It's odd. People understand instinctively that the best way for computer programs to communicate with each other is for each of the them to be strict in what they emit, and liberal in what they accept. The odd thing is that people themselves are not willing to be strict in how they speak, and liberal in how they listen. You'd think that would also be obvious. Instead, we're taught to express ourselves.
--Larry Wall
To wit, try not to be offensive and at the same time try not to be offended.
I'm on my iPhone and I accidentally downvoted you. I apologize. I took the effort to make this reply because I think your comment is the most insightful thing I've heard all day and I feel bad your karma is two points lower than it should be.
I think you're right, but I'm conflicted about this (both online and in real life.) I sense there's something for me to learn here. My question: Is it right to accept abuse? Larry seems to be saying it is.
Trying not to be offensive is a skill. I think just trying to be aware of it is a good way to practice it. Trying to not be offended is harder, but when I've used the "how to disagree" approach, of examining the facts presented (minus the imaginings, opinion, connotations, tone, attitude etc), and replying to them only (also in a factual way), it has been very effective, and also seemed to somehow close it off, and I didn't feel offended anymore.
It's a pity this article is dead, because I think the issue you raise is a very interesting one. Not specific to Hackernews, but more as a "how are we to live" philosophical question, and a very intellectually stimulating one.
The problem with humor is when people trying to have an actual discussion are overwhelmed by people just posting tired slashdot cliches. Look at reddit...there are great comments there, but they're usually buried by pages of people snarking on the top comment. After a while, people stop trying. If you think you have a witty remark that doesn't really feed discussion, it's probably better to let it go, or to flesh it out with something more substantial.
Not responding to something like that for 24 hours (or even just ten minutes) is a great idea. Off-the-cuff reactions are often pretty defensive. If you have an articulate counter-argument, that's different, of course.
Also, as a general rule, it's probably worth trying to avoid being snide. In purely written conversations, it's easy enough to read criticism into comments that are just too terse, and you're responding to another person, not a text box. Be respectful, regardless of how you feel about their ideas. (I tend to edit my comments quite a bit. Often, on re-reading, I realize that my attempt at being concise made me sound like a dick instead.)
> it's probably better to let it go, or to flesh it out with something more substantial
My thought on this exactly. When in doubt, elaborate.
There are many times I come up with something I think is fairly clever to say, but I'll resist saying it unless I can find something genuinely useful to say as well. Sure, my fellow HNers might have to miss out on all my wit and charm, but at least if the joke flops, the (hopefully) relevant comment that follows might redeem it a bit.
In this particular situation, I think the reaction would have been much different if "What's the difference?" was followed by roughly the same explanation of your line of thinking as posted here...
As for kyro's remark, while it strikes me as a bit trigger happy, it doesn't seem particularly insulting. If anything, I'm curious how he extrapolated "childish, baseless, and condescending" out of three relatively innocuous words. It seems like you'd have to write more words to be all three of those things.
Anyway, not like anyone actually cares about my view on this, but I can't resist the opportunity to go all meta every once in a while.
If there is one thing above all else that hackers love to do, it's self-reflect. The "Ask HN" threads are just extending this self-reflection to this special something we all love and enjoy (HN!).
Exactly. The problem is that "smart$$ comments" are easier to write than a thoughtful reply. So pretty soon everyone gets into a game of one upmanship and every thread will have 80% "smart$$ comments". This why I no longer read reddit comments. On slashdot I browse at +5 keeping out much of the noise. Thankfully in HN, I was relieved to know that such comments are not tolerated by majority.
I have downvoted quite a lot of "smart$$" comments but never something that added original thought. I come to HN for comments that educate, inform and make me think. If i wanted a good laugh I would go to bash.org
A corollary. As you noted, humor on its own is usually regarded as noise in the HN environment, but if it is tagged onto an insightful comment then it tends to be better received.
You know what's even less valuable than smarta$$ remarks? Dumba$$ responses to them. I disagree with edw519; not all downmods require explanatory comments.
I don't know. Generally I agree, but did you see this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 I don't know anywhere else that this would have happened. On HN if it isn't genuinely funny then it gets voted down so I'm ok with it. I made a completely useless comment yesterday that was down voted; I won't do that again so easily.
Same experience for me, but the HN karma system has made me a more thoughtful commenter. Humor within a substantive comment is a whole lot more work than a one-liner, but I'll work at it.
You're correct in that there seems to be a fairly fine line here between "humor" and "useless post". I think part of this comes from the fact that we've all been online for more than a minute and have already seen/heard most of the standard comments and jokes. If you can come up with a uniquely humorous post that is also on-topic and enlightening on some level, most people will appreciate it.
Timing can also be important. I didn't see your "What's the difference" post. But, if that was an early comment at the top-level, it could be regarded as useless. If it was a response 8 levels deep to a heated argument where people are starting to split hairs, and you step in with something that can cause people to take a step back and actually see the forest, it can sometimes go over well.
Not really related to the subject, but if you follow your feedback loop you will quickly end up with nothing new on the site, but only everyone reinforcing the vocal majority.
Basically you'll start writing what people want to hear, instead of what you believe.
This is the main culture problem at many social bookmarking sites - whichever group was first basically "locks" the mindset, and no changes are accepted (at least not without massive co-ordination of some other group that wants to take over).
It's important to never downmod (and upmod) based on whether or not you agree with the subject!
People seem to do the right thing here, but mainly:
upmod posts that bring something new to the discussion, whether or not they are correct, and whether or not you agree with them.
Downmod spam and useless junk.
Downmod incorrect items (but only those that don't add something new, for example that don't clarify a common misconception or error) to -1 (but no lower).
if you follow your feedback loop you will quickly end up with nothing new on the site, but only everyone reinforcing the vocal majority.
To the contrary, I think it's possible to disagree factually with someone without being time-wastingly snarky or shallow or cliche. (I hope this comment proves to be an example of what I claim.) I got downmodded once, badly, for a comment that consisted of thanks to a submitter for submitting a post. But probably because I wrote "LOL" as the first sentence of the comment (I really had laughed out loud at the post, which was a serious post about an industry news item), and didn't add any additional information or thoughtful discussion, my comment was deemed a Reddit-style comment and voted down ruthlessly. Now if I just agree with a submission or a comment as a good contribution to HN, but have nothing further to say, I upvote. If I disagree (as here), I express my disagreement in what I hope is polite language. The feedback loop functions mostly by training us about MANNER of submissions and comments. I think I'm still able to take a controversial point of view, as long as I don't inject flaming and back up my factual statements. And I strongly appreciate comments back to me of the nature of "Could you please provide evidence for your claim?" and post comments of a similar nature to other participants here.
It's important to never downmod (and upmod) based on whether or not you agree with the subject!
The founder of the site, pg, has expressed disagreement with this idea in a public comment, although I don't have the reference at hand. Sometimes downmodding to show factual disagreement is the most efficient treatment for a comment that mostly expresses a wrong opinion with little sign that the commenter will be willing to bring forth evidence, or with an existing reply-to-reply comment showing that the commenter doesn't think evidence is an issue he should concern himself with.
There is very little thanking on HN. I like that compared to sites where the first 10 comments are thanking the poster for posting. I use thanks sparingly, like the time when someone rose to my defense after an ad hominem attack.
upmod posts that bring something new to the discussion, whether or not they are correct, and whether or not you agree with them.
I would find this very difficult for a post that [I felt] was not correct (and not interesting), even if it was a viewpoint which hadn't been mentioned yet in such a thread.
Another thing to keep in mind is that while a remark like that may pass if it's one of only a couple on the screen, sometimes a very interesting discussion (or a few) does break out on what seems to be at first an innocuous post. When that happens, your comment can find itself all alone at the bottom and following a few interesting threads. Then it can take hits because of the glaring contrast.
I thought the original comment was pretty baseless, but it's only karma...
>> "kyro, would you have said that to me in person?"
I don't think the whole "What you say in person" test is useful. If someone tells you an offensive joke in person, you might politely laugh. If someone tells you an offensive joke on the net, you'll probably call it out as being offensive. Some people would have been offended by your original joke (accountants for one).
I too enjoy the humorous comments though.
>> "Oh, and if you have a smarta$$ remark, go for it, but make it clever."
Sorry, but IMHO your original joke comment wasn't clever. It was just easy. Better luck next time ;)
>> "24 hours later, I haven't forgetten"
It was just a joke some people didn't rate. Not life or death :/
""landing a job as an accountant"
"I wish I had gone to prison"
What's the difference?"
Didn't add anything to the discussion more than a brief joke which attacks those who have chosen a difficult, strongly certified profession different than your own 'hacker' lifestyle. It's typical of the insular cliquishness which plagues all communities, including this one, and was more nasty than funny.
Kyro's comment seemed justified and would be appropriate to say to your face if he overheard you in a social setting.
Would you have delivered your own joke face-to-face to an accountant?
Further, would you have used your reputation in that 'real world' community to try to shoot him down the day after, as you're doing now?
"Would you have delivered your own joke face-to-face to an accountant?"
Of course. That's what makes it joke. I would never say something like that if I really believed it. And I can't imagine actually believing something like that.
"...to try to shoot him down the day after, as you're doing now?"
I'm not trying to shoot anyone down. I'm just trying to understand. Now I do.
I'd suggest you lighten up, too, but I won't because that didn't work yesterday.
Here on HN I much prefer interesting discussions rather than smarta$$ comments. However I think people overreact to your comment. It was a humorous answer to a sentence that was implying second degree, thus setting an "easy" atmosphere.
Funny thing is that right now there is a humoristic (french) song about some guy feeling imprisoned in his university tiny bedroom ( http://www.deezer.com/track/35237 )
We ideally treat each other as we have always been treating each other: with respect. Let's not forget that this is an internet forum, there won't always be orderly and enlightening discussion. I think bringing extra undue notice to a violation of conduct like people posting unrelated content or misinterpreting comments just kindles the off-topic discussion.
Sure, I've said some silly things that I meant completely in a light-hearted way to only be down-voted into oblivion or offend someone else. You just take it as an experience and move on.
I understand you have a metric ton of karma and are probably not getting used to being down-voted or garnering negative comments, but it happens. People are different and will reply uniquely to off-center comments.
What is your personal signal to noise ratio? Seriously -- sometimes it helps to frame the analysis in an analogy having deliberately non-emotional terms.
People are here in good part for the high S/N. Humor is much appreciated, but only when it doesn't start to materially impact S/N.
Too much navel gazing is also frowned on; self-analysis becomes N rather than S.
The personal connection that develops to the site has a significant foothold in the respect that the members exhibit, as demonstrated in the high S/N.
Just to be clear: I don't mean this comment to be a criticism, in case it comes across that way. And I'm not saying my S is particularly high. This is all stuff that others have said; there have been some very interesting conversations regarding what makes HN special. It is simply my take, and distillation, and a simple mental framework I use for myself when participating.
Finally, I'll add that my response is not particularly personally directed, but is made instead for and to the overall thread.
- whatever the topic at hand is, I haven't thought about it enough yet.
- my attempts at humor will not come across in text (without context).
- the person I'm corresponding with is smarter than I am.
- Despite my best efforts, I will be misunderstood.
One of the best quotes I've seen on this topic is from Mark Dominus: "Advice to people wishing to become smarter: Get in the habit of assuming that everything is more complex than you imagine."
I try my best to treat everyone here as though I actually know them. Of course, that means I end up deleting a fair percentage of the replies I submit, because I wouldn't say things the same way if the person was actually in a conversation with me.
Regarding the humor stuff, I just worry that the reddit style 250 comment pun threads will start becoming more and more accepted here; however, I wouldn't say it's a very large concern. I just bet that a lot of people have similar worries about quality here.
No, that doesn't count as "in person", but you get to know what people are like irl based on their behaviour on irc. It's not 100% accurate, of course, but a lot more accurate than HN posts.
On a related note, I think it's pretty cool to pop in IRC and "get to know" people from HN better. You can only tell so much about people based on static comments, and chatting freely on IRC gives you a chance to have a bit of a more free flowing informal conversation.
#startups
I'd hope that if I offended someone on here, they'd just grab me on IRC and chat, rather than post a lengthly writeup :/
Use the <sarcasm> tags. Explain your jokes. Make sure somebody who isn't paying any attention at all to your comment will recognize it as a joke. Even then you'll probably lose half of the audience.
And don't respond when some person misunderstands it. Half the time you'll just dig the hole deeper.
I'm still torn with whether to respond or not. If the person replying obviously hasn't read it, or if it is obvious on re-reading my comment that most people would understand it, I don't.
But if the person is really confused, I hate to leave somebody wondering. So I am very tempted to reply.
You made your comment based on what you believe is acceptable. So did he.
Everyone thinks what they are doing is right, and "what is the difference?", although it may not look offensive, could have been the most hurtful 3-4 words he heard this week.
His reply was probably as inappropriate as you bringing back "The pussy" and hurt him again since you "think he still is a pussy".
Thinking something and saying it are two different things. Explaining this fact necessitates saying it, but we're in a different context to the original. I see no insincerity in that.
"I never should should have said it, whether I still believe it to be true or not" might have been better, but I think it's presumptive to assign it to insincerity.
You could say the same for "smacks of x" being proceeded by the word "respectfully" - why say "smacks of" with its derisory connotations, when you could say "seems"?
I consider humor here to be mostly unwanted noise. Most of the time IMHO, commentators' attempts at witticism reduce to just groping around for self esteem boosts and/or goading one another into flamewars. Having been at /. for many years, I've really come to appreciate and miss the (+X, Funny) header, it saved me a lot of time when screening comments. I came to hackernews for knowledge, not users' forced online group therapy sessions.
Comedy isn't going to be funny for everyone. Doesn't matter if it is online or off. I tell my wife many of jokes that get an angry stare while I am laughing my ass off.
You can remember that the most important rule of comedy is timing or incorporate the rule of 3 -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing). Also if you have to flag your joke as sarcasm or a joke then you should put a little more effort into.
------------------
"Oh, and if you have a smarta$$ remark, go for it, but make it clever. After another 300 lines of code, I could use the respite."
Only 300 lines of code and then you need a break, kyro is right you are OLD.
I was going to go with the pussy comment but because I don't know you; so I will leave that until I do. Consider this our introduction ;)
Plus using the OLD comment allowed me to bring in the other person as someone who seconds that.
My opinion is that anything that doesn't add value to the discussion should be avoided. If you keep that in mind, most of the issues you raised become irrelevant.
The high level of discourse is what attracted me to HN in the first place. Browsing HN is an intellectually stimulating experience. A great side-effect is that it challenges you to provide commentary at a higher level than most other places ("when in Rome, do as the Romans do"). If someone posts a smartass comment, the level of discussion usually drops. If this becomes the norm, then the overall quality would probably drop as well, partly because there'd be less incentive for people to post comments that add value to the discussion.
The are more than enough places on the net where you can enjoy the occasional flamewar, post puns, wind people up etc. I don't think HN should be one of them.
as saying "don't make smartass comments" when they say, "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation." I don't enjoy conversation that largely consists of smartass comments, when I can find conversation elsewhere that is serious and thoughtful. I try to help HN be a refuge for serious and thoughtful conversation.
My biggest problem is with people who haven't got the skills to communicate their point properly. In many debates here on HN (or even in single replies) people get personal and passive aggressive, labeling the people they disagree with "assholes" or worse.
Debate is good and very healthy, and we should be having it, but some people's communications skills can't get beyond turning debates into personal attacks and IMHO that means I've automatically won the debate as soon as they do that.
You should care less about what people think of you, and more about what different people bring to the table.
To give an example, if you met Kyro at a convention or event, and he was an informative, insightful guy who happens to not like talking about his work in prison terms, then that's his opinion.
Making a whole QQ post about it on HN is just a little childish... now, I'm brand spanking new to HN, but if this is the kind of thing that goes on here, I won't be on HN for long.
Welcome diminoten. Yea, this kind of thing does go on here, but not much. The whole thing was kinda stupid, but then again, if it got you to stop lurking, then I suppose it served its purpose.
Stick around and speak up from time to time. We can always use another voice. But don't threaten to leave; no one cares.
I'm curious do a lot of people feel they need to restrain themselves from writing insults on the internet? My personality doesn't change between online or offline mode, I only adapt to the company I'm with with. If anything I'm more likely to get annoyed offline by the lack of Google and the inability to verify other peoples assertions.
The problem as so many people have pointed out and I agree with is that funny comments at the root aren't intellectually valuable. One of the problems with making funny comments at root (beyond that they are just useless) is that I think people like me don't always read the article before the comments so they don't have much of a context. I can skip a thread by jumping to the next root comment if the thread is uninteresting, but I can't skip a root comment and they offer more context buildup to make funny remarks in.
Now don't get me wrong I love humor but I think it's better served within the context of slashdot, reddit, digg and so on.
Humor is ever-pervasive, and there are jokes that can inform as well as entertain. "Thats what she said" style humor probably isn't tolerated, but I suspect a good line that undermines the point of the poster is both funny and contributory to the conversation.
When you're mean to someone else successfully, you shift your pain to somebody else's on a psychic level.
Downmodding is an easy way to be mean, especially when you overkill a bad comment or are over-zealous with it. But in doing so, it will never resolve one's own pain.
He why I find HN a highly strung forum:
- karma in general. As mentioned it can abused: over modding up and over modding down (yet this has been recently capped).
- wanting to post a reply but not having the patience of inclination to read other people's replies first.
- unfair distribution of karma. Too many times I've posted a 1 point comment only to have a responder receive around 10: it was because of me that their comment was possible and available.
- not being encouraged to reply with apt and polite responses, even though in conversation such would be required, such as "you're right" or "thanks for telling me that" or "are you sure?" etc. Such responses could be easily modded down, hence modding has replaced discourse.
Adrian, to your last point -- how would you suggest the site encourage polite responses such as your examples? I agree with you that having them makes a huge difference to the character of the site, and others seeing that will take them as cues as to how to behave themselves.
Are these responses often modded down? That seems like a bizarre response for a moderator.
Well, for better or worse, the notion the mod is the response sticks here. Perhaps my examples weren't great: you wouldn't say "thanks for telling me that, I'd been burning to know..." you just mod up.
What can happen is that something can be modded down, without a clear reason why. It could be just me, but sometimes I'm left scratching my head - I'll have to pay closer attention to precise examples: also you generally can't write "someone's modded that down: please explain".
The only idea is some type of mod-flagging mechanism. Something like that would unlikely be implemented though, probably for a number of good reasons, the main being complexity, labor and power-shifting.
Jokes add noise, preventing the signal of regular discussion. The limited tolerance of jokes here isn't random, it's an effort to protect the importance and screen real estate of substantive discussion.
I think the mindset behind the comment is a good one- in general, joking one liners are discouraged on the site.
Personally, I find most of the ones posted here hilarious- however, they're also usually downvoted into the basement. That discourages people from posting more, which encourages a more serious discussion. People still post jokes, but the downvoting discourages joke threads and a more reddit like atmosphere. This duality manages to maintain awesome and funny comments while discourages them from being rampant.
Kyro and I have had a run-in once before, he downmodded, from what I recall but cannot link-to (as it's almost a year old) was a perfectly reasonable and valuable comment. He did own up to downmodding it when I asked who did it (even though both of us were downmodded in the follow up).
Golden Rule. Treat others the way you wish to be treated. You even stated it yourself so you are most likely in the right place. I have noticed that you have to be careful telling jokes here. The people here are smart and they tend to like a joke that is clever...
Just because someone is wrong, it doesn't mean they aren't smart.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter to me what people on here think of themselves and others as long they can articulate their opinions in an intelligent and reasonable manner.
"Just because someone is wrong, it doesn't mean they aren't smart"
Indeed, just as being right doesn't mean they are smart - but the point I'm making is that HN users cover a range of cleverness, and that self-estimation is pointless (Dunning-Kroger syndrome). Saying "only joke if you're clever" is all but identical to saying "anyone can joke".
> The second was just a instantly-typed reaction which should have been an edit
Honestly, it's an annoying post, and it would be an annoying edit. "OMG WHY ARE PEOPLE DOWNMODDING ME?!" is just really annoying no matter where you put it.
Think about it. How could it possibly inform anyone of anything? "Oh, I never would have noticed that that comment was being down voted if its poster hadn't pointed it out."
--Larry Wall
To wit, try not to be offensive and at the same time try not to be offended.