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why would you call this trolling? the submitter's history indicates he is participating here in good faith. and i think the idea of finding two articles espousi

why would you call this trolling? the submitter's history indicates he is participating here in good faith. and i think the idea of finding two articles espousing diametrically opposed ideas and submitting them both is pretty clever. further, the conversations generated seem to indicate that people here want to talk about this constructively.

mahmud 17y ago
It's understood that one thread serves as channel for communication, so a discussion can take place between both sides. A second thread only dilutes the conversation; there are no separate parliament houses for separate party members, they all share one. If I came across an opposing view, I would typically submit it in a comment/reply, not start a separate thread. And if you look at the topic IDs, they were submitted right after the other (i.e. submitter knew of both sides before hand.) That, and the triviality of the subject made be suspicious of the submitter's intentions. I didn't mean to be hurtful, but, for crying out loud ..
- allenbrunson 17y ago
  here's why i think it's clever. there are certain evergreen topics here that are always going to lead to heated debate. iphone versus android versus pre, mac versus windows versus linux, rails versus drupal versus php, ruby versus python versus c++ versus perl versus lisp, etc etc etc. each time an article is posted here that takes a stand one way or the other, it prejudices the resultant discussion. it's sort of inherently understood that, if you want to comment strongly anti-iphone, you better wait until the posted article itself is also anti-iphone, or else you're going to face stiff opposition and downvotes. by posting two articles, one pro-tab and one anti-tab, the submitter has neatly sidestepped that problem. if news.yc tilted strongly one way or the other, you'd expect one article or the other to get most of the upvotes, and the other one would sink. as it turns out, both articles have been running neck-and-neck for hours. interesting. it shows that tab lovers and haters exist here in equal proportions, which i really wouldn't have guessed.
  - miles 17y ago
    Many thanks, Allen - you summed up (much more clearly and succinctly than I could have) exactly why I submitted the opposing pieces simultaneously.
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    "each time an article is posted here that takes a stand one way or the other, it prejudices the resultant discussion." Wouldn't a good thing to do in such a situation be to write an article of one's own summarizing the key points from both the pro and anti arguments, titling it something like "To tab or not to tab" and linking to that instead? That way you don't have to take a stand on a polarizing article but could get the benefit of the HN community's discussion? HN usually has great discussion even on crummy topics and I can empathize with the intent to tap into such discussion on a subject of interest, but this dual posting (in my purely subjective opinion) has a whiff of deception about it - a "letter of the law" vs "spirit of the law" thing. "by posting two articles, one pro-tab and one anti-tab, the submitter has neatly sidestepped that problem. " Yes it is a neat hack. But I also agree with Mahmud in that this seems (somewhat) trollish.(What's next? Pairs of "Lisp is cool/ Lisp sucks" "Ruby is better than Python/Python is better than Ruby" articles? - Good on you for spotting it, Mahmud!) A trollish hack? Why not?
    - allenbrunson 17y ago
      i'm not suggesting that dual posts should become the norm, I'm just noting that this is a clever hack that illustrates a problem in the system. i think it's human nature to prefer a two-horse race where half the viewers root for one and the other half for the other, rather than a one-horse race where half the audience is rooting for, the other half against. if this hack started becoming common, I'm sure the editors would eventually put a stop to it.
      - plinkplonk 17y ago
        "i'm not suggesting that dual posts should become the norm," I agree. I wasn't implying you did. Apologies if I gave that impression in my post. " I'm just noting that this is a clever hack that illustrates a problem in the system." I agree with this too. It is a clever hack(good) exploiting a hole in the system (ambiguous), intended specifically to provoke argument( bad imo).

mahmud 17y ago

It's understood that one thread serves as channel for communication, so a discussion can take place between both sides. A second thread only dilutes the conversation; there are no separate parliament houses for separate party members, they all share one. If I came across an opposing view, I would typically submit it in a comment/reply, not start a separate thread. And if you look at the topic IDs, they were submitted right after the other (i.e. submitter knew of both sides before hand.) That, and the triviality of the subject made be suspicious of the submitter's intentions. I didn't mean to be hurtful, but, for crying out loud ..

allenbrunson 17y ago
here's why i think it's clever. there are certain evergreen topics here that are always going to lead to heated debate. iphone versus android versus pre, mac versus windows versus linux, rails versus drupal versus php, ruby versus python versus c++ versus perl versus lisp, etc etc etc. each time an article is posted here that takes a stand one way or the other, it prejudices the resultant discussion. it's sort of inherently understood that, if you want to comment strongly anti-iphone, you better wait until the posted article itself is also anti-iphone, or else you're going to face stiff opposition and downvotes. by posting two articles, one pro-tab and one anti-tab, the submitter has neatly sidestepped that problem. if news.yc tilted strongly one way or the other, you'd expect one article or the other to get most of the upvotes, and the other one would sink. as it turns out, both articles have been running neck-and-neck for hours. interesting. it shows that tab lovers and haters exist here in equal proportions, which i really wouldn't have guessed.
- miles 17y ago
  Many thanks, Allen - you summed up (much more clearly and succinctly than I could have) exactly why I submitted the opposing pieces simultaneously.
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "each time an article is posted here that takes a stand one way or the other, it prejudices the resultant discussion." Wouldn't a good thing to do in such a situation be to write an article of one's own summarizing the key points from both the pro and anti arguments, titling it something like "To tab or not to tab" and linking to that instead? That way you don't have to take a stand on a polarizing article but could get the benefit of the HN community's discussion? HN usually has great discussion even on crummy topics and I can empathize with the intent to tap into such discussion on a subject of interest, but this dual posting (in my purely subjective opinion) has a whiff of deception about it - a "letter of the law" vs "spirit of the law" thing. "by posting two articles, one pro-tab and one anti-tab, the submitter has neatly sidestepped that problem. " Yes it is a neat hack. But I also agree with Mahmud in that this seems (somewhat) trollish.(What's next? Pairs of "Lisp is cool/ Lisp sucks" "Ruby is better than Python/Python is better than Ruby" articles? - Good on you for spotting it, Mahmud!) A trollish hack? Why not?
  - allenbrunson 17y ago
    i'm not suggesting that dual posts should become the norm, I'm just noting that this is a clever hack that illustrates a problem in the system. i think it's human nature to prefer a two-horse race where half the viewers root for one and the other half for the other, rather than a one-horse race where half the audience is rooting for, the other half against. if this hack started becoming common, I'm sure the editors would eventually put a stop to it.
    - plinkplonk 17y ago
      "i'm not suggesting that dual posts should become the norm," I agree. I wasn't implying you did. Apologies if I gave that impression in my post. " I'm just noting that this is a clever hack that illustrates a problem in the system." I agree with this too. It is a clever hack(good) exploiting a hole in the system (ambiguous), intended specifically to provoke argument( bad imo).