

Hacker News vs. Google+ - aaronbrethorst
http://scobleizer.com/2012/02/05/the-hacker-news-vs-google/

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noelsequeira
_1\. Programmers often have an attitude of “I can code, you can’t, so I am
defacto better than you.” This often comes out in Hacker News comments._

While this observation is somewhat anecdotal, I can sympathize with the
sentiment. But the real reason that commenters on Hacker News might appear
conceited or condescending is because they usually comment to disagree. If
they do comment to express their agreement, they are encouraged to do so only
when they have a non-trivial contribution to make. And this focus on a high
signal-to-noise-ratio (even though it may consist of far more disagreement) on
HN is not by happenstance, it is by design (achieved through guidelines, self-
selection, and curation).

The comment thread on Google+ referred to by the OP, is largely an echo
chamber of low-on-signal assent, with the odd nugget in the rough. And while
this isn't a bad thing for a marketer trying to cultivate and engage a large
audience, it would be toxic for Hacker News as a community.

While the most insightful commentary generally lies in a well reasoned,
thoughtfully worded counterargument, it's always hard to deal with being
judged or disagreed with; especially in public. This may be exacerbated when
an argument is worded poorly (see <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>).
Unfortunately, the odds of either happening on Hacker News, are far higher.

------
skrebbel
In a rant essentially about people generalizing and forcing their own world
views onto others' words, the man sure likes to generalise and force his own
world views onto others' words.

~~~
juusto
scobble likes to think of himself as a visionary that contributes pearls of
wisdom that shape the reality of the lesser people (us). and if you do not
think that his pearls are worth something, then you are stupid/arrogant/etc

i will never understand how he managed to have gained some significance in the
world.

------
lhnz
I would agree that the most-upvoted comment on the other thread was pretty
rude and if it had been about me and I had read it I would have felt pretty
insulted myself. (It's kind of a shame that it was phrased in such a way.)
Also he's probably right that we are more likely to celebrate each other for
our programming abilities and a similar world view: this is human nature.

But the vast majority of the comments weren't unpleasant and it's a little
unfair to paint everybody as not having the same views publicly as they do
'anonymously'. How would he know? It seems that even without anonymity people
can be fairly offensive... ;)

While I wasn't aware that this was about our allegiances, it's Robert Scoble's
choice if he wishes to identify with Google+ over Hacker News. I just looked
at the comments on Google+ and Facebook, and I'd say that the discussion on
Hacker News was far more vibrant and reasoned -- but it was definitely slanted
towards a 'hackers' world-view.

...anyway, I sure hope Scoble will pick up my phone calls. :(

------
tobtoh
I read through the entire HN thread from yesterday and did not find anything
offensive or even that rude in any of the comments (bar perhaps the top
comment). But even the top comment was calling out the posters opinion on
Scoble's revisionist recollection of events which Scoble doesn't respond to,
he only complains that HN has a bad attitude.

The reason I like HN is that there are people here who will happily and
readily call out bullshit when they see it, and even if they are wrong, the HN
community can debate their opinion - seldom is someone flat out wrong, they
will generally have some kernel of truth/value in what they say.

If you read the Google+ comments (which I did yesterday as well), there is
very little 'high value' comments there. Between the pandering 'I agree with
you Scoble' to 'I don't know what to do' comments, there is a lack of
intellectual discussion about the topic.

Scoble wanted to call out how 'toxic' HN is, but all he's done is convince me
further that HN is the place to go for smart discussion.

