
New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity - sama
http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline
======
Udo
One of the most negative habits is in my opinion the failure to read a comment
charitably (to make an effort to interpret it in the best possible light).
Instead, people often tend to misread or miserunderstand what's being said,
only to use the opportunity to write a "correction" based on that false
impression. A worse flavor of the same problem is a misunderstanding that is
then used to justify outrage or personal annoyance.

That's what I find worthy of being changed, and I will certainly make an
effort to read comments more charitably as well.

Overall though, and I realize this is quite anecdotal, rampant negativity -
especially about things other members of the community have created - seems to
have gotten less common recently.

~~~
ohnomrbill
Why should I try to interpret comments in the best possible light? I could
make an effort to interpret them in the worst possible light, too. I have no
reason to believe that internet commenters mean well.

~~~
DanBC
Because HN has an international audience where English is often a second
language; also cultural expectations can be markedly different to the US.

~~~
dang
This is a much larger factor on HN than I think most people realize.

------
abalone
Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity?

Seriously, it's a slippery slope. "Nothing of substance" is a term that needs
more clarification that what that post provides. It seems to suggest that if
the criticism is too harsh, then it's no longer substantial. I think there's a
better guideline than that.

The best ideas not only can withstand criticism, _they get better_ with
criticism. If you examine what's being revealed about Apple and Steve Jobs --
the most successful company in the world right now -- it's not that they
avoided criticism. And contrary to rumors it's not that they didn't nurture
seemingly "dumb" ideas. Jobs would toss them out there all the time, by his
own admission. Nurturing crazy young creative ideas and rigorous critical
analysis are _both_ part of Apple's process.

Apple's secret is that the criticism is directed at _the idea not the person._
That is what defines "nothing of substance": the target of the criticism, not
the intensity. If it's about the idea, that's substantial, even if it's harsh.
If it becomes personal, then that's truly not adding substance.

You "throw it in the cauldron" and then rigorously debate everything in the
pot in a manner divorced from the people who contributed it. That's how you
boil it down to the best stuff, not by holding back.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity?

We could, but I don't see any evidence that there is an amount of that going
around that requires an addition to the guidelines.

~~~
cgaebel
You must not live in San Francisco.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You must not live in San Francisco.

No, but I'm rather familiar with it. In any case, I don't see how that's
relevant; the context of the discussion is HN guidelines, not guidelines for
San Francisco.

------
dsugarman
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.

~~~
dman
I agree with this. Conflating disagreement with downvoting seems to be mixing
unrelated concerns. It is currently inconvenient (in karma terms) to hold
dissenting opinions.

~~~
bengali3
Interesting, what if in downvoting a comment you had to pick a reason? What
are all the reasons one would downvote something?

"I do not agree" "I do not believe this adds value" "Inappropriate conduct" "I
think you are being mean / rude" "Bad attempt at funny" "Off topic to parent"
"Off topic to post" "Difficult to understand/Noise"

~~~
noir_lord
Slashdot does this.

What generally happens is that instead of one argument about been
downvoted/upvoted you end up with even _more_ arguments about whether
something is +5 funny or whatever.

I've no idea how you solve this in the general case tbh.

~~~
r00fus
Part of that though is that +1 Funny doesn't add to your slashdot karma. So
people sometimes "upvote to denigrate" because you can only get +5 anyway, a
silly comment can get +5 Funny without actually rewarding the commenter (mocks
the comment) - you can see this when replies get +5 Insightful or +5
Informative and are very contrary to the original comment.

Personally, I like the idea of having qualifiers on the downvote without one
on the upvote - makes you think a little bit before downvoting... plus the
vote buttons are ridiculously small on an mobile Safari - so having to click
twice would prevent accidental downvotes.

------
kolbe
> Negativity isn't the problem--gratuitous negativity is.

Is it just regular negative of me to say statements like that one are
horrible, or it is gratuitously negative? Am I being a critical thinker when I
say that, whenever I hear people make statement like that one, they are
usually weaseling into some businessey doublespeak that roughly translates
into "people like me can be negative, people like you cannot, but I refuse to
say that outright." Or is that shallow cynicism?

I get your general message, Sam. And while I don't agree with it, I see how
enforcing some unwritten "gratuitous negativity" code could improve HN
discussions (I just don't think it would). But I do not know of any place on
the internet where I find better discussions on daily news; so my opinion:
when it's this great already, why do some vague micro-morality-management
thing like this to try to change it?

~~~
svachalek
> Is it just regular negative of me to say statements like that one are
> horrible, or it is gratuitously negative?

That is gratuitously negative because you are not contributing anything to the
conversation except your opinion. While everyone tends to think their own
opinion is an incredibly valuable gift to the world, the world rarely receives
it as such.

> Am I being a critical thinker when I say that, whenever I hear people make
> statement like that one, they are usually weaseling into some businessey
> doublespeak that roughly translates into "people like me can be negative,
> people like you cannot, but I refuse to say that outright."

You've taken a simple sentence of a few words, expanded it into a nebulous
category of "statement[s] like that one", inferred motivation, and taken it as
an assault on "people like you".

That's "critical thinking" if you use the definition of critical meaning
"negative" but not the more valuable sort of criticism based on empirical
evidence and carefully considered logic.

Now, if you'd presented examples of how previous arguments have been called
"gratuitous" but in fact contained substantial contributions in terms of facts
and logic, or vice versa, because of the status of the individuals involved,
then you would have a real argument rather than just a vague expression of
cynicism, and I for one would not call that "gratuitous negativity".

~~~
Jimmy
>That is gratuitously negative because you are not contributing anything to
the conversation except your opinion.

That doesn't explain at all why something would be "gratuitously negative".

I can contribute my opinion that the sky is blue and provide no evidence or
arguments. But if I only say "The sky is blue," and nothing else, then it
doesn't look like I'm being "gratuitously negative".

~~~
svachalek
My apologies. The question was asking if this statement was "gratuitously
negative" or just "regular negative", so I thought we could take its
negativity for granted.

I would tend to agree with the original commenter that "horrible" is a
negative word, and with you that "blue" is not. I hope that clears it up.

~~~
Jimmy
It's fine. I was being overly-pedantic. :)

------
andrewstuart
It's "the programmers way" to try to come up with some sort of
moderation/policing system to solve this. Please do not come up with a
moderation system.

There should simply be a confirmation step after hitting submit, reminding the
poster that they are valued for their positive contribution and giving the
poster the chance to rethink their post and cancel if its too negative.
Additionally when posting, require people to self-rate the level of negativity
of their post when they submit from one to ten. Publish that number along with
the post.

There's nothing at the moment that explicitly asks or reminds people of
expectations when they post. What is it that makes you think posters know
there is an expectation not to be negative? People don't read the community
guidelines every time they post, UNLESS key points of the guidelines are
presented to them.

The community moderation system, what it ends up being, will be gamed and
abused and alienate and anger people. Don't do it. Witness the toxic mess of
StackOverflow.

HN is not in a position right now to express concern about negative posts
because it is not explicitly asking people to avoid negative posting, at the
time that they post, and requiring the user to think about it. That is step
one.

HN would be implementing a passive-aggressive solution by going to an indirect
system that continues to allow people to post negatively and then gets the
community to police it later. Address it up-front, at the time of posting. Let
people be responsible for their own posts. Asked to think it through, posters
will dial back the negativity.

~~~
Gatsky
Thanks for this, it's a good idea getting people to rate how negative their
comments are... it would certainly be an interesting exercise, although it may
just show that those who leave negative comments don't think they are being
negative, whereas the people that can be bothered rating the negativity of
others are probably more sensitive to negativity.

~~~
andrewstuart
Self-rating the negativity of your comment is designed to force you to
acknowledge that HN wants you to think and be reasonable.

The OP's blog post suggests that "Gentle reminders by peers" will make the
culture better. I think these gentle reminders by peers in practice will whip
everyone into a frenzy of hunting for negativity, naming negativity, blaming
for negativity, being defensive about negativity, judging and feeling judged,
anger, outrage and despair with constant accusations and counter accusations
about the definition of negativity.

Some negativity is normal and natural and okay. HN wants less of it, so they
should just ask people to make their own self assessment of their post _at the
moment of posting_. Problem _mostly_ solved, but it's pointless to try to
_completely_ solve it - the concept of negativity is open to interpretation
and therefore everyone will have a different opinion.

I think plenty of people will tone it back after being forced to judge their
own negativity.

~~~
kordless
Negativity is only bad if it's used to speak for other's feelings. You
actually don't know if it will whip everyone into a frenzy. :)

~~~
andrewstuart
Reading through this thread shows quite a few people in a frenzy about
negativity.

------
ignostic
I'm very glad to see this idea turning into a community mechanism. HN has some
great minds, and I love seeing the solutions they come up with to problems.
It's a very technical, analytical, and rational community.

Unfortunately, some of the qualities that make a good technical problem solver
can also lead to nitpikcing. It feels like trying to find the bugs in an
argument. That can be useful, but only when it ties to the core idea rather
than some tangential point. Top comments often sound like, "Well, technically,
you're wrong on this one unimportant fact you mentioned briefly."

I'm glad HN is taking steps to ensure that feedback is constructive.

~~~
Kalium
Bear in mind that what is and isn't constructive is not an objective
measurement. It's a subjective value judgment. To some, finding bugs in
someone's argument is a constructive thing - you are helping them by fixing
their argument and showing them how to argue better in the future. Being
better able to argue means an increased ability to communicate effectively
with others.

So my question becomes thus: how do you define constructive? I, personally,
have run across multiple instances of one person's constructive and actionable
feedback being another's gratuitously negative useless nitpicky feedback.

~~~
panic
Maybe a good rule is: the smaller the pedantic, nitpicky detail you address in
your feedback, the more you should include other details as well. Instead of
"this is wrong because detail X" say something like "this handles detail Y
well and I think detail Z is clever, but detail X is wrong".

~~~
Kalium
I think your ideas are good and your intentions are laudible, but I question
what purpose is served in asking people to wade through excessive verbiage in
order to arrive at what could otherwise be concise and direct criticism.

~~~
panic
The idea is to give the reader a more complete picture. Often we skip over
what we think is good about something and focus on the problems. I'm not
saying you should come up with feel-good bullshit to make something
fundamentally flawed seem like a good idea. I'm just saying that, when
something is "mostly good but with one problem" we can learn just as much from
why it's "mostly good" as we can from what the problem is.

~~~
Kalium
I was attempting to give a demonstration of where notions of completeness-of-
feedback such as this can lead by wrapping what could have been a concise
point in needless verbose complexity. I am reminded of "How To Make Friends
And Influence People", where it is advised that any criticism be couched in
complements because people are easily manipulated by the positive emotional
rush of a complement.

I'd like to think that such wrapping isn't needed on HN, and people are able
to separate ideas or code from themselves for the purpose of accepting useful
feedback. It is possible that this assumption is incorrect and should be
abandoned, as people often have difficulty separating the two.

I find that I do not agree that positive feedback is as useful as negative
feedback. Being told you are right certainly feels much better and is much
kinder to the ego we all seek to stroke, but it is in being told you are wrong
where is opportunity for growth lies. If we're clever, we can even manage to
learn from the mistakes of others and avoid them ourselves. I am uncertain
that forcing a "more complete" consideration of issues that are in the main
not relevant is likely to improve the level of discourse or utility of
feedback.

I'm going to avoid the issue of one person's fatal flaw being another's
useless nitpick - it'll come up next time someone tries to be clever with
crypto anyway.

------
ams6110
I think some examples might be helpful. I would consider a gratuitously
negative comment to be some variation of "That's a dumb idea" with no
elaboration, or an ad hominem, and such comments are pretty much always
downvoted already.

~~~
Alupis
Here's a few examples I know of:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015734)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8938409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8938409)

~~~
minimaxir
The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is off-
topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules.

~~~
jfarmer
You'll have to trust me when I say that what I'm about to write isn't
personal. I have no idea what was going on in your head or heart when you
wrote it and don't want to invent a story about your motivations. :)

> The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is
> off-topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules.

Although I wouldn't call this comment "gratuitously negative" or even
"negative," I do believe it exemplifies one of the major root behaviors that
lead to negativity (gratuitous or otherwise): failure to fully digest the
conversation plus a reflexive desire to make a point.

First, as @dang pointed out elsewhere, this comment's point was _anticipated
and addressed directly in the original post_ :

> Sharp readers may point out that the HN guidelines have always excluded
> those things. That's true. But it's still enough of a problem in HN threads
> that this is a clarification worth making. We tried it out last year when we
> released special guidelines for Show HNs. It worked well there, so we're
> extending it to the whole site.

Even if the point were worth making, it was already made by @sama. Why assume
the grandparent comment wasn't written with that very paragraph in mind? If
you didn't read all of the original essay, why jump in to comment on whether
the examples were appropriate or not?

Second, even if that paragraph weren't there, comments like this add
absolutely nothing constructive to the conversation and risk starting an
irrelevant debate over the semantics of "gratuitously negative" vs. "ad
hominem" vs. "off-topic". Much more constructive would be, "When @sama said
'gratuitously negative' I was thinking more of comments like: <links to some
comments>. To me these are different from the examples you listed because
<reasons>."

Don't have any examples in mind? Don't have time to go look for them? That's
fine — don't comment!

Honestly, I'd bet money that @sama added that paragraph _specifically_ in an
attempt to head off pointless top-level comments like, "Isn't this already
against the rules? Look, here they are: Rule 3, Rule 14, and Rule 78(b)! Does
@sama even read the rules of his own site? UGH."

All of these things pile up, leading to people responding reflexively to other
people, who respond reflexively in turn, leading to...etc. etc.

~~~
minimaxir
I wasn't trying to make a point?

The original comment was "how is this different from ad hominems?" and the
reply with examples of gratuitous negativity were ad hominems, which was
contradictory so I elaborated to see if anyone could provide more context,
which dang did. (Yes, I missed the intent of the paragraph in the original
submission at first.)

------
nathanaldensr
Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior? Doesn't
cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo chamber? To
me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid
criticism--or cynicism (perhaps of startup culture itself, due to
Y-combinator's interest in startup culture continuing). Under the new policy,
my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, no? Even though it's
designed to spark an honest debate.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior?

No. In fact, cynicism _can be_ a herd-like behavior.

> Doesn't cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo
> chamber?

No, it doesn't. It might add another problem on top, but that doesn't actually
make things better.

> To me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid
> criticism

If it is valid, on-topic criticism, it isn't gratuitous negativity.

> or cynicism

Discouraging plain cynicism as distinguished from reasoned criticism is, IMO,
a positive benefit.

> Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative,
> no?

I don't see how.

~~~
Jimmy
>If it is valid, on-topic criticism, it isn't gratuitous negativity.

We'll need some assurance that _invalid_ criticism can also fall under the
category of "not gratuitously negative" as well. Otherwise, we've just defined
"invalid" criticism as being against the rules. And strangely, the people in
power are always the ones whose viewpoints are "valid", "true", etc.

------
andrewstuart
The English would tackle this problem by asking people to be nice. The
Americans would tackle this by policing, punishment and penalties. The cold
war communists of the 1950s by forcing the community to watch each other and
report offenders.

~~~
miles
Reminds me of this shirt[1] from Casanovas in Makawao, HI:

 _Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are Italian, the Mechanics
German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss._

 _Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics
French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by the Italians._

[1] [http://www.happyhotelier.com/2008/06/01/quote-of-the-day-
no-...](http://www.happyhotelier.com/2008/06/01/quote-of-the-day-no-3/)

------
mwilkison
I really like Recurse Center's (formerly Hacker School) social rules:
[https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-
rules](https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-rules)

They address some non-obvious behaviors that tend to stunt conversation. It'd
be nice to see some of those guidelines bleed over into the HN community.

~~~
im2w1l
I like the rule "no feigning surprise". "No well-actually's" and "No back-seat
driving" to me seem designed to help the linear flow of IRL interaction. But
in a threaded discussion forum like HN, the important main thread can still go
on unimpeded despite "no well-actually" side-notes.

The "no-subtleisms" rule is designed to hinder the spread of information about
the differences of different groups. "It's so easy my grandmother could do it"
is supposedly bad because it reminds us that there is a group, old people, who
are not like us. Focusing on differences can create a hostile us-vs-them
climate. But it can also remind us that there is a world outside of SV. That
there are other people with other abilities and skills, with other problems
that need solving. In this particular case it can remind us that if we want to
target old people with a product, to make sure it is easy to use.

~~~
jpindar
Do you also make sure a product targeted towards women is especially easy to
use? Saying "But older people really ARE less competent and I'm just trying to
help them" is still ageist.

If you want to specify that something is usable by people with, say, "age
related disabilities", great! But don't use "being a grandmother" as a synonym
for that.

------
stronglikedan
One simple thing that I've found to help me write comments of all types in a
positive and unoffensive manner is to simply proof read the comment before
posting. I re-read all of my comments aloud in my head, and make necessary
adjustments before hitting the submit button.

I find that emotion and enthusiasm can lead to gratuitous negativity without
even realizing it, as those things don't always translate well to plain text.
Aside from posts, this applies to emails and texts.

Since I started this, I am almost never accused of coming across in a negative
tone, even when I want to convey disappointment or other negative emotions.
There's usually always a way to craft it so that it's perceived as
constructive criticisms, and thus, well received.

Write with emotion, and proof read without.

As a bonus, I rarely make spelling or grammatical errors, except occasionally
out of ignorance.

~~~
dang
Yes! And if, like me, you tend to see what you should have edited out only
submitting it, there is a handy "delay" parameter in your profile. (Though
kogir will smite me for mentioning it.)

------
decisiveness
The problem is that "shallow cynicism", "gratuitous negativity", and "all
forms of meanness" are vague distinctions all subject to interpretation.

Guidelines like this should have specific examples to aid in their definitions
so we can criticize or agree with them. What could be considered "mean" to
someone emotional/thin skinned, might be interpreted as helpful criticism to
someone not so sensitive.

Sometimes it's really hard to say something respectfully negative (oxymoron),
and even harder for it to be interpreted as respectful. I, for one, appreciate
when people talk trash to me (especially when I'm wrong). It's an awakening I
sometimes don't get from a less firm/colorful counterargument.

~~~
brazzledazzle
As a counterpoint: The more specific your guidelines are the more you have
people who will attempt to abuse them pedantically (see reddit for so many
examples). They will also become rules, rather than guidelines. I think the
idea may be that they want the community to use these as guidelines and
interpret them as appropriate to keep the site mature and pointed in the right
direction.

------
retrogradeorbit
This is just a terrible idea. Will I have this comment flagged for expressing
this?

A thought experiment. If you and some others are in a car, and it's just
driven off a cliff, and as you are falling you say to the other occupants,
"We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here!" is
that gratuitous negativity? No, it's the truth.

Most people, in this car, don't want to hear the truth. As they say, ignorance
is bliss. Stop being so negative! Saying we've driven off a cliff is getting
me down! So shutup!

The thing is, reality is not all sunshine and rainbows. There are some very
hard realities unfolding in the world right now. Remove the ability to make
negative comments and now you can't criticise things. The car driving off the
cliff is a metaphor for our society which now openly tortures, wages a never
ending false war on terror, and is a government of wolves that's using
incrementalism to roll out a police state. We double tap drone strike
weddings, we snoop on every communication on the planet. And when it's found
out, absolutely nothing changes, because we are already captured. We are
already prisoners.

This is not negativity. This is reality. This is the truth. Some people, when
faced with this, want to shake people, wake them up and say 'lets fix this'.
But most want to bury their head in the sand. They want to gag the words. They
want to shoot the messenger. And then go back to sleep in their ivory tower,
hoping that they will die of old age before the consequences really come home
to roost.

For a group of supposedly smart people, this is incredibly dumb. I've just
finished reading Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" to try and get a better
understanding of the societal structure of prisons and punishment to better
understand the times I live in. And most of what's in that book would be
deemed by a lot of people here as 'gratuitous negativity'. And yet Foucault
was one of the great minds of our time. Under this guideline his ideas are no
longer welcome. And so it goes.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they
do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell

~~~
josephagoss
Please correct me if I am wrong, but the way I read the OP was that negativity
without reason is one part of the issue.

In your case of the car falling off a cliff, perhaps it is gratuitous
negativity to say "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get
out of here!" but it's not gratuitous negativity to say "We've just driven off
a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here because this car is falling
towards the ground at high speed due to gravity and motion and we're all about
to die!"

I think if there is at least some reasoning shown with the negativity, the
argument is more clear and others can learn from it.

Again, I could have misunderstood both the OP and your comment, if so I
apologize.

~~~
retrogradeorbit
In my experience, even when you describe the gravity and the impending impact,
you are still seen as being negative. I think it has less to do with logic,
and more to do with evolutionary biases. Mainly in-group/out-group bias (for
instance nationality, or brand allegiance) or avoiding cognitive dissonance
(If I accept your point, that means I have to change my view of the world to a
more uncomfortable position).

------
bane
You know what, I think this is a good idea. I definitely get into "I'm the
world's biggest asshole today" mode too frequently. Maybe if I get called out
on it more it'll help make me a better person. I know the rest of the civil
discourse rules here on HN have helped me become more thoughtful in other
modes of interaction.

~~~
SamReidHughes
> I definitely get into "I'm the world's biggest asshole today" mode too
> frequently.

No you don't.

~~~
bane
Well, at least we can always kaizen our way to betterment?

------
baddox
I suppose adding the guideline can't hurt, because it might at least make
people more strongly consider their comments before posting them.
Unfortunately, reasonable people can disagree about where the threshold is
between appropriate skepticism/criticism and gratuitous negativity. Since
"gratuitous" means unjustified or inappropriate, it _by definition_ should be
avoided. The trick is figuring out which things are inappropriate. Hopefully
most of you judge this comment to be on the good side of the fence. :)

~~~
dang
From the OP:

 _Negativity isn 't the problem--gratuitous negativity is. By that we mean
negativity that adds nothing of substance to a comment. This includes all
forms of meanness._

That's enough for reasonable people to get the idea. Trying to force precision
here would take us down a rabbit hole.

~~~
baddox
I think reasonable people can disagree about what adds substance to a comment.

~~~
dang
Oh, no question. But by "getting the idea" I mean the intent. Reasonable
people are always going to differ on the precise meaning of these terms. That
doesn't need to be a problem. If everyone makes a good-faith effort to avoid
gratuitous negativity however they best understand that, HN will be fine.

~~~
Jimmy
>But by "getting the idea" I mean the intent.

I'm suspicious of the intent. That's why I want a more formal criteria.

~~~
dang
I don't know of any way to formalize things like this and am skeptical that
it's doable. Simple principles, plus a request to the community to do its
sincere best with them, seem likely to produce the best outcome.

------
chippy
There is nothing to worry about. I do think it is indicative of a certain kind
of new diversity friendly, "safe space", slightly censorious attitude which is
rooted in normal human group psychology, keeping the tribe safe and secure and
also swayed by whatever flavour of popular radical politics is operating at
the time. It's nothing new. I wouldn't worry about this affecting Hacker News
but if it does, we will notice the discussions becoming stilted, people will
self-censor and there will emerge other places where people can feel more
comfortable with their own voices. We are far from that day. That day might
not ever come, HN is too small in my opinion.

I wonder though - how (if we take it to unlikely worst case scenario) would it
affect how the behaviour of certain well known personalities such as Richard
Stallman, or Linus Torvalds is viewed in the future where any form of
negativity is censored against?

~~~
Karunamon
Does that even follow, though? HN's community has traditionally (thankfully!)
flatly rejected the "safe space" PC game whenever it's attempted to be played
here, either in the comments or the submissions.

Remember that the guideline is against "gratuitous negativity", not
"negativity" in general. HN will still be a place where actual crap gets
called crap, but hopefully this means that we'll see less middlebrow criticism
and more actually substantive comments.

~~~
makmanalp
> HN will still be a place where actual crap gets called crap

I daresay that this is the problem. When one has the option to say "I think
this isn't good from perspective X, because of thing Y", and one says "this is
crap", one is being unconstructive and mean.

To say that something that someone did or thought is "crap" or "rubbish", the
way I see it, is just needlessly inflammatory. I think a lot of people
conflate being inflammatory with being frank and straightforward. "Look at how
non-PC I am, I told it like it is!!"

The truth is option A above is just as frank, but much more civil, and isn't
creating enmity when there isn't cause for any.

~~~
Karunamon
I was purposefully using "crap" as shorthand, there :)

In detail, I don't see HN ever being a place where legitimate (in other words,
well articulated) criticism gets deflected or discouraged on the grounds of
being mean or unfriendly. At the end of the day, if you have learned something
factual about what you've done, it should not be discarded just because the
usual social niceties were not provided.

Think of a Show HN post for an obviously slapdash and insecure web service of
some kind. I'd fully expect the comments to contain almost nothing but
proclamations of how the author is doing it wrong.

------
guelo
Feels like the conflict of interest of a general news forum being run by an
investment firm with PR interests is beginning to rear its ugly head.

~~~
briandear
This isn't a general news forum. The history of this board is not one of
general news but items of specific interest and relevance to startups.

~~~
nathanaldensr
You may be describing what the board /should/ be, or what it set out to be,
but judging by the threads actually being upvoted by users, you are incorrect.
We've seen everything from tech pieces to startup culture threads to general
interesting news being upvoted to the main page.

~~~
dang
One needn't look far to find out exactly what HN set out to be:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html).
It's interesting how much of that language was copied into the current
guidelines wholesale, and has stayed there.

------
zk00006
Given the fact that people get points for their answers, there is already bias
towards positive and encouraging comments in hacker news. Notice how the
comments start positive and later slowly add the information just to be
"safe". Of course not in all cases. From my experience: if I give shallow
positive comment I am more likely to get positive points, but strict negative
and often deeper comment is down voted. This rule can further increase this
bias.

~~~
tptacek
That sounds like a good thing.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
It may sound like it on the surface, but I don't think it is a good thing in
the long run.

There's a fine line between making a community and making a herd. Upvoting /
downvoting encourages both, the problem being trying to have enough to
encourage the first without enough of the second to lose the community you've
built.

------
dreamweapon
It's not just a good idea for HN. It's a good practice to apply in one's
everyday life, generally.

~~~
zk00006
There is a good reason to be negative a priory in real live. Consider you
start a thorough discussion on any problem that you encounter during the day.
You wouldn't be doing anything else and die of hunger. In my opinion, people
must be negative and quickly reject stuff that does not make sense to them.
Forcing them to discuss about stuff that don't make sense to them is waste of
time for both sites. For this reasons I would simply ignore negative comments
and not ban them.

~~~
bitcrusher
Dismissing things that don't make sense probably isn't a good idea. Some of
the most interesting things I've learned have been from working hard to
discuss and understand something that didn't make sense to me at the time.

Also, there are often cases when someone has an idea or thought that isn't
necessarily framed with the right wording. That doesn't make the idea invalid
and it is often worth exploring to understand what they were trying to
express.

These things is a 'waste of time', in my opinion. In fact, it is often the
direct opposite: A wonderful use of time.

------
vikp
Great change.

I second the request for examples -- "gratuitous" is subjective, and until
better moderation tools exist, it would be nice if the community has some
standards around who to issue "gentle reminders" to.

It would also be nice to have the guidelines be in a more prominent spot than
the bottom of the page -- it's hard to notice them as is.

------
sprash
This is the worst idea ever. I'm generally a pretty negative person for a
reason. Negative feedback is necessary for anything to actually get better.

And who or what decides what is "gratuitous". This is a recipe for despotism
and censorship.

~~~
switch007
I agree. This reminiscent of a manager that wants to make a mark by creating
arbitrary, vague rules out of the blue.

This a community. Was there a "we think we may have a gratuitous negativity
problem" discussion?

Thin end of the wedge, perhaps. I hope not.

(From the article) "Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference
between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb."

If negative, anonymous feedback here disuades and disenchants them, what hope
is there?

Are we going to have a Safe Place section of the site, to protect applicants
from all bad things?

Bad things happen. Mean people will say mean things on the Internet. Life is
hard.

~~~
krebby
> If negative, anonymous feedback here disuades and disenchants them, what
> hope is there?

Absolutely. See Dropbox's Show HN, the slashdot iPod announcement, and every
other worthwhile product ever. As a community we're pretty bad at picking
successes.

~~~
pekk
People are also erroneously overrating things all the time. The problem with
our predictions isn't a skew to negativity, just the normal inability to
predict the future due to lack of knowledge.

~~~
krebby
There's also a definite survivorship bias (and an equally strong failure bias)
to remember only the outliers. Most ideas fall squarely in the middle and we
promptly forget about them.

(obligatory xkcd [https://xkcd.com/1497/](https://xkcd.com/1497/))

------
itg
Great to see this. Fortunately those sorts of comments usually get downvoted
here. Also this is one reason I stopped following so much of the developer
community on Twitter. So much of it is full of snark and piling on others
mistakes for a quick retweet.

------
smoyer
My comments (depending on my mood) will often include "Snark" while still
making a point. I suspect I'm going to get down-voted much more often if the
community decides that down-votes are the way to enforce this. I don't mind
being down-voted occasionally but I'd rather not be hell-banned - I think I
still contribute to the community overall.

I (previously) used the average karma/contribution on my profile page to self-
police by trying to maintain an average around at least 3. Any idea why it was
removed? Will it be coming back in some form? Any ideas on other ways to make
sure I'm staying positive on here?

~~~
dang
If worried, you can always email us at hn@ycombinator.com to get a reading on
what's going on (not that we always know). But really, don't worry about it.
Of course you're a positive contributor. Truly negative contributors, by the
way, never worry about this.

We got rid of average because (a) after looking extensively at the data we
didn't see any value in it, (b) we had evidence of people gaming the metric,
(c) its implementation was complicated, and most importantly (d) we think
upvotes are wrong thing to optimize for. Optimize for saying substantive
things.

------
JoshTriplett
> To support this, Daniel and the HN team are working on another new idea I'm
> very excited about--code-named "Modnesty"\--to turn more moderation power
> over to the community. We'll be sharing more on that in the coming months.

That sounds really interesting. I'm curious what kind of additional moderation
capabilities this potentially includes. In particular, personally I'm less
interested in the moderation ability to more heavily bury or downvote awful
comments or stories, and more interested in the ability to "rescue" something
that's been excessively flagged/downvoted.

~~~
dang
Yes, that's what we're working on. It turned out to be tricky for technical
reasons, but we're getting there.

------
chaosfactor
Wow, this post has some hard core moralizing in it. The whole concept that a
mean comment is going to prevent the next AirBnB. That may be the case, but
it's unfalsifiable and straight up passing more judgement. I can do without
that, personally. I mean, you seriously won't let Linus Torvalds post on HN?

~~~
exodust
Not only that, but overly positive, glass always half full comments for the
sake of guidelines might prevent the next AirBnB too.

Perhaps for those people seeking feedback who want brutally raw, might-hurt-a-
bit honesty, a special flag can be set inviting all manner of such comments. I
know I'd elect for that, and would be disappointed with anything less. Spicy
internet discussion can flush out the pipes of a concept and invigorate
thoughtful discussion quite efficiently. It can also derail, but it's worth
the risk IMHO.

------
nikcub
being a cynic with startups and new tech is an easy way to appear wise and
correct since ~90% fail, so it is no surprise many take it up as a position as
you can appear a genius while offering no actual insight, base it on little
actual understanding and it doesn't require much thought.

~~~
dang
It's such an important point, and I think it applies to new ideas and projects
as well as it does to startups. You can maintain a high correctness percentage
simply by negating everything, but this is guaranteed to destroy expected
value.

One psychological aspect of this is the need to feel that one is right. Smart
technical people can become addicted to this, but it's the wrong thing to
optimize for if you care about curiosity, which it kills.

------
TheLoneWolfling
I do not agree with this.

I agree with the principle, but in practice, it is too subjective. Reasonable
people can - and will - disagree as to what is warranted and what they
consider justifiable.

Now, if it was well-defined, that would be something else. But I don't see any
way of doing so, humanity being such as it is.

------
brickmort
Great move! HN is in dire need of this guideline. Someone could post the most
amazing new project that they have worked months/years on, and the comments
section would inevitably have comments like "this is rubbish, completely
unusable, security flaws here and there" etc etc

~~~
lnanek2
People saying it is useless are useful, however, because you can see why it is
useless to them and either accept it isn't part of your target market or
change the product to include them. People just saying great things when they
aren't allowed to be negative is kind of meaningless and unhelpful.

~~~
dragonwriter
> People saying it is useless are useful, however, because you can see why it
> is useless to them

No, people saying _why_ it is useless (which is grounded, not gratuitous,
negativity at worst) are useful for that reason. People _merely_ saying _that_
it is useless are not useful.

> People just saying great things when they aren't allowed to be negative is
> kind of meaningless and unhelpful.

A community guideline against gratuitous negativity cannot reasonably be
expected to result in "people saying great things when they aren't allowed to
be negative" because people are still allowed to be negative, and, in any
case, people saying positive things _with explanations_ are just as useful as
people saying negative things with explanations.

------
jmadsen
I'm glad they finally stepped in to try to deal with this problem.

HN has long ago become something of a joke to the rest of the English-speaking
internet at large. When a great many people you know and respect "can't be
bothered with that site", you should be concerned.

For those of you thinking this is somehow unnecessary, let me remind you that
genius will only take you so far. Good social skills get you the rest of the
way. Look at this as an opportunity for self-improvement where you may not
recognize that you need some.

------
moe
Random idea:

How about an extra pair of vote-buttons to classify a comment as
"positive/negative" (karma-neutral)?

I often find the karma-system frustratingly one-dimensional.

Experiments in that direction are of course a slippery slope, but what place
other than a hacker forum could be a better petri dish?

~~~
maxerickson
If we have extra buttons, let's have them be toggles like flag/unflag and name
them something like "mean", "inane" and "misleading".

~~~
moe
Yes, that's actually the direction I was aiming for, a little bit like the
Slashdot system.

I just think it's very hard to choose meaningful adjectives/dimensions (the
slashdot set also quickly feels limiting). That's why I'd start with the most
basic sentiment(s) first (positive|negative, agree|disagree, ...), see how
that goes, and possibly extend from there.

~~~
striking
What do adjectives have to do with commenting?

~~~
moe
Not with commenting but with classifying the comments.

As maxerickson said we'd have additional votes for adjectives like e.g.
"mean", "interesting", "funny" and others, but the hard part would be to
choose a meaningful set.

I think almost any set would probably feel arbitrary and limiting quickly, so
I'd rather stick with very few, very basic ones and see how that goes.

~~~
maxerickson
I think the bigger problem is what to do with the extra information.

In that light, something like "too far off topic" is probably more useful (I
think the too far is good there, as a reminder that things probably ought to
range a bit).

------
InclinedPlane
Some tips:

If you write a response, before sending it go back through and edit it, think
about removing unneeded negativity now that you have a fully fleshed post.

If your post starts with "No." or "You're wrong." consider removing those and
just letting your argument stand on its own.

Consider using softer and more charitable words like "mistaken" instead of
"wrong". Usually that's what is meant in most cases anyway.

Avoid the backdoor route to building a strawman, don't add unspecified details
or intensity to a post that isn't there. Doing so makes it easier to get on a
high horse, but usually that isn't warranted. Get used to having a genial
exchange of views with a slight difference of opinion, it's not necessary for
every "argument" to be a fight to the death.

Try to read posts by others more charitably, and take the time to apologize
for mistakes you've made or times you've let your emotions get the better of
your reason.

Upvote comments you disagree with that are well made and lead to a good
discussion.

~~~
MollyR
These are good tips. I will be using them.

Do you have advice how to figure out if someone is responding in bad faith,
and what to do in those situations ?

EDIT: > Avoid the backdoor route to building a strawman, don't add unspecified
details or intensity to a post that isn't there.

What if you must add details to clarify what the context of the post is ? ex
.Water is liquid. I reply But Water is solid when below freezing.

~~~
InclinedPlane
If someone is responding in bad faith, then usually you just want to curtail
talking to them. If you think it's still necessary to continue the thread due
to the "audience", then concentrate on facts and sources and just make the
strongest argument you can then just leave it alone. Avoid trying to get the
last word or being goaded into responding just because someone said something
that makes you upset.

In regards to clarification, that's easy, ask questions, ask for
clarification. Just don't assume.

------
ianstallings
Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person and wouldn't be
allowed to post here for very long before he was hell banned.

Maybe the issue isn't so much _negativity_ as it is _sensitivity_.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person

HN guidelines do not address whether a person is good or bad (or "terrible").

> and wouldn't be allowed to post here for very long before he was hell
> banned.

You assume that Torvalds, if he choose to participate in HN, would apply the
same mode of interaction he applies in different contexts with different
expectations.

While, certainly, there are people who are unable to adjust their mode of
interaction based on what is appropriate in different contexts, I don't see
that it is clear that Torvalds is among them.

> Maybe the issue isn't so much negativity as it is sensitivity.

Or maybe the issue is that what lots of people want out of HN isn't the same
kind of environment in which the actions of Torvalds to which you are
obliquely referring occur.

~~~
decisiveness
>Or maybe the issue is that what lots of people want out of HN isn't the same
kind of environment in which the actions of Torvalds to which you are
obliquely referring occur.

The actions of Torvalds, though brash, are respected not because of his
accomplishments, but because his assertions are usually quite valid. Many of
us can learn from not discarding useful counterpoints simply because of how
colorfully or insultingly they are delivered.

------
tmalsburg2
One 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 the US there is a strong emphasis
on presenting criticism in a considerate and toned-down way, whereas in Europe
people are better at dealing with open criticism. There are merits to both
approaches and I don't think it's a good idea to force the American way of
doing things on this community. Hacker news needs to evolve a composite of the
two ways to deal with criticism in an organic fashion.

~~~
dang
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.

------
vitd
I think I agree with the spirit of this guideline, but I have serious doubts
that it can work. Here's why: I joined HN a year or two ago. I didn't go back
and read any posts written before I joined. Anyone joining after today will
have no idea that this is the way things are supposed to be.

Further, I suspect (though I hope I'm wrong) that a rule like this could end
up causing the same issues that people here complain about with Stack
Overflow. Namely, we'll end up with a brigade of people who feel it's their
job to keep the "gratuitous negativity" to a minimum. The only problem is that
everyone will have a different idea of what constitutes "gratuitous". But I
hope to be proven wrong!

~~~
dang
> I think I agree with the spirit of this guideline, but I have serious doubts
> that it can work.

Let's see. HN is experimental, and this is just another experiment. If it
works, it will be because community members help shift the culture in a
higher-quality direction.

That, by the way, is also how newcomers find out about these things. Rules
don't communicate themselves, but culture does.

~~~
solve
Dang, what's the percentage of active / new users who visit the guidelines
page? Can you measure this in the website analytics?

> Rules don't communicate themselves, but culture does.

At this point, you should really just copy the methods that Producthunt used
to shape their community culture. Their strategy was perfect. In PH's case, it
wasn't some intangible culture persuading people how to act, it was the
founders directly telling people that being supportive and friendly is
absolutely required, or else you'll be banned from commenting. See their 3
great recent videos on this precise topic:

[https://courses.platzi.com/classes/build-grow-online-
communi...](https://courses.platzi.com/classes/build-grow-online-
communities/concepto/how-to-build-and-grow-online-communities-by-
produc/product-hunt-live-class-part-1/material/)

~~~
dang
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.

~~~
solve
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 and substantiveness. Is HN really that unwilling to consider how the
comments emotionally affect the creators? Trying to put this in the nicest
way, the HN mods come across as autistic and emotionally detached. It's
actually very easy for a regular person to understand whether a comment will
be inclined to making someone want to quit working on the creation they've
shared, no matter how civil or substantively it's written

~~~
dang
> 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.

~~~
solve
I can see what you mean about the scaling problems.

------
EdSharkey
Must comments be soothing and agreeable to be appreciated at all? Is it okay
to be caustic if you're also making a good point?

For example, I often say intentionally chaotic things in relation to Microsoft
stories because we have a history and this reflects my current impression of
that company.

That said, I find a lot of their recent changes, open source contributions,
and future plans very agreeable and sometimes amazing and I try to point that
out.

So, is it ok to dredge up their past transgressions if I can simultaneously
make positive observations regarding MSFT's future?

Even though I tinge towards the negative/chaos, I notice that I can 'score'
better with people whenever I put effort into the quality of my writing.

~~~
tptacek
No, they merely need to be substantive.

~~~
throwawaymaroon
This is a sensible policy only until you have to define what is and isn't
substantive.

Since "substantive" tends to evaluate to "it changed my mind or I don't
believe it to be completely wrong," it becomes a subjective game very quickly.

Arguing something that many people disagree with outright is inherently going
to look negative no matter how 'substantive' it turns out to be.

~~~
tptacek
The post we're commenting on addresses this: this concern is why the guideline
is enforced only as a community norm, not with code.

~~~
throwawaymaroon
In other words, it's a policy with no teeth, a simple admonishment?

I mean, I don't disagree: I think this changes absolutely nothing. If anything
it's a renewal of the old guidelines, not an addition to them.

I suppose I think there's _some_ ambiguity into what is intended, and there's
therefore some investigation into HN's relationship with negativity going on.

There's a kneejerk reaction to view this as an attempt to prevent people like
me from spouting their usual hostility towards the tech scene, and I demand
the right to be booed off stage!

------
pyrrhotech
A lot of us (I'm at the top of the list) are occasionally hasty to be negative
on the hottest new social media startups. As SA says, it's human nature to
feel jealousy and sour grapes. "Damn these kids and their stupid chat apps
that I could have made in 3 days when I was 16... and now they're raising 10
million dollars???". That's how most of us grinding it out at big companies
likely feel when we read post after post of it, but it's not constructive to
either ourselves or the community. Instead, I think there are some things to
learn about markets, trends and even of how to conquer our own defeating
psychosis from these stories.

~~~
dang
This is precisely the kind of self-reflection that, in my experience, helps
one resist the temptation to negativity that Sam wrote about in his post. It
isn't easy and one invariably lapses, but it's profoundly worth doing. Thanks
for giving us an admirable example.

------
hayksaakian
I don't think negativity is intrinsicly bad or harmful.

Obviously there's a line where a comment becomes predominantly mean.

The only concern I have is that one day it takes too much cognitive overhead
to post an insightful comment that happens to be negative.

------
mhurron
This sucks, just trying to pretend everything is wine and roses and everyone
is happy, happy, happy all the time.

Couldn't help it.

------
deciplex
Well, at the risk of adding "gratuitous negativity" to this comment thread,
I'll say this: sounds like another way for people to rationalize downvoting
posts they merely dislike or disagree with.

------
nirkalimi
Excited about this. I would love for this to be implemented all over the
internet.

It is fairly easy to be negative. In fact, the cynical approach is the easiest
point of view you can take. I have been working on this myself, and I
encourage everyone to try and go the whole day/week/month practicing the
opposite.

I think this has to do with how we are taught. Critical thinking somewhere
down the line gave justification to being 'gratuitously negative'. I went my
whole life thinking that I was being helpful when in reality I was just
hurting people.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
It isn't so much the negative comments that bug me as much as the downvoting
with no explanation.

~~~
ptaipale
I wondered the same the other day. Best explanation I could come up with is
that an explanatory comment would expose the downvoter to being downvoted (in
retaliation or otherwise).

------
kposehn
I read this and immediately thought "I hope I never actually did this myself"

Looking through my comment history, I have a few times previously. We're all
fallible, but at the same time this sort of negativity can come through
without intending it. I'm really caring and optimistic, so to see some of my
comments become unintentionally overly negative is kind of humbling.

Let's all remember how easy this is to do and keep an eye on ourselves. It
matters.

------
vitriol83
good idea. perhaps we should abolish downvoting too- isn't that the very
definition of gratuitous negativity?

------
andrewstuart
It would be interesting to run a six month exercise in which HN users could
tag HN posts with single keywords that identify the tone of the post.

------
mncolinlee
I have an idea related to this guideline.

Good tools already exist to do automated sentiment analysis. It would be
extremely interesting to build forum software for HN that detects when a
commenter is going too far with negativity and then gently guides that person
to tone it down a bit while the comment is still being composed.

Maybe a few gentle prompts at the right moment is all it really takes.

~~~
dang
I'd love to be wrong about this, but believe that the sentiment tools are too
crude to rely on. They tend to get the nuances of conversation wrong, and
those are the life blood of HN threads.

We do intend to try it, though, when we have the cycles. It might be useful as
a supplement, or if nothing else a fun experiment.

------
notacoward
This might work if enforcement had any chance whatsoever of being enforced
fairly, and not just another club the staff and the already-karma-rich can use
to harass people who don't see the world as they do. Is it gratuitously
negative for me to point out that, in the entire history of moderation systems
on forums like these, that has never happened? Here's what I really expect
will happen, based on thirty-plus years' experience online.

* Comments that are insightful and informative overall, and recognized by the community for being so, will still get dinged for one poor choice of phrase.

* Comments that are critical of anything outside the already-obvious zeitgeist, but worded passive-aggressively enough that their _actual_ gratuitous negativity and chilling effect can be explained away, will get a pass.

This will have less of an effect on negativity than on diversity of opinion.

------
diminish
Could anyone develop some arguments for "gratuitous negativity". An attempt
would focus on the adjective "gratuitous" which contains a lot of subjective
bias and could be interpreted this way or that way depending who rules the
domain.

Moreover one can claim "gratuitous positivity" is the bigger danger.

------
blazespin
I think this is an effective idea for building community, but it is not
rational or scientific if carried to far. An important principal in science is
falsification. Actively attacking an idea provides a critically important
perspective and those who avoid that perspective are doomed to failure.

------
JadeNB
I've seen reference to this and other HN guidelines in the past, but the only
reason that I know what some of these guidelines are (or even about their
existence) is because of occasional mention in discussions. Is there a single
source for the guidelines that I should be following?

~~~
davecardwell
There is a link in the footer to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
QuantumRoar
> Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing
> of value to the community.

That's a comparison of apples and oranges. Critical thinking is something you
do, i.e. an action. Cynicism is an attribute of a person.

This essentially tells that a cynic, i.e. the person as a whole, should not
contribute in the case he/she is shallow. Whatever 'shallow' means in the
context of a point of view developed from years of experience.

So even if such a 'shallow cynic' is critically thinking he/she is excluded as
per that statement.

I'd rephrase that statement using a word like sarcasm (that is actually an
action and not a statement about a person) since the guidelines should not
criticize persons but their actions, which is – by the way – the right way to
phrase negative feedback.

------
runewell
Correctly interpreting online communication is difficult. What one person
considers constructive feedback another person may interpret as negativity.

Reminds me of that Key & Peele skit:
[https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo](https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo)

------
Sealy
I like this policy. I think it'll help encourage positivity in a field which
can often receive harsh critique. Bullying, especially cyber-bullying has
never been an easier, faceless crime that we have to unite to stand up
against. Good on you Y-Combinator for leading the efforts.

Mr Zuckerberg and his team must have had similar conversations at Facebook
when people keep asking him about whether or not to add a 'dis-like' button.
He said publicly that although he did not agree with a thumbs down button, he
did see a need for another button which would acknowledge a post.

Say for example, if someone posts about bereaving a lost loved one. Others may
not want to hit a 'like' button in that context but would love to hit an
alternative 'acknowledge / agree' button.

------
lackbeard
"Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving
up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb."

This is melodrama. Ignoring the negativity in comments on an internet message
board has got to rank as one of the smallest possible challenges a startup can
face.

------
SeanDav
While on this subject, I would like to see less downvoting for comments you
don't agree with but are otherwise ok. Downvoting should be reserved for
factually incorrect comments, trolling, meanness and other undesirable
properties, not for a difference of opinion.

------
carsongross
Request for a special case: if we are the original author or it's a ShowHN,
can we allow gratuitous negativity by declaration?

I've had some people talk some mad shit about intercooler.js and yet, after
engaging them a bit, I learned some very useful things.

~~~
dang
I don't think that violates the spirit of the guidelines, so why not.

------
twoy
Negative comments based on reason are the reason why I keep checking HN
comments. Those comments are valuable because trade offs are rarely shown than
benefits. However those interesting comments are often downvoted with spinal
reflex.

------
meesterdude
I find the "gratuitous negativity" a bit vague; i think thats poor wording
choice, and something more descriptive should be developed. But I agree the
principle is is good.

Its ok for people to be dumb, and for ideas or products to be shit. They exist
/ will keep coming. But if you want to actually contribute to the discussion,
ask questions instead of belittling them. Try to steer them in the right
direction instead of trying to get them to jump off the tracks entirely.
Building stuff is hard, presenting things to your peers is nerve wrecking.
Armchairs are comfy to speak from, but they don't move anything forward.

------
rokhayakebe
Please remove the ability to download. Downvotes are the first step towards
meanness.

~~~
pain
<3 I missed your comment!i I felt that way too for
[https://whatwouldempathydo.reddit.com](https://whatwouldempathydo.reddit.com).
It was the first measure I took.

#Meanreal. #Votereal. #Censereal. #Sensereal. #Centreal. . #Traumareal.
#Painreal.

------
Gatsky
The guideline has some vaguely politically correct overtones, which seems to
be putting people off a little, but I think this is unwarranted.

Good comments seem to me to have the same characteristics - insight, good
will, lessons from experience, novelty, thoughtfulness. Strongly held,
polarising and poorly explained opinions aren't one of those characteristics.

I myself have written comments which start with a negative comment, and then
through fleshing it out arrive at a more moderate position at the end... at
which point I go back and change the first sentence. Don't just write the
first sentence...

------
jksmith
Getting downvoted on this board can sometimes be a mark of distinction. And
anybody who complains about golang not having generics is a wimpy whiner, IMO.
And as has been said before on this board, Hail Satan.

------
wilschroter
Sorta feel like there needs to be more teeth to this than simply guidelines
based.

@SamA what more "severe" approaches did you consider and why did you decide
they wouldn't work? This is a difficult challenge.

~~~
gizmo
There's a good chance this will be sufficient. If HN discourse doesn't improve
I'm sure sama and others will try something else (perhaps with more teeth,
perhaps a software change).

------
johnhenry
"How are we going to enforce this? By asking the community to do so. Gentle
reminders by peers are the best way we know to make the culture better." I
like this approach because this, itself, is a gentle reminder to the
community. Perhaps the best way is to avoid active censorship and encourage us
to reflect upon ourselves. However; I do fear that this will, at least on some
threads, lead to a passive aggressive string of comments that's no more
helpful than what we are trying to avoid in the first place.

------
guscost
I'm sometimes bothered by the unhelpful cynicism that pops up here and
elsewhere, but if I'm bothered more often than I used to be, it's probably
more the effect of me getting old than any objective change. Unhelpful
cynicism was probably more common in my own comments from five years ago.

Arguing politely (read: effectively) is a skill that takes a long time to
learn. These uncultured kids will show up every year, and it would be quite a
leap to attribute it to anything but the steady passage of time.

------
decasteve
When criticizing a post/article, either commenting about the subject of the
article and/or the writer of the article, my rule of thumb is to put myself in
their shoes. What if I was the person being written about? Or what if I was
the author of the article?

Some comments would (and do) have a negative impact on me. Other more
objective comments or advice, though still sometimes hard to take when it is
criticism, should be expressed freely.

------
allochthon
One of the main ways gratuitous negativity is found here is in downvoting of
comments for anything other than trolling. There are many well-meaning
comments that are downvoted that should not be. It makes the membership of
this site look ugly (those that do the downvoting, anyway). It is bad enough
in some cases that I have taken it as a badge of honor; to my mind that means
it's not really serving its purpose.

------
snarfy
It's a common trend I see, not just here, but in all online forums as they
grow. I'm glad to see you guys calling it out.

------
oskarth
Great work!

It's amazing just how many arguments reduce to nothing if you discard those
that don't apply the principle of charity.

------
dataker
While I understand the reasons behind the article, I don't think it's a real
issue on HN. If someone uses gratuitous negativity, other users generally will
comment and refute the fallacious claim. As logic and respect are usually
kept, users will rarely feel terrible like other communities and forums.

------
daliwali
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.

~~~
dang
Why would you think that? We're very concerned with not excluding outsiders.
One of the great strengths of the internet is the potential for anyone to make
a substantive contribution. Indeed, making substantive contributions should be
_the_ way to become an insider (or the healthy equivalent of that concept) on
Hacker News.

There are some fair criticisms to be made of HN being a little insular and
exclusive. (The leader board, for example—not that we emphasize it or even
like it—moves in geological time.) We plan eventually to work on that to
encourage more up-and-comers. But how a guideline against gratuitous
negativity could discourage any outsiders except trolls is beyond me. It's
dismaying that anyone would think so, so please let us know your concerns.

------
peterarmstrong
How about doubleplusunpositivity?

In all seriousness, the line between a valuable piece of criticism and
gratuitous negativity seems like a fine line, and one of the things I like
about HN is that there is usually intelligent criticism in the comments. This
seems like it goes against that...

------
pera
This is great, my only (unconstructive) complain is why you didn't start with
this before :)

------
beefsack
I hope this doesn't affect the unique pragmatism you find around here. I've
seen a lot of ego-stroking back-patting around here recently which don't add
substance to conversations, should we have a guideline around gratuitous
positivity too?

------
superobserver
Gratuitous negativity is a given when it is possible for users to downvote
others anonymously for no good reason. My recent posts are a testament to
that; thus, a call to avoiding it would necessitate the abolition of
downvoting, which will never happen.

------
lazyeye
The question alot of HNers ask themselves before commenting.."What can I say
that makes me sound clever and better than the original poster?". The easy,
lazy approach is just to find something to criticize. Alot of insecure people
on HN.

------
lobo_tuerto
Also, one should never take anything too personal. Even if the critique is
somewhat mean, try to extract what the critique is about and move along.

You will learn to grow a thick skin, but also, to absorb any useful feedback
from whatever source it might come from.

------
nabla9
related matter:

1\. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related hacking or
engineering projects is not beneficial unless it's very detailed or
insightful. If you don't like it, move on. Don't give your two cents if it's
critique.

2\. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related to science should
be default (unless they come from top notch publications like Nature or
Science). The quality of science news and press releases related to science is
abysmal. People consume science hype almost like religious people listen
sermons about heaven and don't even realize it. Popularized science posted in
HN is 99% rubbish.

------
modernerd
“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible
and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far
as possible friendly rather than hostile.”

– Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, 1930

------
dennisgorelik
Unfortunately Sam did not give any examples, so it's hard to understand what
exactly he means by "Gratuitous Negativity".

In particular, it's not clear where constructive criticism ends and gratuitous
negativity starts.

------
edmack
This is great. I hope the community rally around this and make it happen.

------
pekk
I find the broadness of this guideline really worrisome and likely to
exacerbate bad traits HN has developed. It's going to be extremely easy, I
invite you to watch for this, to broadly apply it to whatever is against the
prevailing groupthink, and selectively exclude the prevailing groupthink. For
example, "shallow cynicism" about favorites like Wikileaks will be mercilessly
punished, as already happens by downvote, but by contrast "shallow cynicism"
about enemies like the US Government is de rigueur here, so pointing out that
it is shallow cynicism will be mercilessly punished - now with additional
reinforcement from staff due to the "negativity" guideline.

------
bougiefever
In other words, don't be a big meanie. If you don't see the value in someone
else's idea for an invention, ask questions. Maybe you're missing something.

------
bootload
_" Modnesty --to turn more moderation power over to the community."_

Q. Does everyone get equal access to moderation? If so, will equal access
cause a skew in moderation?

~~~
dang
As equal as the current access is to flagging, unless we see evidence that
that won't work.

~~~
bootload
thx Dan

------
frakkingcylons
I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of this rule, but I think the better
policy is to ban low-effort comments. Either way, glad to see the HN team
doing something.

------
blt
I agree that we should try to reduce "this is a stupid idea" comments, but
does that include "this doesn't belong on HN" comments?

~~~
mbrubeck
These were already against the guidelines:

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
> for the site.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
jokoon
Even when it's for technical stuff, it's getting condescending pretty quickly.
You'll feel bad for being wrong.

~~~
monksy
And then you should get over it and learn something to correct it.

~~~
jokoon
maybe the blog post about "avoiding gratuitous negativity" is kinda about
avoiding the hurting of people's feelings.

------
suyash
HN moderation is total crap, too much control will kill the openness of this
platform.

------
gtrubetskoy
It would be interesting if we all agreed to vote up gratuitously negative and
dismissive comments in a Geroge-Costanza-The-Opposite way in response to this
(and only this!) post, just to illuminate how much of that goes around.

------
coreyoconnor
Can we extend this to the rest of Silicon Valley?

------
pdxgene
+1. Yes, please.

------
res0nat0r
This is a good step, but I think just the increase in overly political
postings vs. tech oriented content has been a major contributor to the
negativity.

~~~
pdkl95
For better or worse, many "tech oriented" topics these days _are_ politics.

Many people in the engineering and related fields often wish to ignore the
political discussions and stay focused on the technology. This is an
understandable desire. Technology is is often complicated leading to a general
hatred of having to context switch into other topics. Experience teaches that
it is a usually easier to achieve reliable results with technology you can
logically prove or verify that with emotional, capricious, untrustworthy
humans.

Unfortunately, technology brought us products such as "smart TV" that bring up
serious questions about surveillance and evidence, cheap network clients that
allow ubiquitous access to incredible amounts of knowledge that is certain to
affect education and testing/grading, and self-driving cars that will require
a serious refactoring of many aspects of society.

More importantly, I think it is important to remember that escaping the
political side of anything simply cedes any disagreement to those that _are_
addressing politics. I think JMS said it best in the closing lines of Babylon
5: "we had to create the future, or others will do it for us". Technology
experts need to address these things, or important decisions will be left to
those that are not qualified.

Now, that said, neither technology nor political discussions excuse rudeness,
personal attacks, or generally disruptive behavior.

------
queryly
It is part of life lesson to distinguish bull shits from constructive
criticism.

If you haven't learned it elsewhere, HN is good place to start.

------
pduszak
Sam Altman's response to all the criticism received on his article "Bubble
talk."

------
jsweojtj
No. No no no no no no no.

------
danbmil99
Good luck with that

~~~
danbmil99
HN could use a better sense of irony

------
bra-ket
what a stupid idea

------
kimdouglasmason
Rah Rah Rah! If your startup is not winning, just pivot, and be positive
enough, and you will inevitably win. Selection bias doesn't exist and was made
up by negative Nancys.

Seriously though, stick a fork in HN. It's over. Enjoy the echo chamber that
this place will inevitably become.

~~~
orthoganol
There are echo chamber aspects of HN... Especially Sam's AMA, which I was
hoping would be a discussion of Sam's life, philosophies, interesting
anecdotes, etc. like it is over on Reddit, but instead was predominantly
questions about how to get into YC :(.

Even so I'll take the good with the bad, you still get great insights on
technology. It just morphs for the worse when YC companies post, or the topic
turn to getting into YC.

------
andrepd
This measure is bullshit.

~~~
rikkus
I scrolled to the bottom of the comments because I knew some people would have
made jokes and been downvoted for it. Just thought I'd let you know that _I_
laughed, so thanks.

------
arca_vorago
"Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing
of value to the community."

I will assure you that my very _deep cynicism_ was reached through long and
arduous resistance to such, but critical thinking, logic, rationality, and
truth rank higher than happiness in my book. I will continue to be as negative
as I see fit, without being _constantly_ "gratuitously negative".

------
fapjacks
Hah! This is excellent and exactly what I see happening out in the real world.
People don't like the unpleasantness and turmoil of disagreeable ideas and
people with those ideas, and so the solution is not to burst the comfortable
down-pillow bubble of their existence, but to pad it further by "eliminating"
"negativity". Even better considering who gets to decide what constitutes
"negativity". Fantastic job, guys. Bravo.

Edit: There are some salient points here about downvoting and how it's
affected the community, and I am extremely interested in how "to turn more
moderation power over to the community" is going to compound the problem of
incentivizing positive-only feedback, id est if and how this "community
moderation" mechanism will couple with downvoting to make disagreeing even
more hazardous.

------
paulhauggis
"New work and new ideas are fragile. Too much gratuitous negativity might be
the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next
Airbnb. Obviously, we want Hacker News to help startups and people doing new
work, not hurt them. Building stuff is hard, and you'll always need a thick
skin. But we see no need for Hacker News to make the problem worse."

I see it different way. I think many times, people with terrible startup ideas
get led along too far because they haven't been told enough it's not a very
good idea. The result can be very harmful: life savings lost, dropping out of
college, investors money lost (which could be friends and family).

"The human trait of being unhappy with other people's success is something
we’ve all felt and should all try to avoid"

I don't think the negative comments is an example of this. Most of the
negative comments I have seen are before a person is successful, not after.

Even so, they are just words. If overly negative comments discourage you from
starting a company, maybe you shouldn't be starting a company. You just aren't
ready. Negative comments, unless constructive, are meaningless. I just wish
more people stopped taking these comments so personally and seriously.

Is this new policy also going to apply to the negative comments I see every
day toward opposing political and ideological views?

Many communities have started this policy online, but I have found it's a tool
used to silence critics and opposing viewpoints. I just hope this doesn't also
happen to the HN community.

------
minimaxir
This appears to be prompted (EDIT: related to) by my discussion in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317028)
.

As I mentioned there, it may be helpful to explicitly differatiate negativity
vs. gratuitous negativity in that case. (Most examples of gratuitous
negativity I've seen are low effort "this site sucks" comments, which are
downvoted for reasons unrelated to negativity, and ad hominem attacks are
already covered in the guidelines.)

~~~
dang
This wasn't prompted by any recent discussion. It has been a long, long time
coming.

~~~
ryanx435
so says the censor, so it must be true.

~~~
OmarIsmail
I was struggling to define exactly what is meant by "gratuitous negativity",
so thank you for giving what I think is a perfect example. It'd be great if
you could answer the following questions about your comment to I think really
get to the heart of the matter:

What were you trying to accomplish with your comment?

In what way does your comment move the conversation forward?

What are possible useful responses to your comment?

~~~
ryanx435
Interesting that you perceive this as "gratuitous negativity" as that was not
my intention. answers to your questions:

1) pointing out that you shouldn't always believe those in positions of power,
especially when they are attempting to control the narrative. you may not know
this, but dang works for HN and his job is literally to censor comments and
articles to ensure they follow the guidelines.

2) by reminding everyone who reads it that they should think critically, not
only about the words being said, but also the context in which they are said
and who is saying the words.

3) there probably aren't many as it isnt meant to be responded to, so much as
to be a reminder to consider who is speaking, and to take all things with a
grain of salt. although your response certainly engendered me to reply. but
just because it is difficult to respond doesn't mean it isn't a useful
contribution.

~~~
OmarIsmail
I have two choices in how to take this most recent reply. I can be the cynic
and "think critically" and think you're just trying to come up with
justifications for your snide remark after the fact. OR I can be charitable
and believe that you're being honest, and really were trying to not be
negative/overly cynical and instead acting as a reminder.

What you'll notice is that in your original comment you were not charitable to
dang. He made a very clear statement that this change was not a reply to a
specific comment. And your reply to that is effectively "you're not
trustworthy". You are reinforcing this last point in your most recent reply by
reiterating that dang's "job is to censor comments ...". Inferring that
someone is untrustworthy is the opposite of being charitable, and falls
squarely into "negative" territory.

You may feel that "calling someone out" and thus reminding people to "think
critically" justifies the negativity of calling someone untrustworthy, but it
doesn't. If you can't demonstrate how dang has shown himself to be
untrustworthy, then all you're doing is slinging mud. If you know of an
incident where he's been untrustworthy, then the constructive thing would be
to say "Unfortunately I don't really believe you dang because you've proven
yourself to be untrustworthy [here, here and here]."

And if your base reason for adding the comment is to remind people to "think
critically" how patronizing is that to everyone that reads that? Why are you
making the assumption that we're not thinking critically? Why do you feel it's
your role to make sure that us readers are thinking critically?

Do you see the inherent arrogance in your comment, and thus how that adds to
its negativity?

I think a corollary to the "don't be gratuitously negative" guideline, is
"don't write as if you know better than everybody else"

~~~
ryanx435
I didn't realize it before, but this new guideline is probably targeting
people exactly like myself. likely why I only have 40 some karma after however
many years I've been on here.

so I guess I'll go back to lurking, since I'm not a member of the portion of
the population that knows how to comment properly. does this make me bitter?
yeah. but I'm human and I'm allowed to have emotions, no matter how
irrational. is it for the "greater good" of the HN community? apparently
everyone seems to think so.

y'all can go fuck yourselves :)

~~~
dang
You don't have to go back to lurking if you don't want to. What we're asking
for can very much be learned. Like a lot of people here, I started out as a
caustic commenter. I thought that was a good thing to do, for a bunch of
reasons, and it took me a long time to realize that it was a net negative.

There's a lot of learning behind these guidelines and some of us learned it
the hard way. You don't have to. Your fellow community members will give you
amazingly thoughtful and practical feedback if you show any sign of wanting
sincerely to improve.

------
curiously
I don't like this. This is akin to censorship.

------
oafitupa
But now Bitcoin haters will have nothing to say!

------
pain
One of the most passive-aggressive habits is avoiding negativity experiences
and emotional developments to feel positively correct.

Maturity realizing empathy seconds, that line numbers need to grow
exponentially for any form of -logy, requires a deeper stance for tense
problem solving pain points.

~~~
bengali3
I agree with the avoiding negativity, but can you elaborate on an example of
avoiding "emotional developments to feel positively correct"

~~~
pain
Sometimes it hurts to make sense and that is okay.

An example being voted from hell to heaven and back and forth again and again
is making your question triggering, meaning being nice is just a command and
control like with linux top. I rarely resolve my (social(emotional)) system
issues by just id removing and killing task.

(Intergenerational traumas as much and as well as intergenerative gramma(r)
traumma [sic].

Aethic-apathic-empathic determination to make an example of singular social
commentary is disturbing (but healthy too, if you can actually solve the
problem long-term enough to granulate -logy.))

~~~
throwawaymaroon
What the heck is a fluidic writer doing in this haunt of logic? Wonderful to
stumble across your ologies; keep churning, spurning, turning the logos as you
see fit, my friend.

~~~
pain
logologicalities* u mean? =))

=∫∫ Hurting here :/ Neighborhood webwatchers still pitchforking to make odd
ends meet, even though we can also log and filter listening memercy with that
tool memery, hunting predates and predominates gathering emotional-
intelligence memresistors.

~~~
throwawaymaroon
I hope it helps to remember that this is a non-topic: it's not going to change
anything, and so this thread is almost a ritual, about making appearances,
saying our piece, and moving on. Gotta love community-as-immanent-voice
maintenance!

~~~
pain
The legal-rational-emotional ritual is a product of confession made rote war.

#Logy/moderation logy means we realistically have time and space (<3) )) ) for
ontologically scoping deeper classes and customs freeing your from repeating
isolation.

Self-determination made a ritual of goal-scoring and approval-seeking is
really remixing and remaking research, experiences, expression, and
development, dangerous because undeterminable if means proof war minus modus
log.

I just want community-as-permanent-voice vs. superadmin gatekeeping ve.
record-keeping. Sadly combinators for emotional structure are negated at
admission for being pathos ve. pleasure, said by men who feel it is best to
hotwire perfection immediately as racial capital biteracy static object-
relational role model mapping works wonders to make cryscistable (crisis
crypto?) structures.

------
pain
Downvoting negativity is the definition of gratuitous: "given or done free of
charge." We logact as-if removing parts of speech of sense of logic is going
to change history, without commiting a full transactional analysis.

------
mlvljr
Whatever. [waiting]

~~~
mlvljr
Push harder, folks, I'd like to see this one at the very bottom :)

~~~
pain
I∫ will race you. =∫∫ ∫og will race log.

Maybe empathy karma will come around. Empathy comes and goes, money comes and
goes, karma comes and goes.

Sadly it hurts when it is accellerated by force of will to determine a ruler
and winner to feel good versus bad about.

Fog of war is very real for hacked news logy, where edit change commit
revision history is basic needs remorse remotely administrated by the
"unsayable trauma of hidden language" rulers.

~~~
mlvljr
How true :/

~~~
pain
til True. :∫

One day we can log til.

Maybe.

------
firstOrder
This is a horrible idea. The Panglossianism that will result from this is
indicative of the bubble hype which will destroy Silicon Valley, Y-Combinator
and Hacker News. In fact, this is the worst idea I ever heard in my life.

So continues the descent of HN...

~~~
itg
The guidelines aren't asking you to behave like Pangloss and think everything
is perfect. It asks if you do have criticism then address it respectfully and
constructively.

~~~
woooooop
According to what moral framework are you precisely defining "respectfully"
and "constructively"?

There are plenty of examples in the world where bringing up logical, concise,
and polite criticism invokes the wrath of a cabal of power-holders and social
media demagogues, especially in a world that promotes the postmodern idea of
"interpretation, not intent, is reality"

~~~
edmack
If it helps you can take respectfully to mean "the recipient will not feel
angry or attacked due to the message tone" and constructively to mean "the
recipient will finish reading the message feeling positive with ways to
improve their work or actions".

------
cdub32k
This post was unpleasant to read and distracted me from actual work

~~~
vixen99
Why? Your opinion is worth nothing of itself; the reasons for your opinion are
a different matter. But here you give none so why comment?

------
stefantalpalaru
It is with great joy and positive vibrations that I receive this real world
implementation of a few worthy ideas from the amazing Psycho-Pass[1] anime
series. Cynicism is not conducive to peaceful productivity and it should be
gracefully eliminated. Preferably by silencing gratuitously negative voices,
for the common good of the cheerfully desperate community of Silicon Valley
and by extension - the world.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-
Pass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass)

~~~
pain
Psycho-Pass-Words!i

(I missed your social-emotional commentary because, well, hacker news lacks
and blocks access and permission to basic data open filters needs sadly.)

------
throwawaymaroon
Quite frankly, I don't think this place has the capability to discern
constructive "positive" negativity from truly pointless garbage.

Meanwhile the cloaked negativity where you're _thinking_ cutting criticism but
maintain a polite facade runs rampant. That's the toxicity I worry about.

When negativity becomes forbidden, it is only those with power whose
negativity gets heard. They (read: you, Sam) only have to sit through
negativity that's phrased appropriate to their 'position.'

This is a non-rule anyway. Suggestions aren't going to make the next gender
hellhole thread any less toxic.

> Gentle reminders by peers are the best way we know to make the culture
> better.

Consider this a gentle reminder that you're trying to control the tone of
conversations that can't be both polite and honest; it won't work, but that
doesn't make you less of a meddling, controlling asshole for trying.

------
marincounty
"The human trait of being unhappy with other people's success is something
we’ve all felt and should all try to avoid."

The problem is one man's success is another man's failure? Success is a very
subjective term. I agree with the post, but not with what I feel is the
author's view of success.

In my world, it's not about how much money you have; it's how you got that
money, or what you do with it once you accumulated vast amounts.

To any wealthy person. Wealth has many different heads. You can have good
genes--great wealth. You can have a kind heart--better wealth. You can have a
great intelect--great wealth. You can have Morals--maybe the best success? And
yes, you can have financial wealth, but that financial wealth will always be
scrutinized because so many times it was made in unscrupulous ways.

Personally, I am not sure airbnb is a sucess, or even legal in most counties
in the U.S.? I will fight for it if I ever see it helping out with
Homelessness though?

Let me get my Uber out. Their latest commercial, "I don't need a special car
to drive for Uber?" Yes--you need a special car to drive for Uber. It must be
2008 or newer. It must be four door. If you drive in NY, it must be on that
list.(A list I can't figure out. It doesn't have anything to do with safety,
but about aesthetics?)

I know Paul Graham is going after the multiple negative comments that occur
too frequently when someone introduces their new app. This site has become
more than just a Programmer's site though. Some discussions are going to get
heated.

------
pain
Trauma-erasure. It is empathy-violating when classified moderators without
logs claim emotional authorities to tone police by calling their efforts
psychological.

Triggering. Why do psychotechnological toolers resist persistent "shrinks for
startups?"[1] versus recreating private wars by demanding forward-
looking(-locking) statements and then having our data disappear at trauma
random.

[1]
[http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608](http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608)

------
Animats
The musical version:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp-
IvX8VM8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp-IvX8VM8)

------
scottyli
pg's essay on "How to disagree"
([http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html))
also serves as a useful guideline.

grep 'u r a fag' | rm;

------
ribs
This just totally completely sucks!!

