Ask HN: Is Hacker News basically a debate club?

[jb1991]

I've noticed that while HN is a great source of interesting articles, perhaps its greatest characteristic is the intricate debates that ensue. It would seem that many of the qualities associated with good debate practice are the same as those expected in meaningful discussion on HN: point-by-point counter arguments, use of good sources, expectation of professional tone; in fact, there seems to be little that separates HN from an academic debate club.

[brudgers]

No. The default assumption is not disagreement. And disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing that forms the basis of academic debate is frowned upon.

Personally, I find point by point counter arguments to be a tedious form of flame warriorism...I call it "the internet pick apart". In my flame warrior days, it was an effective tactic because it opens many fronts and then allows cherry picking the weakest counter-counter arguments and as the chain develops jumping back up the ancestor tree to score flip flopping and inconsistency points by cherry picking previous answers...well and that sort of brings up another big difference, HN awards internet points mainly for intelligent comments and interesting submissions rather than for insulting others or telling them they are wrong.

Of course, here I am offering a counter argument. And that's a reason that meta-comments are mostly frowned upon as well...talking about HN, though intellectually interesting at times, is generally argumentative and hence unproductive.

Good luck.

[jb1991 → brudgers]

Perusing over any random comment section to an HN post reveals that the vast majority of comments are made to dissent with another comment. Not all of them, certainly, but definitely a majority. That appears to be the debate culture at work, in my opinion.

But I understand your point about "meta" comments for HN. I think the occasional meta thought helps to add some perspective.