5 ms·

This is even more true of the comment section of HN than it is in the media. For several domains I know something about, the comments here are painfully misguid

by lukev 11y ago

This is even more true of the comment section of HN than it is in the media. For several domains I know something about, the comments here are painfully misguided and just bad, with the possible exception of some programming topics.

logicallee 11y ago
> For several domains I know something about, the [HN] comments are painfully misguided and just bad But in the case of HN, if you leave them that way in a way it's your fault :-P Meaning, that you could write a paragraph or two setting the rest of us straight. The exception is subjects that are extremely politically sensitive and controversial, in which your paragraph or two could be downvoted to oblivion and start a uselessly derailed thread, no matter how incredibly polite you are. If HN has 'groupthink' opinion that is completely wrong on kernel scheduling, you can set it right, politely and by sticking to the facts. If HN has 'groupthink' opinion that is completely wrong on a political or other controversial issue, I would politely abstain.
- chongli 11y ago
  If HN has 'groupthink' opinion that is completely wrong on a political or other controversial issue, I would politely abstain. No way! I love commenting on political and controversial issues. Never let a fear of downvotes act as a chilling effect on your speech. If you believe you have something truly valuable to add then get it out there! I often find myself surprised that I'm upvoted for swimming against the current. It may turn out that there were multiple people who had the same idea as me but they were staying out of it until I commented.
  - lotharbot 11y ago
    or, in many cases, people who agree but couldn't express the same idea as well as you, or even people who disagree but learned something. Upvotes aren't only a sign of likemindedness.
    - barsonme 11y ago
      I've often noted how some controversial threads follow the pattern (sometimes a bit more drawn out): > OP's controversial comment (-50) > response (+10) > OP's responds back with evidence or clarification (+100) where OP was simply misunderstood.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        Or alternatively, their score flips from positive, to negative and then to positive (or the opposite) but manages after a while to get an equilibrium and stabilises at 1. I really think some folks must get a little manic when the realise the comment hasn't gone grey...
      - SixSigma 11y ago
        I get that often. It really is a symptom that should have been broken when learning to writing academic style. Assertions need citations or evidence.
  - logicallee 11y ago
    I agree with you in some cases but not in others. I'll give you a recent example: there's nothing wrong with servers running ad-block detectors and not serving content to people running ad-blockers. It's within their rights. It's not "within their rights" for people to circumvent these and try to see the content anyway. Since on a technical level the content owner's web server is both serving the content to you at their expense, for which your browser makes a request, and also is specifically serving copyrighted content, and finally on a moral level has created that content at their expense, I consider it absolutely, 100% within their moral, legal, technical, and decent rights to throw up a TOS saying: "Our business model is showing you advertising, and you agree to load and not block ads. Click 'I agree' to proceed". It's in my opinion within their moral, ethical, technical, and legal rights to detect and block people using ad blockers. It's not a technical "arms race" for people installing plugins that let them trick the server into serving them content even though they're not displaying ads, while the server chooses not to display them content. Even if there is NO such click-through TOS being thrown up, the server by running ad-detection algorithms makes this relationship abundantly clear. I wrote this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458626 All of my contributions were downvoted, which is fine, but people were also extremely rude. They didn't understand my bakery analogy, and focused on something irrelevant, the TOS. (This is like saying the bakery didn't have a sign up saying you couldn't reach behind the counter and take something. I mean, the fact that the server is actively running ad-block detection and wanting not to serve you isn't enough? It's also irrelevant because it takes one line to add that to a TOS so it's not a real response.) So here is an example of a fine contribution in which my view is correct and HN groupthink is completely wrong. untog pointed out that my comment was correct by stating "Seems telling that you're getting downvotes but no replies explaining how your comparison is wrong..." Going forward, of course I will not be using that analogy.. Indeed I won't post on any ad-block related subjects. Of course, this doesn't mean I don't expect people not to run ad-blockers, just as the existence of copyright doesn't mean I don't expect people to torrent stuff. I just mean that they're not morally in the right, they shouldn't act righteous about it, and servers that refuse to serve people content when those people are running ad blockers are in no way (not even a tiny way) in the wrong. I'll probably be downvoted for this, I just wanted to give you an example of something that I wouldn't post. I literally wouldn't be posting this now except as an example of something people will downvote.
Joof 11y ago
We are mostly programmers, so it makes sense. Most of us are happy to listen to people more knowledge than us though.
jonathansizz 11y ago
I've noticed this on HN for genetics- and especially evolution-related topics. Many commenters here confidently state as fact things which turn out to be dead wrong. If your knowledge of evolution is limited to having read 'The Selfish Gene', you should be aware that you likely carry several misconceptions and also have many large gaps in your knowledge. It turns out that, although possibly a virtue when programming, hubris can easily lead you astray if you're outside your field of expertise. Humility is more useful in these situations. I am sure that this holds true for many other topics; it should give us all pause before we accept statements as true just because they sound agreeable to us, or before we regurgitate opinions whose veracity we're not in a position to verify. Incidentally, I've also spotted this on the TV show QI, many of whose clever 'facts' are misleading at best or just plain incorrect.
- Retric 11y ago
  There are three options when you disagree with something on on HN. It's Wrong. It's Correct, and you are mistaken. It's Correct, but poorly communicated. IMO, the poorly communicated issue shows up far more than most people assume. I have seen several discussion between two experts go X, that's wrong Y, that's not true X(1)... then after 10 posts they end up agreeing that X ~= Y if Z. PS: This is also far worse on the softer ends of hard science. Diet, Economics, Climate, Astronomy, and Evolution all suffer from studying complex things with limited ability to experiment.
- Udo 11y ago
  > If your knowledge of evolution is limited to having read 'The Selfish Gene', you should be aware that you likely carry several misconceptions I know this is veering wildly offtopic, but when I see misconceptions about evolution on HN, they're usually not being displayed by people with too rudimentary a science background, it's mostly people with an altogether unscientific background such as creationism or other religious and philosophical ideas that are in conflict with factual information. > Incidentally, I've also spotted this on the TV show QI, many of whose clever 'facts' are misleading at best or just plain incorrect. I'm not familiar with that show, but that's a common problem in science journalism now, and it's not even confined to "popular" science anymore either. Maybe it's always been that way, and I just notice it more nowadays.
Udo 11y ago
> For several domains I know something about, the comments here are painfully misguided and just bad There is also a lot of the opposite - but just as bad - phenomenon going on: I believe shouting out unreflected gotcha!-style rebuttals to comments has become somewhat of a sport around here, to the point where I sometimes wonder if misunderstanding the original comment was maybe an intentional act.
- vorg 11y ago
  > misunderstanding the original comment was maybe an intentional act Some people scan comments looking for specific things that conflict with some narrative they're promoting, usually with regards to a product. They will: * only reply to comments that are going to be seen by many people, e.g. those near the top, at certain times of the day, within a certain time of being posted * write the reply in the shortest amount of time * write a reply that deflects attention away from the original comment, irrespective of whether that reply makes any sense
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by lukev 11y ago

logicallee 11y ago

> For several domains I know something about, the [HN] comments are painfully misguided and just bad But in the case of HN, if you leave them that way in a way it's your fault :-P Meaning, that you could write a paragraph or two setting the rest of us straight. The exception is subjects that are extremely politically sensitive and controversial, in which your paragraph or two could be downvoted to oblivion and start a uselessly derailed thread, no matter how incredibly polite you are. If HN has 'groupthink' opinion that is completely wrong on kernel scheduling, you can set it right, politely and by sticking to the facts. If HN has 'groupthink' opinion that is completely wrong on a political or other controversial issue, I would politely abstain.

chongli 11y ago
If HN has 'groupthink' opinion that is completely wrong on a political or other controversial issue, I would politely abstain. No way! I love commenting on political and controversial issues. Never let a fear of downvotes act as a chilling effect on your speech. If you believe you have something truly valuable to add then get it out there! I often find myself surprised that I'm upvoted for swimming against the current. It may turn out that there were multiple people who had the same idea as me but they were staying out of it until I commented.
- lotharbot 11y ago
  or, in many cases, people who agree but couldn't express the same idea as well as you, or even people who disagree but learned something. Upvotes aren't only a sign of likemindedness.
  - barsonme 11y ago
    I've often noted how some controversial threads follow the pattern (sometimes a bit more drawn out): > OP's controversial comment (-50) > response (+10) > OP's responds back with evidence or clarification (+100) where OP was simply misunderstood.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Or alternatively, their score flips from positive, to negative and then to positive (or the opposite) but manages after a while to get an equilibrium and stabilises at 1. I really think some folks must get a little manic when the realise the comment hasn't gone grey...
    - SixSigma 11y ago
      I get that often. It really is a symptom that should have been broken when learning to writing academic style. Assertions need citations or evidence.
- logicallee 11y ago
  I agree with you in some cases but not in others. I'll give you a recent example: there's nothing wrong with servers running ad-block detectors and not serving content to people running ad-blockers. It's within their rights. It's not "within their rights" for people to circumvent these and try to see the content anyway. Since on a technical level the content owner's web server is both serving the content to you at their expense, for which your browser makes a request, and also is specifically serving copyrighted content, and finally on a moral level has created that content at their expense, I consider it absolutely, 100% within their moral, legal, technical, and decent rights to throw up a TOS saying: "Our business model is showing you advertising, and you agree to load and not block ads. Click 'I agree' to proceed". It's in my opinion within their moral, ethical, technical, and legal rights to detect and block people using ad blockers. It's not a technical "arms race" for people installing plugins that let them trick the server into serving them content even though they're not displaying ads, while the server chooses not to display them content. Even if there is NO such click-through TOS being thrown up, the server by running ad-detection algorithms makes this relationship abundantly clear. I wrote this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458626 All of my contributions were downvoted, which is fine, but people were also extremely rude. They didn't understand my bakery analogy, and focused on something irrelevant, the TOS. (This is like saying the bakery didn't have a sign up saying you couldn't reach behind the counter and take something. I mean, the fact that the server is actively running ad-block detection and wanting not to serve you isn't enough? It's also irrelevant because it takes one line to add that to a TOS so it's not a real response.) So here is an example of a fine contribution in which my view is correct and HN groupthink is completely wrong. untog pointed out that my comment was correct by stating "Seems telling that you're getting downvotes but no replies explaining how your comparison is wrong..." Going forward, of course I will not be using that analogy.. Indeed I won't post on any ad-block related subjects. Of course, this doesn't mean I don't expect people not to run ad-blockers, just as the existence of copyright doesn't mean I don't expect people to torrent stuff. I just mean that they're not morally in the right, they shouldn't act righteous about it, and servers that refuse to serve people content when those people are running ad blockers are in no way (not even a tiny way) in the wrong. I'll probably be downvoted for this, I just wanted to give you an example of something that I wouldn't post. I literally wouldn't be posting this now except as an example of something people will downvote.

Joof 11y ago

We are mostly programmers, so it makes sense. Most of us are happy to listen to people more knowledge than us though.

jonathansizz 11y ago

I've noticed this on HN for genetics- and especially evolution-related topics. Many commenters here confidently state as fact things which turn out to be dead wrong. If your knowledge of evolution is limited to having read 'The Selfish Gene', you should be aware that you likely carry several misconceptions and also have many large gaps in your knowledge. It turns out that, although possibly a virtue when programming, hubris can easily lead you astray if you're outside your field of expertise. Humility is more useful in these situations. I am sure that this holds true for many other topics; it should give us all pause before we accept statements as true just because they sound agreeable to us, or before we regurgitate opinions whose veracity we're not in a position to verify. Incidentally, I've also spotted this on the TV show QI, many of whose clever 'facts' are misleading at best or just plain incorrect.

Retric 11y ago
There are three options when you disagree with something on on HN. It's Wrong. It's Correct, and you are mistaken. It's Correct, but poorly communicated. IMO, the poorly communicated issue shows up far more than most people assume. I have seen several discussion between two experts go X, that's wrong Y, that's not true X(1)... then after 10 posts they end up agreeing that X ~= Y if Z. PS: This is also far worse on the softer ends of hard science. Diet, Economics, Climate, Astronomy, and Evolution all suffer from studying complex things with limited ability to experiment.
Udo 11y ago
> If your knowledge of evolution is limited to having read 'The Selfish Gene', you should be aware that you likely carry several misconceptions I know this is veering wildly offtopic, but when I see misconceptions about evolution on HN, they're usually not being displayed by people with too rudimentary a science background, it's mostly people with an altogether unscientific background such as creationism or other religious and philosophical ideas that are in conflict with factual information. > Incidentally, I've also spotted this on the TV show QI, many of whose clever 'facts' are misleading at best or just plain incorrect. I'm not familiar with that show, but that's a common problem in science journalism now, and it's not even confined to "popular" science anymore either. Maybe it's always been that way, and I just notice it more nowadays.

Udo 11y ago

> For several domains I know something about, the comments here are painfully misguided and just bad There is also a lot of the opposite - but just as bad - phenomenon going on: I believe shouting out unreflected gotcha!-style rebuttals to comments has become somewhat of a sport around here, to the point where I sometimes wonder if misunderstanding the original comment was maybe an intentional act.

vorg 11y ago
> misunderstanding the original comment was maybe an intentional act Some people scan comments looking for specific things that conflict with some narrative they're promoting, usually with regards to a product. They will: * only reply to comments that are going to be seen by many people, e.g. those near the top, at certain times of the day, within a certain time of being posted * write the reply in the shortest amount of time * write a reply that deflects attention away from the original comment, irrespective of whether that reply makes any sense
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]