
Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing (2013) - mtmail
http://www.righto.com/2013/09/9-hacker-news-comments-im-tired-of.html
======
ravenstine
My standards are probably different, but I don't feel like I see very much
those those kind of comments. Our conversations are really pretty decent in
contrast to much of the web.

The overattribution of notable effects and fallacies gets a bit tiring,
though. As the article mentions, we love to bring up things like the Dunning-
Kruger effect, the Peter Principle, the confirmation bias, etc. Sometimes I
don't think people actually know what they're talking about when they say that
someone has "confirmation bias"; it's just become a 115 IQ way of saying that
the other person is stupid.

When it comes to comments, I see downvote abuse happen a little more
frequently than I'd hope. I'm not just complaining about my own comments, but
just about every day I see a comment that got downvoted for saying nothing
objectively wrong or controversial. It's only a few people abusing the system,
really, but it'd still be nice if I noticed such things less often.

~~~
noobermin
Tbh, you can blame pg for that. He famously said downvoting to disagree is
fine and people have let that reasoning turn into downvoting for almost
everything.

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dmfdmf
When someone cites the Dunning-Kruger Effect I like to counter with the
Dunning-Kruger Effect Effect.[1] This also illustrates my own pet-peeve of
starting references with index [0].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12918362](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12918362)

~~~
rootusrootus
As I recall, either Dunning or Kruger also pointed out a long time ago that
the effect they were observing shouldn't be seen so much as an indictment of
stupid people, but as a warning to anyone who thought they were smart.

~~~
dmfdmf
They had to make that comment because that is _exactly_ how it was and is
used, e.g. see ConceptJunkie's reply.

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Felz
I feel like a lot of 'platitudes' are worth repeating. Again and again, ad
nauseum, long past where people are tired of hearing it. Because they're true,
but they're very easy to forget.

If platitudes can be used to dismiss most articles out of hand, well, maybe
things that look like "interesting news" at first glance are often... not.

My personal list:

\- From the article: Correlation IS NOT causation. This should be written in
giant flaming letters above every study. It dismisses almost all of them out
of hand.

\- Nearly every judgment you make about somebody is fundamental attribution
error. For example, every technical interview ever is nearly fatally flawed.
(No, I don't currently have better alternatives.)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

\- Goodhart's law. Also known as the tragedy of the OKR.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

~~~
glitcher
Alas, if we were to stop using these phrases solely because they have been
"overused" despite their value, then we risk denying the lucky 10,000 of
tomorrow.

[https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

------
mtmail
I haven't seen a couple of these recently. Especially the +1 seems to be less
popular (personal observation, not backed up by any data).

My addition would be "Oh [based on the title] I thought the article was about
[something totally different]" which adds no value to other readers.

~~~
Trav5
I check the comments to see if the article is worth reading. That type of
comment can be helpful.

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lylecubed
I agree with most of the list, except this one.

> Comments starting with "No." "Wrong." or "False."

What's wrong with that? If the post you're replying to is wrong and you go on
to provide evidence of why it's wrong, then isn't this just clear, unambiguous
communication?

I've noticed exchanges here where it's very difficult to tell if a particular
comment is intended to agree, disagree or is completely irrelevent to what is
being discussed. This is because a lot of comments here are not communicated
well due to the programmer's tendency to abstract and ambiguate.

~~~
brennebeck
For me, it’s just being (or seems?) more courteous by changing a common
‘No/Wrong. Your idea...’ to ‘I actually disagree. The reasons being...’

Text makes it difficult to parse tone and intent and we need to adapt
accordingly.

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franciscop
As a foreigner getting tech news here, I have learned a lot about the culture
from the comments here. If once a kind of comment is said it couldn't be said
again, then people would need to dig deep back to learn about those! Overuse
is not good of course, but stopping them would be as bad IMHO.

I feel most of those are trying to bring an important point though. "If you
are not..." => "What is the monetization strategy?". "Early optimization..."
=> "Beware, this probably doesn't make sense in your small co", etc.

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writepub
I'm tired of blogs and deep analyses, like these, of something as useless as
tiresome comments.

How can we keep meaning less, uninteresting content, such as this, off HN?
Maybe a blog or deep dive how-to can help?

------
tomallalone
All these are good (to avoid).

I'd add to the comments to that start a certain way: 'nope' I don't know
exactly why but I find this phrasing both dismissive and insulting. Also, all
those starting with adverbs, like 'Interestingly,...'. Just say what you got
to, I say. It hurts the message if what follows isn't interesting at all.
Edit: I'm not trying to insult anyone, I just think this kind of formality
where one has to justify, verbally, the existence of ones comment is
distracting.

I'd also add the gross over- and misuse of italics for emphasis. I'd almost
say it was a phenomenon. Like the amount of emphasis italics is inversely
proportional to to commenters knowledge of the subject.

------
droidist2
"If you're not paying for it, you're the product"

Yes. Thank you!

------
alliecat
Appropriate as ever.

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oxfeed65261
I do not think x means what you think it means.

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jxub
From the comments:

 _> I baked a cake in go._

------
jxub
The fact that there are some comments that are tiresome doesn't mean that the
readership is like that.

Correlation is not causation.

------
deviationblue
No. Who cares?

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thomasmeeks
I’d add arguing by using inline quotes. Example:

 _some snippet of text from parent comment_

I disagree because x, y, z.

 _another snippet_

This is wrong because a, b, c.

(End example)

Doing so obliterates context from a position, especially long form comments
(which is the main reason I’m here) in two main ways. First, the technique
rarely reproduces the parent in its entirety, picking out black and white
statements that are easier to argue against from a sea of nuance. Second, it
cuts up the narrative in such a way that downplays the rationale of a position
by either leaving out reasoning, or placing arguments between the reasoning
and the conclusion.

Sure, the readers can go back and reread the parent. But when the structure of
an argument _depends_ on those snippets (and it almost always does) it becomes
very difficult to grok.

Generally I just see it as a big warning sign that the quoter is more
interested in winning than learning or getting to the truth of the matter and
thus is best ignored.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Maybe it's my age and having come up via years of Usenet where inline quoting
was absolutely standard, but I find inline quoting of a discussion helps me
keep the flow of discussion. I find it's easier to follow than trying to
retain a lengthy parent that a commenter is replying to, also at length.

If it's a long comment it's also likely some commenters are only able to
address parts of it - again an inline quote clarifies.

I've never had cause to see it as a warning sign or more likely to be someone
scoring points, that's going to happen sometimes with or without inline
snippets.

~~~
thomasmeeks
I can see that, and perhaps my experience has just been unlucky. I missed
usenet by a few years.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Hmm, actually something just came to mind where quoting may hinder, though
I've seen it with and without. Quoting may help focus on misdirection. Where
someone wants to have a good argument rather than have a discussion. More a
reddit game than HN but it does sometimes happen here, e.g.

Someone making point with a couple of paragraphs.

Commenter takes one sentence or point to shred, maybe it was a weak example or
poorly phrased, to invalidate the whole.

repeat. After a few rounds it's becoming clear they're intentionally avoiding
the main point.

Have I just committed the cardinal sin of being wrong on the internet? ;)

~~~
thomasmeeks
Well you comitted the blessing of helping me feel heard so hopefully that
balances out the sin. :) Exactly my point.

