- Fun in some situations, but not really appropriate to mreiland.
I think that's most of what I can think of to say about your tactics.
I'd like to broaden something out to make a meta-point, though, because none of that explains why mreiland was so deliberate about ignoring you. In some sense, the conversation is about the right to write someone off. It's a right mreiland exercised gleefully in your case; perhaps even a touch too gleefully, but even that's part of the point: it's his right to do so if he chooses, because you can't force him into a conversation.
There's also a sense in which that was a necessary part of his strategy: refuse to muddle that point and stick solely to the right to discontinue conversation. I don't know how well he managed that in the end, but the main event is still: mreiland made a level-headed comment saying "I'm inclined to write people off," and got written off by the community.
Re: New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
#640Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems a bit different from my example: being attacked for using a less common term. In this case, the "PC police" (going by your examples) were the people attacking me because I used a term that offended them.
They attacked you because they assume, incorrectly, that you were one of the PC people, because you used a PC term, not just a less common term. This isn't unreasonable and the cost of letting PC people in is high.
It's not a "PC word." I like the way the word sounds more, so I use it. Word choice is my prerogative as a writer.