

Let's all grow up - acangiano
http://antoniocangiano.com/2009/01/28/lets-all-grow-up/

======
ATB
Antonio,

on HN, you wrote --

"I hate how being harsh has become fashionable. Whatever happened to manners?"

on your blog, you follow up by saying --

"I stand behind those words. Acting bitter on the Internet seems to be
increasingly gathering the popularity amongst an audience that’s used to being
amused and entertained by cheap attacks."

Two points: the first is that you use the word "bitter" to back up an anecdote
of someone using "fucking" as an adjective to describe a poor User Interface
experience. I disagree with that assessment, as there's nothing that suggests
bitterness by using "fucking." It's merely a more extreme descriptor of the
user's anger or exasperation, but it doesn't suggest bitterness, which has a
distinctly different flavour (if you will excuse the pun).

Secondly, I don't believe anything "happened" to manners. There have always
been people, often a vast majority of a given population, who used much
coarser language to describe their everyday life and experience. Often this
was a class distinction, thus the reference to "swearing like a sailor" etc. I
expect that many people posting here were exposed -- in the context of
software engineering or computer science -- to colleagues who were either used
to communicating in an academic or professional context. Although coarse
language is to be expected to some extent, written communication about
features, bugs, etc. in a corporate US context tends to avoid direct
expletives for various reasons ("lack of professionalism" etc). This isn't the
case in parts of the OSS community or parts of Europe. You may have seen this
before -- <http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/> \-- the number of
fuck/shit/crap uses in the Linux source code. Do you similarly think that the
Linux contributors who provided the patches (or indeed Linus himself) need to
"grow up?"

Different contexts, different modes of communication.

But the truth why that dude used "fuck" all over the place? It's a very quick
and easy expression of dismay or outrage, and it gets cheap laughs. Whether or
not that's an adolescent desire I can't say. Yet some of the most serious
commentators on, say, international politics heavily use 'fuck' throughout
their own communication. Read some interviews with Pulitzer-winning journalist
Seymour Hersh, for instance -- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh>

------
Hexstream
"Arrington has every right to write about what he wants, however he wants to -
and to do so without being harassed by the community."

 _The community_ didn't harass him, a few nutcases did... depending on your
threshold for what constitutes harassment.

~~~
axod
This is getting really boring.

If your business model depends on being "well known"/celebrity (37singles,
Arrigton, Seth Godin etc), then you have to accept the trappings that come
with that. If you're not prepared to accept the bad things, then don't become
well known. Simple. Change your business model so it doesn't rely on your
personal 'fame'.

Sorry, but it's just a fact of life. If you become 'famous', you attract
criticism, crackpots, abuse, death threats, etc etc.

~~~
gravitycop
_Sorry, but it's just a fact of life. If you become 'famous', you attract
criticism, crackpots, abuse, death threats, etc etc._

Indeed. A case in point (just one of myriad so):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh#.22The_Crime_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh#.22The_Crime_of_the_Century.22)

 _The Lindberghs eventually grew tired of the never-ending spotlight on the
family and came to fear for the safety of their then three-year old second
son, Jon. Deciding, therefore, to seek seclusion in Europe, the family sailed
from New York under a veil of secrecy on board the_ SS American Importer _in
the pre-dawn hours of December 22, 1935._

------
enomar
I think there are two different phenomena going on here. First, you have
anonymous jerks making stupid comments and threats all over the web. No
surprise there; people are less thoughtful when they don't have to put their
identity behind their words. The second phenomena is when someone tries to
make a name for themselves by criticizing something or someone popular. Again,
no surprise; it's been shown to be an effective way to get attention.

I don't really have a solution for either of these problems, but I think it's
important to make the distinction between these two cases.

------
fuzzmeister
A trend I think we'll see in the next year: blogs starting to only allow
comments that come through Facebook Connect or similar identification
services. In my opinion, that would be a change for the better. People
actually think about what they say when their name is attached to it.

~~~
mrtron
I don't think so. The nutjob that apparently threatened Arrington did so on
his own blog too.

I really dislike the attention this is gathering, mainly because it just
furthers the ego of the few people stirring trouble.

You can never sacrifice liberty and personal privacy for pseudo security. Do
you really want a system where you have to login to an internet terminal with
your SSN and it logs all the actions you do?

------
inerte
One million dollars to the first person who can make Internet users nicer.

\- No, stabbing doesn't count. DANCE does.

\- Tie everything you do to your personal, real-you identity? Too much,
privacy concerns.

\- Raise awareness about how being good to others is better? Since the dawn of
mankind we've been trying.

\- Mark it as an unsolvable problem? Nah, not here.

\- Have somekind of "boy scouts of the internet"? Give recognition with badges
(achievements for you gaming folks)?

\- Setup a website (this is an old idea I had) "the-golden-rule.com", where
you post what YOU want others to do to you, and users can do these stuff to
people they know, and brag on the website how they did it? And earn good-doer
points?

\- Slashdot moderation applied to random content? Imagine if you could select
a DOM node (like Firebug's inspect) and label it "flamebait", "funny", which
is sent to a central server, so your blog software can filter your comments
not showing some? Or users can assign opacity to "bad" content? (I actually
thought of this when I saw Snipd working)

Whatever it is, I think the solution goes around promoting good content, and
downplaying bad. Just like in real life... bad people are cast aside, becoming
pariahs. Yes, I am fully aware it'll be hard to determine what's good and
what's bad. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

But anyway, it would be cool to see some kind of tool along these lines.

~~~
TooMuchNick
A million bucks to make Internet users nicer? I think Flickr got paid a lot
more for that.

------
BigZaphod
Awesome. The question is, how can we encourage good behavior without creating
the very animosity we strive to prevent?

------
tdavis
I remember a common phrase from my early computing days which I feel applies
to all the hubbub over the TC threats, etc:

 _Don't feed the trolls._

------
jacoblyles
I think part of the problem is that we now spend most of our lives interacting
only with people our own age. As a 26-year-old grad student, I spend the vast
majority of my social life interacting with people 23-30 years old. We have to
find our values anew with each generation, we don't have the presence of
older, wiser people to teach us such values as class.

This is at least one area where I think the new secular, educated culture has
regressed from the old, traditional one. Interaction between people of
different ages is natural, and I think healthy. It may prevent the sort of
inbred cultural environment where perspective is lost, such as was
demonstrated by the spitter in that assaulted Arrington.

------
TooMuchNick
"This spontaneous reaction was in response to a blog that attempted to be
humorous by using the word 'fucking' multiple times in reference to Adobe’s
UIs which were perceived as lacking a native look and feel."

I assume he means this hilarious Adobe UI gripe blog:
<http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/>

If growing up means not appreciating that blog, then color me prepubescent.

~~~
sho
There's a sliding scale between being the type of idiot child who thinks that
anything at all, no matter how obnoxious, is funny, and being a boring goody-
two-shoes who can't take even the slightest joke.

Mr. Cangiano seems to self-identify pretty strongly in the latter camp if he
finds that site offensive in some way. "Attempted to be humourous"? Geeze,
sounds like Cangiano wouldn't know humour if it was chewing his leg off.

IMO the far ends of both side of the scale - lack of judgement, and lack of
humour - are equally problematic. Faced with a choice, I'd probably chose the
former, since I fear restriction of speech far more than I fear being
offended.

I also note that Cangiano's evident lack of any humour at all would probably
be a pretty good reason in itself for people to want to play jokes on him.
Sometimes these problems are self-created. Some of the most stable,
respectable, mature people I know would find it hard to resist taking a self-
important bore down a peg or two, given the chance.

~~~
acangiano
How dare you? I'll defend my humour till the death. :-)

On the contrary, I can certainly appreciate humour, including augmented forms
in which swearwords are used for effect. I love jokes and humour in general,
and I indulge in humour myself, in one form or another, most of the time. You
place me in the awkward position of having to claim my own qualities, but most
people who know me consider me a hilarious person. I also find no basis in
your assumption about my self-importance (my humour is often self-deprecating)
or my attracting undesired jokes. I don't believe in fact, that I get hassled
more than most other prolific bloggers.

Your own comment made me laugh for its gross misrepresentation of who I am.
And I wonder how much this is due to you reading too much into my post,
without knowing me, and how much I accidentally came across as a uptight
person with my "serious" post.

To help counterbalance this skewed perception I invite you to read a couple of
other articles of mine: [http://antoniocangiano.com/2008/04/01/announcing-
ruby-on-cra...](http://antoniocangiano.com/2008/04/01/announcing-ruby-on-
crack/) and <http://antoniocangiano.com/2008/09/09/a-status-update/>.

PS: The Adobe UI blog is hilarious, but I feel it's cheapened by trying too
hard. I think it would have much more comedic value if it took the sarcastic
"Dear Richard"
([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-
the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html)) approach, but that's just
me. This wasn't the focal point of my article of course, but rather a, perhaps
weak, incipit.

~~~
sho
Oops. Seems I erred a bit there - I was trying to make a general point but
dirtied it up by applying it to you personally, and in error, obviously.

In my defense, I did say "if he finds that site offensive in some way". Re-
reading your blog post, you don't mention the word offensive - I had assumed
so, since you singled out that site as "nasty", but obviously not. Yeah, it is
kind of boorish and try-hard, I agree! I guess my hair trigger impulse to
attack anyone who finds "offense" in swear words misfired pretty badly in this
case :/

Anyway, sorry about that. Oh, and by the way, I think any Ruby programmer
worth their salt has heard of you, so quit with the "virtually unknown" false
modesty .. ; )

------
ojbyrne
Occasionally bitter and angry is justifiable (don't I know). Assault is not.
There's lots of better strategies for revenge.

------
MaysonL
This reminds me of the spider in Bruce Sterling's novel _Distractions_ which
crawled the net for people saying bad things about its owner. When they had
crossed its threshold their names got posted on an enemies list website, which
was read by nutcase supporters, who then tended to go out and try to
assassinate the listees.

------
PieSquared
Very relevant, I think: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=220878>

------
nx
So true.

------
point
Well said, yet completely wrong. People are thinking this stuff, so why should
they not say it? The internet is different from real life - everyone with an
opinion lands here, and can give their honest opinion. Let them give it, for
those of us who grew up in the old polite days, this may be strange, but it's
the new world! We are entering a time of REAL freedom of speech, and now that
you are confronted with it, do not run away.

Look at YouTube comments, that's how the world really is like. You want to
regulate this away? You think you actually can? Welcome to the new world, it's
not worse, it's just different. Insulting people is the rock 'n' roll of 2009,
if you can't deal with it, well, there's a cable plugged into your wall that
you can simply pull out.

Times are changing, folks. Profanity, insults have become way cheaper, because
anonymity also has. Arrington may complain, and all the people in this little
community of ours make shake their heads and nod sorrowly and agree that
something has to be done, but do you realise exactly how small your community
is? You are reaching nobody, and nobody can hear your voice.

What we have is a herd of elephants thundering down a slope, heading towards a
world of extremely democratic and free speech, and a bunch of rabbits form a
council on the side and decide that they choose that the elephants should all
start walking the other way.

Pointless, I say! Change sometimes goes your way, but sometimes change goes
the way you don't like. This time it is that way, and very frankly, all these
beard stroking and discussion about this will have little effect.

So, we can't just all grow up, because the internet is young. It will stay
young, so if you want a place where everyone is grown up and civil, build a
gate and hide behind the walls.

And don't forget to tap hard on the walls when the rock 'n' roll music of the
neighbours gets too loud.

~~~
unalone
_Look at YouTube comments, that's how the world really is like._

I think the better way of putting it is "Look at the _Internet_ ; that's how
the world really is like." YouTube is not the world. Many people never comment
on YouTube. (For the record, look at the comments on classical music. They're
cultured and sophisticated an learned. Piano virtuosos comment on amateur
videos giving tips. Isn't that incredible? My favorite pianist comments on
videos on YouTube. That's marvelous.)

 _Insulting people is the rock 'n' roll of 2009, if you can't deal with it,
well, there's a cable plugged into your wall that you can simply pull out._

Kind of a bizarre way of putting it. Isn't the idea that if you can't deal
with insults, you just make a community with fewer insults? Freedom and all?
Freedom _from_ insults is also a potential solution.

 _You are reaching nobody, and nobody can hear your voice._

Right now, my professor is having a discussion about the suicide on Justin.TV,
a YCombinator company. So here's one classroom that's been affected by
something that I read on Hacker News.

 _What we have is a herd of elephants thundering down a slope, heading towards
a world of extremely democratic and free speech, and a bunch of rabbits form a
council on the side and decide that they choose that the elephants should all
start walking the other way._

Wow. Not at all. If you think trolls are as powerful as elephants you've got
to take another look at the world around you. If 4chan is considered powerful,
then Google has to be looked at too. I'll take a million trolls to a company
that's making a lot of people billionaires and is doing some social good with
their work, too. I think the billionaires have a bit of elephant in them too.

 _This time it is that way, and very frankly, all these beard stroking and
discussion about this will have little effect._

It's that way until somebody reading this decides to fix the problem. The cool
thing about the Internet is that one person can change it all. And Hacker News
is an incubator: it's a place for smart people to talk about things.

 _It will stay young, so if you want a place where everyone is grown up and
civil, build a gate and hide behind the walls._

It's already old. The most-visited sites online are sites like CNN and Fox:
the ancient bogies of the media. They won't last forever, but the sites that
replace them will _not_ be the Gawkers. The replacements will be just as civil
and just as everyman-friendly.

 _And don't forget to tap hard on the walls when the rock 'n' roll music of
the neighbours gets too loud._

Online it's more, "If the music gets too loud you can always create an
alternate universe where you dictate all the rules."

~~~
point
You don't get what I mean. YouTube is representative of the general internet,
and by extension, the general attitude of people. The cool thing about the
internet is that one person cannot change it all. Everyones voice is equal.
Nobody can change it.

CNN and Fox are not civil and friendly. They are heavily filtered - they don't
allow their readers to say anything.

And please stop patting your back that this community is so smart. It's just a
bunch of HTML makers who want to become rich by joining Paul Grahams
incubator. Slashdot has people with real indepth knowledge about topics
commenting, here it's just a bunch of opinions from people without deep
knowledge.

The entire premise behind this community means that it's not smart - it's a
bunch of college kids with ideas gathering here. There's a lot of talk, a lot
of ideals and little real knowledge and experience.

So stop patting yourself on the back - go to usenet, you'll see real smarts.
The comments here are really not that smart.

The problem is that when your measuring yard is reddit, even this place seems
smart by comparison. What other sites do you visit that you use to measure
this place by? Do you have an appropriate yardstick?

~~~
unalone
_You don't get what I mean. YouTube is representative of the general internet,
and by extension, the general attitude of people._

 _You_ don't get what _I_ mean. There _is_ no general Internet. There is only
the Internet. Youtube is no more indicative of the entire Internet than
MetaFilter is. The places I frequent look much more like Metafilter, in fact.

 _CNN and Fox are not civil and friendly. They are heavily filtered - they
don't allow their readers to say anything._

That's what I mean by civil. They're popular because they don't let external
sources muck themselves up. And it's working for them.

 _And please stop patting your back that this community is so smart. It's just
a bunch of HTML makers who want to become rich by joining Paul Grahams
incubator. Slashdot has people with real indepth knowledge about topics
commenting, here it's just a bunch of opinions from people without deep
knowledge._

The one Slashdot article that stuck in my mind was the article where CmdrTaco
called the iPod lame upon its announcement. I don't frequent the site because
the articles that don't interest me, but the few times I've read the site it
seems like the people are no smarter than people anywhere. The Slashdot people
merely have more time to kill.

"Smart" isn't the right word, though the people here certainly are smart.
"Mature." That's the word I want. A bunch of people with ideas who don't
steamroller over each other.

 _The entire premise behind this community means that it's not smart - it's a
bunch of college kids with ideas gathering here. There's a lot of talk, a lot
of ideals and little real knowledge and experience._

Ideals are what matter. They always are. The people that move the world
forward are very rarely the people who've spent 20 years doing generic work,
it's the people who think they can do everything, then do. Hacker News has got
some old and experienced people, and it helps temper the community out.

 _So stop patting yourself on the back - go to usenet, you'll see real smarts.
The comments here are really not that smart._

Usenet? I've been there a few times. 99% of it is spam. What's more, it's ugly
spam. I've never seen a Usenet interface I like. And I'm one of those people
who thinks that a part of intelligence means flocking to something that feels
good to use. Pretty sites attract people who care about pretty, and I care
about pretty.

 _The problem is that when your measuring yard is reddit, even this place
seems smart by comparison. What other sites do you visit that you use to
measure this place by? Do you have an appropriate yardstick?_

I measure everything against everything. I don't compare HN to Reddit: I don't
care much for Reddit. I compare it to Tumblr, SomethingAwful, Metafilter,
Slashdot. I compare it to the blogs I read. There's not much more I can
compare it to.

