3 ms·

You ignorant idiot. Of course someone like you will agree to this article, you constantly disagree on this form. You just use this to reinforce your one-sided

You ignorant idiot. Of course someone like you will agree to this article, you constantly disagree on this form. You just use this to reinforce your one-sided view. I can't believe that you would just blindly agree to anything Paul Graham says so casually. I honestly can't understand why you listen to Paul Graham. He is a known ignorant programmer who just thinks he can run companies. Complaining about other news in a comment about something different is a good thing, people get to have discussions and often an interesting point related to the article as well as other articles that may be related or come out at the same time emerge. If you look at articles even from today with tangents, you will notice irrelevance gets down-voted quickly. "Irrelevance seems to be a greater danger to the comments here than the method of disagreements" I can't disagree more. We don't sort responses on a user-preference level. Responses are sorted based on relevance. Each response is ranked by other uses of hacker news thus getting the irrelevant down the list quickly. After a few screens on any topic on hacker news you will start to get to irrelevance, and even when browsing you will see points, which help you immediately ignore a response, hell irrelevant ones get discolored. I think you are totally off with your point. Basically the biggest issue we face on hacker news is the threat of being invaded by those same people who bicker on other sites. Nothing gives me chills more than thinking that MasterPlanSoftware from thedailywtf.com will hit up this site and start posting. His posts were usually DH1 (with an occasional DH2) and he would keep going. An even worse fear is that spectateswamp will look in our direction (please google him, also see www.thestupidestmanonearth.com). When articles like why's disappearance start filling up 1-2 pages of articles on HN is when these fears get surfaced again. Fortunately we were moderated well so that when such problems occur we get massive posts about erlang driving the non-believers away. So in the end, I think hacker news is perfect. Hows that? as a side note I disagree with everything I just said

lisper 17y ago
Whoever is downmodding this apparently has no sense of irony :-)
- olavk 17y ago
  One thing I have noted about irony: In written text, where you don't have cues like tone of voice or body language to detect irony, you usually rely on your the knowledge of the writer: This person does not usually write like this/have this viewpoint, hence it must be ironic. On an internet forum you usually don't know the person writing (unless you keep track of usernames). And no viewpoint is so extreme or bizarre that there isn't someone somewhere on the internet saying the same thing in all seriousness. You cannot detect irony just by looking at the post in isolation. Irony can be detected when are familiar with the poster or the general sentiments on the forum, and detect when something is so far removed from the norm that is must be ironic. In turn irony can be used as a marker for group - everyone in the group know what you are supposed to say, an therefore can easily detect when the group members are being ironic. Outsiders will not understand the irony and get confused. Hence "you have no sense of irony" actually means "you haven't been on the forum long enough to be familiar with the comme il faut viewpoints and language used here. You are not part of the club."
  - GrandMasterBirt 17y ago
    Same can be said for sarcasm. Its why we have <sarcasm> tags. However the entire content of the post is such that it cannot make sense but to be sarcastic/ironic.
    - elblanco 17y ago
      I wouldn't sweat it, people downvote when they suspect something might be humorous, sarcastic, or a parody. Adding a tag like <sarcasm> or <humor> simply confirms it for them so they can downvote with a clear conscious.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
danielle17 17y ago
haha I think someone posted a clever comment like this the last time this story surfaced on HN, too. Mabye whoever is downmodding this wrote the first one? ;)
- GrandMasterBirt 17y ago
  Citation needed. Send us the link to this post. I'm curious.

lisper 17y ago

Whoever is downmodding this apparently has no sense of irony :-)

olavk 17y ago
One thing I have noted about irony: In written text, where you don't have cues like tone of voice or body language to detect irony, you usually rely on your the knowledge of the writer: This person does not usually write like this/have this viewpoint, hence it must be ironic. On an internet forum you usually don't know the person writing (unless you keep track of usernames). And no viewpoint is so extreme or bizarre that there isn't someone somewhere on the internet saying the same thing in all seriousness. You cannot detect irony just by looking at the post in isolation. Irony can be detected when are familiar with the poster or the general sentiments on the forum, and detect when something is so far removed from the norm that is must be ironic. In turn irony can be used as a marker for group - everyone in the group know what you are supposed to say, an therefore can easily detect when the group members are being ironic. Outsiders will not understand the irony and get confused. Hence "you have no sense of irony" actually means "you haven't been on the forum long enough to be familiar with the comme il faut viewpoints and language used here. You are not part of the club."
- GrandMasterBirt 17y ago
  Same can be said for sarcasm. Its why we have <sarcasm> tags. However the entire content of the post is such that it cannot make sense but to be sarcastic/ironic.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    I wouldn't sweat it, people downvote when they suspect something might be humorous, sarcastic, or a parody. Adding a tag like <sarcasm> or <humor> simply confirms it for them so they can downvote with a clear conscious.
- elblanco 17y ago
  http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

danielle17 17y ago

haha I think someone posted a clever comment like this the last time this story surfaced on HN, too. Mabye whoever is downmodding this wrote the first one? ;)

GrandMasterBirt 17y ago
Citation needed. Send us the link to this post. I'm curious.