Tell HN: If it Doesn't Make that much difference to you, don't say anything.

[samratjp]

I sat through an interesting talk during which the speaker (this was from months ago, don't recall the speaker's name sorry) brought up Kramer from Seinfeld. In this one episode, Kramer spills coffee on himself (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TysjNDTWEBc) and sues the coffee corp. During the negotiations with the corp., Kramer sidesteps his lawyer and accepts the first deal the corp offers (free coffee for life) without careful deliberation.

Moral of the story: he could've made a handsome sum, but instead he spoke too early. Arguably, you shouldn't follow Kramer's approach to a sellout or a buyout, etc. What the title has to do with this story is that sometimes it's ok to be silent in order to observe the nature of the course of a conversation or a comments thread.

There seems to be too much chatter about HN quality lately, which by itself is fine. But, it's the petty ones (though Karmically balanced) that reminded me of this author's closing words about personal relationships that could be applied to the HN comments section - "If it doesn't make that much of a difference to you, please don't say anything."

[lsc]

I think "if you don't have anything interesting to say, don't say anything" is a better metric. I think the problem is comments from people who care deeply, but who are saying things that have been said before, often in comments on the same article. Originality is more important than passion when having a conversation.

[megamark16]

Many times I'll write a comment, sometimes a really long one, and than decide that it really isn't adding much to the discussion and so I'd just skip it. See, I wouldn't normally post a comment like this.

[pasbesoin → megamark16]

Sometimes writing serves to identify and organize your own thoughts. You don't have to post/share the result for the exercise to be valid / have value.

I think that realizing this and incorporating this into one's own perspective is a useful step towards more effective communication.