

Dear HN: I Don't care about your f*cking opinion - vanelsas
http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/dear-hn-i-am-not-interested-in-your-fcking-opinion/

======
jcr
If you're on HN and haven't read all of the following, it's worth your time
and effort to do so:

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html>

Though far less important that the above, there are _plenty_ people on HN who
are counter examples to the points of the article author (vanelsas). I just
had a exchange which was counter example:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3241478>

It's fine to disagree, and it's good suggest improvements, but also taking the
time to note the good stuff created by the original author helps and
encourages civility.

------
aniket_ray
Another negative comment here but frankly, I don't agree with the author's
logic. Gruber had made a very unsubstantiated point and the commenters on that
story had pointed that out. Apart from fanboyism, Gruber's comment is on
pretty thin ice.

Most commenters on the Android Open source story also raised some pretty valid
concerns. It's not a lie that Google has been loose with term "open",
commenters were ready to point that out.

There is no reason to get all worked up about valid negative points (most of
which are not opinions).

~~~
nandemo
I agree regarding Gruber.

And most of the top comments on the Google thread were either positive or
"negative" but still informative.

------
jayfuerstenberg
Every time HN down votes or strongly disagrees with my contributions, be they
comments or submissions, I feel the same way as vanelsas.

Not having the right to down vote, I usually decide to go on an up vote
rampage to throw the system out of whack, even if only in a minuscule way.

It's unfortunate that HN has a high concentration of people with nothing
better to do than prove their superiority by tearing others apart.

It's not too unlike chimpanzee society with an alpha male exerting his
dominance over the rest with a display of violence. It's not often that
someone can constructively show me why my argument is missing some point.

You can down vote this too if you disagree with it. My karma here is a
meaningless integer in a DB.

I'd rather have meaningful talks with open minded individuals.

------
extension
So your opinion, and those that support it, are positive contributions while
contrary opinions are spiteful and useless?

First of all, why are you here? To have people tell you that you are right, or
to get closer to the truth? If it's the former, then this is the wrong place
(and the right places would probably bore you).

If it's the latter, then we're going to have to put forward different ideas
about what the truth might be. Some of them will be right and some wrong. One
can be excessively rude about this, but I find that is a very minor problem
here. Usually, HN commenters are only as blunt as they need to be to express
an idea clearly.

What is more of a problem is when people get emotionally attached to their
opinions and then get upset when anyone disagrees with them. We're only human,
so that attachment tends to creep in. But staying detached is a much more
sensible strategy than everybody walking on eggshells all the time.

I am far more impressed with people who can take criticism than I am with
people who can refrain from giving it.

~~~
vanelsas
I can fully agree to that. I am not suggesting censorship or refraining from
criticisms. I just like to see people doing that respectfully and in a way
that actually adds something to the discussion

------
dia80
I read the comments on one of the articles he refers to. Given the potential
for fanboism and holy war the topic (platform orientated career advice)
inspires and that a larger fraction of readers probably feel qualified to
comment on this post rather than, say, the Haskell cheat sheet I thought the
comments were ok.

Comments perhaps contain more critique than glowing praise because the action
is at the margin. The value to me of a 'this is wonderful' comment followed by
lots of 'I agree' is less that a robust discussion.

------
stuartk
Most comment threads that I see on HN, by and large, contain both sides to any
argument.

They're like a conversation you might have with a friend, one person gives
their opinion, the other perhaps gives the opposing argument and so on.

But of course, if you take any single comment out of context, it's usually
either positive or negative. There are exceptions where commenters give a more
rounded, thought out perspective, but it's mainly short opinionated comments.

And that's how conversations often are; short, off the cuff remarks. Rarely
carefully worded, equal handed monologues.

------
molecule
"I honestly don’t care about your f*cking opinion... I just ask all of us to
show a little respect..."

be the change you want to see in the world.

------
davyjones
OK...this is going to be a bit meta. Then why submit it here?

~~~
eitland
Because it this piece is well written and can prove important to readers of
HN.

------
MostAwesomeDude
You just asked for HN's opinion, though, even though you don't care about it?
That's a bit of doublethink right there.

Anyway, yes, fuck you too, but if it makes you feel better, most of the
Internet is populated by tools, trolls, and fools, and HN's not somehow above
that. I'm not sure why you'd think that, either. As two of our greatest
philosophers once noted, the Internet's greatest purpose is slandering others
anonymously.

~~~
vanelsas
I guess my writing skills are not so good. I think opinions matter, I just
feel we can do a little less with f*cking opinions.

~~~
nowarninglabel
To me, your point was completely lost by the fact that you choose to attack
people yourself, rather than highlight the stories with positive comments. You
didn't really do a meaningful comparison, but rather just looked at two
stories' comments and decided to write a rant about it. What would be cooler
would be to take an Opinion Analyzer and run it over the comments from all
stories for a week, and get a true idea of the factual amount of
positive/negative.

~~~
vanelsas
Good point, and I might have done a better job at it.

