4 ms·

I wonder what no comments from last 7 hours mean, either people here are bored of blogging or answers to your questions are too obvious.

by jarsj 17y ago

Mz 17y ago
I have a long history of completely sucking at starting conversations in online forums. Typically, conversations I try to start either get completely ignored or go down in flames in the worst possible way. Over the years, I have tried to work on this. I go down in flames less, so there has been progress. After I make the observation a few times that I suck at this, I start getting "pity vote" comments -- ie people reply just so there aren't zero comments. I think that may be worse than getting zero comments. I don't remark on my total suckitude to whine. It's just an objective fact. My last submission to HN generated zero comments and the one before that generated pity comments along the lines of "Gee, that's tough. Maybe you should look elsewhere for support". Of 4 submissions here so far, I've managed to successfully generate conversation/meaningful, useful replies one time. That's probably about par for the course for me. New questions to add to my above list: How would you ask this question/introduce this topic such that it would get replies? What did I do wrong? :-D
- jarsj 17y ago
  I hope its not your objective to generate comments. I am not an expert (under 200 karma) but will advice anyways :- 1) Ask something when you need help and its not something obvious. Googling on your question before posting might help. For example, "What is the search engine you guys use ?" is a bad question. 2) Show something when you have something worth showing. Many people here are creating something and they like seeing what others are creating. If you are proud of something you built, show us. 3) People usually tend to contribute to a discussion when the original author seemed to have done some research himself. Take the "Brag HN" thread for example, I wonder if the author hadn't posted some examples about what kind of "about you" he wants to hear, it would have generated so much discussion. 4) Lastly, follow your instincts and have fun.
  - Mz 17y ago
    I wasn't really looking to generate comments when I replied to you. A) I'm very chatty and don't like to just ignore people who are speaking to me. (I've actually had to work on learning when to let it go and that some comments do not really need a reply.) B) I find something very humorous about my poor ability to start good conversations online. I'm infamous for being very talkative and for having a habit of generating big reactions completely unintentionally. Somehow, I haven't mastered the art of "bottling" it, so to speak. Anyway, I am pleasantly surprised to see a couple of other comments. So it's all good. :-) (And would have been all good even if no one had replied. I figured I was doing it badly when I wrote it. I left it up to see where it would go anyway.)

I wonder what no comments from last 7 hours mean, either people here are bored of blogging or answers to your questions are too obvious.

by jarsj 17y ago

I wonder what no comments from last 7 hours mean, either people here are bored of blogging or answers to your questions are too obvious.

Mz 17y ago

I have a long history of completely sucking at starting conversations in online forums. Typically, conversations I try to start either get completely ignored or go down in flames in the worst possible way. Over the years, I have tried to work on this. I go down in flames less, so there has been progress. After I make the observation a few times that I suck at this, I start getting "pity vote" comments -- ie people reply just so there aren't zero comments. I think that may be worse than getting zero comments. I don't remark on my total suckitude to whine. It's just an objective fact. My last submission to HN generated zero comments and the one before that generated pity comments along the lines of "Gee, that's tough. Maybe you should look elsewhere for support". Of 4 submissions here so far, I've managed to successfully generate conversation/meaningful, useful replies one time. That's probably about par for the course for me. New questions to add to my above list: How would you ask this question/introduce this topic such that it would get replies? What did I do wrong? :-D

jarsj 17y ago
I hope its not your objective to generate comments. I am not an expert (under 200 karma) but will advice anyways :- 1) Ask something when you need help and its not something obvious. Googling on your question before posting might help. For example, "What is the search engine you guys use ?" is a bad question. 2) Show something when you have something worth showing. Many people here are creating something and they like seeing what others are creating. If you are proud of something you built, show us. 3) People usually tend to contribute to a discussion when the original author seemed to have done some research himself. Take the "Brag HN" thread for example, I wonder if the author hadn't posted some examples about what kind of "about you" he wants to hear, it would have generated so much discussion. 4) Lastly, follow your instincts and have fun.
- Mz 17y ago
  I wasn't really looking to generate comments when I replied to you. A) I'm very chatty and don't like to just ignore people who are speaking to me. (I've actually had to work on learning when to let it go and that some comments do not really need a reply.) B) I find something very humorous about my poor ability to start good conversations online. I'm infamous for being very talkative and for having a habit of generating big reactions completely unintentionally. Somehow, I haven't mastered the art of "bottling" it, so to speak. Anyway, I am pleasantly surprised to see a couple of other comments. So it's all good. :-) (And would have been all good even if no one had replied. I figured I was doing it badly when I wrote it. I left it up to see where it would go anyway.)