Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1832191

by DjDarkman • 16 years ago

69 119 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

My personal problem with HN, is that every time I dare to write a comment that is not positive about something, I get downvoted and in most cases the downvoter doesn't care much about explaining it, even when my comment spawned an interesting discussion.

It's very annoying that 100+ karma users could act as really good trolls, they could just go around and downvote everybody without ever loosing karma, but costing the commenter karma.

Don't get me wrong I really enjoy the HN community, there are a lot of bright people here and very good content and discussions, it's just that the system discourages you to have your own opinion on anything, because if you write something that a 100+ user doesn't like he can simply downvote you irresponsibly.

TL, DR: I don't know maybe it's me, maybe I have too radical opinions on stuff. But overall I feel that the downvoters should loose some karma too, and maybe force the downvoter to write a reason for it, to make sure that they downvote responsibly.

PS: I am not saying neither that I'm always right nor that I never deserved the downvote.

Mithrandir• 16 years ago

There is a bit of a bad psychological effect on HNers: don't say things that might get people angry/to disagree, or your Karma goes down. But there is also a good psychological effect as well: don't say stupid things (like "LOL, wut?"), or you'll get down-voted.

Either way you look at it, there's a bit of good and bad in HN.

alnayyir5• 16 years ago

I agree with what you're saying, and it's been severe enough that I've taken to either not bothering to comment, or simply deleting my comment because HN had apparently deemed it that bereft of value.

The circle-jerk behavior is what is damaging the credibility of the startup scene and it's making it harder for me to convince my fellow programmers that it's the place to be.

I don't think just low karma users are guilty of down-voting in inappropriate situations. I had a discussion with Justin Kan awhile back and he was demonstrating the viewpoint that you're finding problematic.

fuzzywuzzy• 16 years ago

I second that! HN has become a bit of a echo chamber; more or less as a direct result of the decision to have down-vote privileges scale with the number of HN commenters, thus disproportionally weighting down-votes in the direction of those who have been properly cloned. Although, I must say, the echo chamber effect is not as bad here as it is on (for example) the Derek Sivers blog [[ http://sivers.org/blog ]].

jamesteow4• 16 years ago

I've found the contrary. On Reddit, the hivemind is ever present. On HN, generally it's far less prevalent... though it could just be confirmation bias.

Just like Reddit, downvotes should be cast on comments/submissions that don't add anything as opposed to providing an unpopular opinion.

pg2• 16 years ago

Based on a cursory look at your comments I would guess the problem is not what you say but how.

alnayyir5• 16 years ago

He's not the only one discontented with the state of the community. It's gotten so bad here that I can't convince half the programmers I know that this place is any better than a cult locked in a warehouse.

Almost no one I know takes anything anybody says here seriously, even if the content stream is marginally better than the alternatives.

The focus has shifted from intelligent and thoughtful writing seeded by your essays, to business-oriented boosterism fed by a provincial navel-gazing audience who fail to censure themselves.

I'm someone who's already had a failed business, and even when my finances were falling apart, I loved the thrill of it.

I love hacker culture and ambitious people. I plan to begin work on another idea soon.

However, the situation here is untenable and the utility I once extracted from being exposed to this community is being destroyed for the sake of a minority's craven ambition and desire to fit in with the shibboleths of those around them. I am not by any means alone. Everyone I know who follows the kind of news and interests that is discussed here has been increasingly disenchanted over the past year with hackernews.

This is not a site or community unto itself, it serves a real purpose for YC and everyone is aware of this. You might call it a garden.

The garden needs pruning.

armandososa• 16 years ago

I found hacker news amazing and comforting. But if I was not happy here and if I ever found it to be only slighter better than the next alternative I'll just move on.

Really, it's sad to be in a community where you don't actually feel good.

Robin_Message• 16 years ago

Your comment is frankly a load of crap. (I would be more polite if we were in person, but then I would have been able to interrupt and say, "Oh hang on a minute", when you came out with some rubbish like "the situation here is untenable.")

It's not untenable. If you don't like the community, leave! If you know a lot of people who are disenchanted with hackernews, great! Start something new for you to chat. You could even import the hackernews front page so you have something interesting to chat about.

But for me, this site still by and large works. Yes, there is some useless fanboyism in a few places, but this place is not a cult locked in a warehouse. And you can avoid the worse of it easily enough - just avoid discussion of shibboleth topics where the S/N drops and wait until it's a post on someone's blog instead of techcrunch.

I'm also intrigued - can you link to a discussion where you feel a craven minority destroyed the utility, or is it more of a general feeling, hard to pinpoint and reason about? Can you suggest who needs pruning and how it should be done?

Finally, community is what people put into it. So, what are you putting in Chris? You say you had a failed business. Could you do a post on what went wrong and how it would go better next time? That's the kind of thing that makes hacker news great.

pg2• 16 years ago

Actually there was more business-oriented boosterism when we first launched. The site was called "Startup News" initially.

The top stories don't seem visibly worse than they were in the good old days, whenever those were. There are more dumb and/or mean comments than there used to be, but they usually end up at the bottom of the page.

DjDarkman5• 16 years ago

I receive a lot of downvotes for "well formed" comments too. The only thing that bothers me is that people downvote them and do not specify the reason, it's like they don't care, they just there to downvote. If I do not include any of my bluntness in a comment it annoys me that people just mark them as bad and don't reply to them.

bloomshed• 16 years ago

For any recent applicants to YC, how much does your expectation of contributing to the forum affect the comments and tenor of your posting?

If I were to answer my own question, I would say that I probably focus more energy than I should on sounding more insightful than I normally am and I get frustrated with a lot of the inane types of discussions such as: "What does it mean to be a successful tycoon who conquers the world and what's wrong with people who aren't successful tycoons who take over the world?"

Mz3• 16 years ago

It doesn't matter what system you use, it will have good points and bad points. Ultimately, people issues aren't resolved by a better voting system or some such. They are resolved by fostering the right culture, which is somewhat independent of the system.

SandB0x• 16 years ago

There's criticism and there's negativity. You seem to be confusing these two things. You can put your point across without snarky comments like:

"Vertical list of applications??? Microsoft what have you been smoking?"

(As we're quoting rap lyrics today) I think that you'll be doing just fine if you relax a little.

DjDarkman5• 16 years ago

I may be alone in this, but I like expressing my thoughts/feelings, as a matter of fact, most of the time I want to make it really clear that what I say is just my the way I see it.

Do I go a little bit too far with it? Maybe.

shib71• 16 years ago

Every community values different things. On HN it's insight. If your writing style or attitude obscures such insight, it will be voted the same as if there were no insight at all.

Locke16893• 16 years ago

Exactly what additional value is expressed by using three

???

In other words, say what you will, but don't get carried away.

troutwine2• 16 years ago

I grew up in a blunt, German family. Very straight forward, often crude. I am, as a result, one to speak my mind. Effective criticism is best delivered from a high position: hyperbole and mistakes like "my the way I" debase an otherwise salient point.

A good insult is like a fine, dry wine; it is bitter and refined. You come across in your comment history as a dullard, enamored of his own ability to shout at crowds.

Mz3• 16 years ago

Do I go a little bit too far with it? Maybe.

Trying to be genuinely helpful:

"Vertical list of applications??? Microsoft what have you been smoking?"

Sounds pretty emotional. Maybe was intended somewhat humorously but humor on the internet (especially in a forum) is tough to pull off. Three question marks expresses strong emotion. Strong emotion is the opposite of critical thinking and logic. Emotion is (in part) actually a form of memory. People with strong feelings are better at making snap judgments. People who lack that have to actively work at making a decision because they don't have some "gut feeling" to go by. When you emote strongly in a public discussion, you actively promote other people not thinking and, instead, just reacting. So there are valid reasons why that is something not very welcome here.

I'm someone who tends to strongly emote and I sometimes make remarks that get downvoted in part because of that. That kind of expression has its place. But it's so socially disruptive that there is good reason to discourage it in a public discussion and even more reason to discourage it in a public discussion where the goal is critical thinking and logical exchange of ideas.

apsurd• 16 years ago

You want downvoters to explain themselves;

I downvoted you because this makes no sense:

I want to make it really clear that what I say is just my the way I see it.

1) If you are honestly going for clarity, then 90% of the words you use in your comments aren't helping.

2) "It's PG's house. You may not like to wear pants, but if PG feels that people should wear pants when over for dinner, you wear pants"

3) It's just a stupid downvote.

rokamic2• 16 years ago

Great comment. In the style of Eminem's Stan.

DjDarkman5• 16 years ago

I actually get downvoted for saying blasphemy like this:

"Actually there were no HTML5 stuff shown in the demo, I can code those effects to work with IE6. In fact that demo may even work in IE6 if you would include some hacks."

I mean does this sound mean?

wzdd• 16 years ago

This is fascinating, because there was a post a little while back proposing the opposite effect, titled "the default position of HN is skepticism". Here it is:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1629583

lkrubner7• 16 years ago

I wrote about this on my own blog, and someone from Hacker News came and posted a highly critical comment about me. They concluded:

"The reason you were downvoted and will continue to be downvoted is because you don’t discuss topics with any intellectual integrity."

The comment was interesting since it was such a pure, mirror reflection of what the commenter was doing. For instance, they posted anonymously, whereas I always write using my real name, yet they called me a troll. They also accused me of repeating myself, though they had also repeated themselves many times. You can see the comment here:

http://www.smashcompany.com/politics/the-stuff-that-gets-dow...

As the post indicates, I'm feeling ambivalent about Hacker News right now. Sometimes the conversations are really interesting, but there is also a lot of noise. Sometimes I learn a lot by participating in the conversations, but other times I feel like I'm talking to people who have no interest in understanding what I'm trying to say, and who are willing to use downvoting as a method of shouting me down.

I'm ambivalent. I enjoy this forum, but I'm also thinking I should probably invest my energy elsewhere. I've been reading this site for almost 2 years now, and I've learned a great deal, and every day there are interesting new articles posted. All the same, I get bored with conversations where I think the other person isn't really interested in hearing what I might have to say. And no doubt, vice versa, of course - clearly I upset someone, if they were willing to pursue the conversation to my own blog (where I was writing about Hacker News).

btilly2• 16 years ago

I don't agree with the drive by anonymous poster to your blog, but I do agree with the downvotes you got below http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1821175. (And no, I was not the downvoter.)

The open question was how big of a stick the government should wield, and your response was to implicitly ask whether the other person believed in capitalism, and if not then should we go with communism? This is a straw man comparison. There is a world of difference between saying that the government should punish bad behavior harshly, and saying that the government should have any active role in the day to day management of businesses.

In particular Stiglitz' proposal is that executives who can be shown to have engaged in fraud and theft, be punished for it. He further seems quite unhappy about corporate governance issues that in practice make it very hard for shareholders - the theoretical owners of a company - to have any direct ability to control compensation of CEOs, or to get an accurate picture of what their own company is doing.

The appropriate discussion to have about this is whether Stiglitz' characterization of the behavior is correct. And, if it is, then whether his proscription would be reasonable, and whether or not it would solve more problems than it causes. It is not to accuse someone of not believing that capitalism works.

lkrubner7• 16 years ago

No where did I bring communism or capitalism into the conversation.

And, mind you, I am not critical of the anonymous poster on my blog - everyone has a right to be critical. But it did make me think twice about whether Hacker News is the right place for me to invest my time.

dasil0034• 16 years ago

I upvoted this because I think it's an interesting discussion despite the fact that I disagree.

Let me ask you this: Can you think of any online discussion boards with better discussion than HN? The reason I ask is because my its nature I think Internet discourse always devolves into a garbage as a function of community size. Another way of putting it is that you can have a good Internet community as long as it doesn't get too big. In my mind HN is a notable exception in that it is large enough that it should be complete crap, but the core values of the community have held the line longer than could normally be expected.

Even reddit or slashdot, which I would hold up as having quite a few intelligent commenters, still gets drowned out by the in-humour and mindless memetics. So despite being far from perfect, I still consider HN the best discussion on the net.

lkrubner7• 16 years ago

dasil003, you ask "Can you think of any online discussion boards with better discussion than HN?"

I often have better conversations when I meet up with friends at a coffeeshop. For me, Hacker News is in competition with all the other things I could be doing with my time, rather than merely being in competition with other online discussions. Hacker News may be the best place online for discussing concerns relevant to startups, but it still suffers from many of the problems that all online discussions suffer from, including anonymous posting. For me, the question is whether I should engage in any online conversation that isn't directly related to work. Is it worth the effort? Every minute that I spend discussing issues online is a minute that I'm not doing other things, such as discussing similar issues with close friends of mine in real life, or writing software, or responding to personal email, or exercising, or going to a museum, etc.

SabrinaDent• 16 years ago

You could also decide you're going to say what you think on the topics where you feel you have something of value to add, say it as best you can, and not worry about the karma.

I'm not being snarky. It's a perfectly legitimate way to operate if you're clear that being able to dictate your own header color isn't why you're here. It's OK to opt out of the parts of the system that are not working for you.

volida3• 16 years ago

If you are getting downvoted continuesly, why don't you take it as a sign you are indeed say something wrong?

from your comments:

"I found the UI unappealing and the heavy use of rotation effects amateurish."

edit: that is mean, although because it was about Microsoft/Windows Phone 7 as a whole, there is almost zero direct effect on the people who worked on it, and therefore may reduce it's meaness factor by 0.001%, but amateurish and unnapealing? come on, that reveals negative energy.

jamesteow4• 16 years ago

That's mean? That seems like very cutting criticism. I've gotten much worse from my old Creative Director. I would prefer people to speak their mind (especially on my own work) instead of sugar-coating.

volida3• 16 years ago

Just because someone is used to a condition, that doesn't make it the standard. I really can't imagine someone saying that to someone who would have asked for feedback.

mquander2• 16 years ago

It's not that it's mean, it's that it's content-free. If I wrote "I think the Windows Phone 7 UI looks cool and the rotation effects are awesome" then I hope you would downvote it, because that is a trashy comment. (The real comment in question had 4 more lines, but they were all equally vapid.)

You have a specific comment about some identifiable aspect of the rotation effects? OK. You have evidence that the new wave of Zune-ish Windows UI style is not popular? Neat. You want to compare some design decisions between the WP7 UI and the iPhone or Android UIs? Sure, go for it. But if you have nothing to say, why say it?

volida3• 16 years ago

I agree. But, the vaqueness is what elivates it to mean status. It contributed zero to the understanding of his claims, therefore leaving the negative energy stand out.

Also, that type of comment you refer to, gets usually downvoted on HN.

jamesteow4• 16 years ago

How is that a trashy comment? You're affirming that they did something right which is a plus. Not everyone has the means to fully explain why they like or dislike something. Sometimes its just a gut feeling. Or sometimes it doesn't need an explanation.

drdo• 16 years ago

I support this thread completely.

Towle_2• 16 years ago

This is one of several diseases in HackerNews.

There's a whole spectrum of ways to disagree, all of which have value in the right situation. Here, a good portion of that spectrum has been lobbed off in the name of niceness and nothing more. Is it worth it? Decide for yourself. I say nay.

Bonus disease: PG worship. Don't get me wrong, he's a brilliant guy; we're all here (directly or indirectly) because of him. But it goes too far.

Locke16893• 16 years ago

I'm not sure it's exactly a disease. I'd rather call it a blindspot.

On the topic of "PG worship" I think, yes, perhaps the constant extolment goes a little to far. I think this is a blindspot of HN simply because most of us are pretty polite. One doesn't go into a host's house and take a dump on the floor, if I may. Sometimes I feel it may be rude to criticize Paul in this forum for a similar reason.

Towle_2• 16 years ago

I feel that mindset runs contrary to the mission of the site itself.

Criticism is not impolite. In fact, it's the direct opposite. Criticism is a show of respect. You criticize someone when you care about them, when you desire their betterment and you respect them enough to be confident that they will not react negatively to the idea that someone else may know better than they do.

resdirector• 16 years ago

FWIW, here's a good example of a smart guy, cperciva, disagreeing with pg in a goodly way:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35015

dasil0034• 16 years ago

Nice juxtaposition: http://skitch.com/dasil003/d7f2s/hacker-news-is-hn-only-abou...

warren_s2• 16 years ago

I agree about the PG-worship or whatever you want to call it.

I preferred to absent myself from here for a while after it got real bad (to the point of the first article commonly being a 2-3 year old essay that had bubbled to the top AGAIN), simply because I felt fundamentally outside of the norm here - I rarely agree with anything PG says in its entirety. Paul is a thoughtful enough person that I've never felt that it would upset him if I disagreed here, but I would imagine there would be a lot of people keen to argue with me until I was blue in the face about it.

An opinion is an opinion however, and we're all entitled to our own - I take downvotes not as a personal attack, but simply an expression of disagreement, be it with your opinion OR the way you express it.

Udo2• 16 years ago

I have no opinion on PG-worship one way or the other (probably because I'm new here) but I agree about the general "problem" that involves people who seem to downvote (or even flag) thoughtful comments just because they disagree. Sometimes, they not only downvote a comment they dislike, they apparently go to your profile and downvote everything(!) you wrote recently. Maybe it's a weakness of the implementation, or maybe I just didn't understand the purpose of the moderation system correctly and this is actually the way it is supposed to work?

I tend to upvote anything that seems coherent and interesting, not just the stuff I agree with. If I ever get to the point where I'm allowed to downvote, I'll exercise that privilege only to mod down trolls, spammers, or very bad style. Everything else can much better be handled by replying to an entry and having an actual discussion.

So am I mistaken? What is the mod system for, officially? Quality control or consensus building?

rokamic2• 16 years ago

<blockquote>it's just that the system discourages you to have your own opinion on anything</blockquote>

Please continue to bring your own opinion's to us, for the benefit of all.

Opinion's are cool, but intelligent ideas and lessons-learned are better.

catshirt• 16 years ago

Not for nothing, but nearly all of the comments I looked at on your first 2 pages are pretty negative. Not that negativity is always necessarily a bad thing (ironically), but really man, why so angry?

paulnelligan2• 16 years ago

y'know a few downvotes are not the end of the world either. The most downvotes I've ever seen anyone get never exceeds 4. I've seen hundreds of upvotes for some submissions. So if you're worried about the karma, just post something interesting. Guaranteed you'll get your karma back AND still have the freedom to criticize something if you feel the need.

joshuacc2• 16 years ago

That's because the publicly displayed score for any comment bottoms out at -4 in order to prevent a "dogpile" effect. Every downvote still deducts karma, though it may not be publicized in the comment's score.

Mz3• 16 years ago

Makes me wonder what the effect would be of doing the same sort of thing for upvotes.

paulnelligan2• 16 years ago

I am fully aware of that fact. Thanks anyway.

moxiemk1• 16 years ago

The site wont display downvotes in excess of 4. That way, no comments are publicly downvoted into oblivion, but they do continue to lose karma.

Oxryly• 16 years ago

Yes, you simpering vole.

drcode• 16 years ago

I write negative comments all the time and they seem to do fine.

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

I just took a glance at my recent comments. Most of them are nominally negative (by about 2:1). Most of them have several upvotes, none of them appear to be downvoted.

People on HN enjoy criticism just fine, but they don't particularly enjoy standing next to a spigot of feces. The problem is that vitriol and excessive emotion skews debate. It makes the debate about the emotion itself, rather than about the issue at hand. When people get into a shouting match their brains shut down and people stop arguing rationally (the fight-or-flight response kicks in, blood starts being withdrawn from the extremities and some of the higher brain-function areas, the reptile brain starts taking over, and it becomes much more difficult to admit being wrong or that the other person might be right). This sort of thing is not helpful if the goal is productive rational debate.

T_S_3• 16 years ago

You, sir, have ruined my dinner with your "spigot of feces" imagery. Upvoting since I need drop a few pounds.

brk• 16 years ago

To me it seems that HN has mostly been about content and thoughtful presentation. Not all of my comments are always happy unicorn rainbows, but if I'm presenting an alternative or unpopular opinion I (try) to at least explain my reasoning and logic.

Lame jabs, cheap shots, bad jokes, and vapid comments DO seem to get rightly pounded down.

akadien• 16 years ago

Dude, it's karma points on HN. A number on a server somewhere that has no bearing whatsoever on your real life. Have some perspective.

robryan• 16 years ago

I don't think its so much the points into themselves, I know an overall count worries me very little. It's the negative feedback you get from having something voted down, which isn't to bad if someone replies and explains why they disagree or why the argument isn't well formed, doesn't add anything ect.

It's when you have a comment the represents your opinion and you think it's well written, but it still has been voted down for unknown reasons with no replies in can play on your mind. It's like your telling someone something, they tell you they disagree and the conversations ends there.

fleitz• 16 years ago

I have to agree with you on this point. I caught myself caring the other day as I picked up a -4 on a comment. Then I had to relax and realize it was just a number. If a bunch of people disagree or think it was trollish then so be it.

kls2• 16 years ago

I don't know about it not being important, I have made several important connections on HN that I don't think would have happened if I had little to no Karma. I have helped two individuals on here with advice on their start-ups offline from HN, I have worked with another to help him advance himself personally. I have picked up a few freelance gigs on HN. And I have expanded my network.

I feel confidence that if I where in a pinch, I could call on the community to help me find some contract work if need be.

To say that it is just some virtual bits floating around somewhere is to discount the real world connections that this site provides and I think Kara at some level serves as you credibility when making those connections, just like everything else, it is what you make of it.

The constant focus on not being adversarial promotes an environment of collaboration over competition, in which the individual members feel a bond of tribe among one another and therefore look to help one another out. I have to say it is a refreshing break from some of the rudely arrogant attitudes that are tolerated and sometimes promoted on some other sites.

richardw• 16 years ago

I think the karma is irrelevant, but the lessons aren't. Often the lessons we learn on online forums can carry onto our real lives. Rather get spiteful, rude or angry and be downvoted hard, than lose your job or mess up your relationship.

Many times I've seen someone online be piled-on, and while I've felt sorry for them I've often seen them come back much more respectful.

joshuacc2• 16 years ago

Some things you could do to make your critical comments more valuable to the community:

1. Avoid unnecessary profanity.

2. Avoid ridicule and sarcasm, especially when directed at other HNers.

3. Avoid complaining about "trolls" downvoting you. In fact, avoid discussing karma in general.

4. Avoid using emotionally laden terms of disapproval. Instead use direct objective language ("There were rendering artifacts in the rotation effects") or clearly state the subjective aspects of what you are discussing ("Something about the rotation effects rubs me the wrong way.")

5. Be concise and relatively formal in your language.

Charuru• 16 years ago

I downvote people that I disagree with. It's never because it's too honest or too negative or too rude, I don't care about that. I downvote if I think it's wrong or misinformed.

This applies to nearly every one of your comments on Microsoft.

karmawhore2• 16 years ago

Too many people downvote people that they disagree with which is the downfall of a karma based system. What if you disagree, but they are right? Why do you dislike the fact that someone may have an opinion that differs from yours?

Downvoting people you disagree with implies that you are always right. I bow down to your perfection.

julsonl• 16 years ago

You forgot to read the part where he mentioned downvoting because the information was wrong or misinformed. The same way I'll get downvoted if I furiously debated that an apple's color is always blue.

greatgoof• 16 years ago

That sir, I believe, is the incorrect way to do it. I may believe in capitalism, and I may believe that communism is wrong and someone who supports it is misinformed. But that should not mean that I downvote all comments extolling the merits of communism. I try to keep in mind that what the commentor wrote is his/her opinion and if that comment is well-written and adds value to the discussion, it should be upvoted and encouraged.

Long story short, comments that add value, contribute positively to discussion and are insightful need to be encouraged. My stand on the topic should have no bearing.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

Take it as a life-lesson. People are more responsive to criticism and opposing opinions when it's expressed in a positive way, even if the core of the message is the same. While it's more satisfying to make clever remarks (believe me, I know), I've literally learned via HN how to craft negative statements in a positive way to get people to listen to me, and I'm sure you can learn the same.

(See what I did there?)

T_S_3• 16 years ago

There is definitely style of negative comment that attracts downvotes on HN. If you care about karma, it is usually easy to avoid as many comments in this thread point out.

Unfortunately there is always a temptation with karma systems to use them for "social proof". Social proof is implemented by downvoting opinions you disagree with and vice versa. The only ego-preserving way of dealing with this is to view your minority opinions as "ahead of your time" and resolve to politely keep up the thought leadership.

EDIT: I bit and looked at your comments. Suggestions on the thought leadership appear in another message.