17 ms·

The vanishing civility: The game of jerks, bozos and assholes

173 points by azuajef 10y ago

mwsherman 10y ago
A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. It’s much more effective to work learn about people, their predilections, biases and experiences. No one is a “checkbox” asshole. Much better to focus on specific behaviors, instead of writing off a person as a type. When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  > When I see a company describe its “no asshole” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/how-to-figure-out-whos-the-jerk.html http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/ho...
- partisan 10y ago
  > When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. I agree. I'd rather they have a "golden rule" policy which would effectively accomplish the same thing, but coming from a positive perspective. Starting from a negative point means expectations are low. I had the good fortune of working at a place for 6 years where I never heard someone use a curse word or speak unprofessionally about another co-worker. People had opinions and there were heated debates, but ultimately with the goal of doing the right thing. There was stress and pressure, but it came from the work, not the interpersonal relationships. This place had no specific rule about culture. It just had leadership that led by example.
  - __derek__ 10y ago
    I attended npm Camp on Saturday, and the tl;dr version of their policy may fit the bill: > be actively kind
- freddyc 10y ago
  >"When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes." I've seen variations of this pop-up more-and-more over the last few years and from my experience it usually hides the insecurities/bad behavior of the founder(s) and management team. Too often the "no asshole/jerk" rule is really code for "anyone who doesn't agree with us" and results in very vanilla organizations with little diversity.
- crpatino 10y ago
  IMHO, most people who misbehave online are decent people that get carried away in the emotion of the moment. If the community calls them upon it and force them to own up they comments, they will probably appologize. This requires explict rules and bounderies, as well as the community being able to disengage the minute the infractor does not show any signs of remorse. On the other hand most online misbehavior comes from a minority of repeat infractors. I am willing to believe that the majority of those are not checkbox assholes, but inmature individuals that do not know any better. However, I do not think trying to understand them and accomodate them do any good to either the community of the asshole-to-be. The best online communities I have been part of do have a sort of virtual sign at the entrance saying: "Your manners have to be this tall in for you to ride this game." If you fail to meet the requirements, your posts are erased (or never put thru in the first place). In an ideal world, a moderator may contact you and invite you to express your point with a minimum of decency. If this cannot be achived by personal message, a broadcast announcing an otherwise worthwhile post have been deleted due to open disregard for civility rules can be an acceptable compromise. Finally, there is such thing as a "checkbox asshole", and nothing you do will make them change, because they trive on negative emotions they trigger. You just dont feed the trolls, keep hellbanning them over and over, and hope they get tired and go trolling elsewhere.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. Yes, but you can easily blow up the stack with all this recursion, since the real world doesn't have TCO. >If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. Well, some people legitimately and truly are "jerks, bozos and assholes" though, some even embrace the jerk ethos openly. If you're addressing them, it's fair game to call them that. Except if your worry is that calling them that wont help them change but alienate them -- but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. >When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. That's not the bad thing though is it? The bad thing would be being an asshole, not calling out one. So, as long as the company doesn't do it to people undeserving the title...
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. Something about your phrasing made me think of this; https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/
  - grkvlt 10y ago
    The point is more one of framing, not of tolerance to assholes. If you restate the 'no assholes' policy as a set of positive traits that are to be encouraged then the framing effect is to cause people to look for those desirable traits and emulate them. A 'no assholes' policy frames things in a way that makes people look for assholes, and causes them to think negatively about personality traits, in terms of not being something undesirable. Instead of 'calling out' people for being jerks, bozos and so on, the idea would be to talk instead about how they could become better at teamwork, interaction with others and so on. So rather than pigeonholing them as something undesirable, you show them they are on the start of a path that leads to improvement. I think the impact of these subtle semantic changes can be surprisingly effective, especially because it is all happening at an almost unconscious level. I also think some of it can certainly come across as a little cringe-worthy and perhaps rather strained. Sort of like the trend of looking for something to praise about everyone, and awarding certificates for merely showing up when that is the only positive thing that can be found. But, everything can be taken too far I suppose...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > No one is a “checkbox” asshole. With all due respect, this is spoken like someone who's never moderated a forum. True, an actual human being, with meat and parents and bills is probably not a checkbox asshole - but online, we almost never deal with that person, aside from the people you know in meatspace on Facebook. I am not an actual human being to you, and vice versa, and can't be unless we take a very long time to actually get to know each other as such. On the internet, we are more two dimensional, because we present as such, and some people get their kicks out of exposing their asshole nature to others. There is no fixing this, at least not on any sort of scale, which does not work when you're moderating. You'd have to fix them as an actual person, and taking a human being on as a project is unfair to everyone else who doesn't get their kicks by doing things "for the lulz".
  - bjohan 10y ago
    FTR, the original post was not about internet.
andrewbinstock 10y ago
When I was the editor of Dr. Dobb's, we were very concerned about how to create a lively discussion forum that was free from jerks and unpleasant people. Ultimately, we settled on two components: treat everyone respectfully even those who seemed to be trolling, and delete all insulting posts. This largely worked. Similar elements seem to work here on HN too. That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests that the problem exists primarily b/c sites are willing to put up with bad behavior.
- dang 10y ago
  I'm glad to hear that an experienced editor sees HN that way, and also that you see evidence of a repeatable approach. Those are good signs. As I'm sure you know, it's a more complex problem than just being willing or unwilling to put up with bad behavior. There are costs to addressing it—quite a few, it turns out, no matter what approach one takes. Our plan is to move HN toward more community self-regulation. Each step we've taken that way—e.g. when we added vouching for dead comments—has worked well. I doubt the community can become completely autonomous (though a mod can dream), but we're pretty sure it can go further in that direction, especially if we do a good job of specifying what kind of site HN is, and isn't, supposed to be.
  - vroombaprime 10y ago
    You guys do a great job with HN moderation and I've always been curious what ratio of mods:numComments is sustainable and still keep quality high and mods not burned out - do you think HN is a good datapoint or just special?
    - eon1 10y ago
      More mods doesn't necessarily mean more moderation, or the ability to moderate more content. From what I've seen it just means the moderation happens quicker and the mods pay less attention because "someone else will pick it up". This does kind of make sense; excepting some special moderation view that allocates posts directly to each mod, they're all viewing the forum in the same way, posts bumped to the top or sinking to the bottom, so things will get the same amount of attention or outrage either way. Speaking again from experience, it's all dependent on how long that fire's burning before a mod sees it. A crappy comment deleted quickly causes little fuss, a crappy comment left to fester for a couple hours then deleted will still have the aftermath hanging over it. Even if the entire thread is purged, it still exists in the memories of users and effects the overall tone/behavioural standard of the forum.
mjevans 10y ago
I want to inline a linked reference and provide a summary as a form of protecting the reference against link-rot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule Their unpleasant behaviours were catalogued by Sutton as The Dirty Dozen: (Robert Cipriano (2011), "No Jerks Allowed in This Department", Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 978-1-118-10764-5) Insults Violation of personal space Unsolicited touching Threats Sarcasm Flames Humiliation Shaming Interruption Backbiting Glaring Snubbing
- throw12912 10y ago
  The problem with this list is that there are vastly more refined ways of being an asshole, which no list can catch. So these coarse lists are often suggested by the refined assholes so that no one can call them out. Civility is a very powerful weapon of keeping power structures in place.
  - bittercynic 10y ago
    Civility can also be a powerful weapon in dismantling corrupt power structures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
  - dang 10y ago
    I think all that is true, but that argument is also sometimes invoked to excuse garden-variety incivility that a person ought to just take care of.
- ank_the_elder 10y ago
  But surely threats and sarcasm are not at the same level...?
- Chris2048 10y ago
  What some of these miss are context. It matters who threw the first punch. If snub you because you keep insulting me...
tribune 10y ago
"Vanishing" implies that there was some Golden Age of civility that has now gone by. This is not really true. I would argue that this impression comes from the fact that media options were much more limited in the recent past, and therefore had to appeal to and not offend a wider range of audiences than current sources. Watching TV programs from the 50s/60s, for example, they do seem quite polite and civil. Now though, options abound. Why should I watch a whitewashed and generic news program when I can listen to vitriolic talk radio or scroll through my website of choice and see exactly what I want to see? Not to mention that every "jerk/bozo/asshole" can pour his heart out online. The downfall of the previously-more-mainstream Mainstream Media has simply enabled more impolite and "uncivil" voices to stand out from the crowd (for better or worse). As far as personal and professional interaction, the responsibility for maintaining civility in such environments falls on the individuals taking part. Don't tolerate bullshit from employees. Be respectful to your friends/family, and expect the same in return.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  In other words, curation. For every readers letter that reached the opinion pages, 100s or perhaps even 1000s ended up in the bin at the hands of the editor. What seems to have happened is a mentality change. Rather than seeing ads as a funding source for journalism, journalism (or a watered down variant) has become the means of pushing ads in peoples faces.
- freshhawk 10y ago
  Yes! This is the inevitable outcome of the world of connectedness and giving a voice to the voiceless that we all wanted isn't it? It comes off as overly cynical, but this seems to me to merely be the removal of a veil of ignorance about what people actually think and how they actually want to behave when they are either anonymous or not present physically (with the possibility of having their mirror neurons engaged, physical assault, in person shaming, etc). If it wasn't obvious beforehand, then it must be obvious in retrospect that a culture war was the inevitable result right? While I agree that the responsibility falls on the individuals taking part ... pragmatically isn't the outrage economy going to work for a long time? And the physiological tools for encouraging uncivil behaviour just going to keep getting better for a long time? I have my doubts that any significant percentage of people will be able to follow that path of individual responsibility when so many smart people are constantly trying to nudge them off of it using subtle methods the targets don't even understand. Calls of "can't we all just get along", whether directed against physical violence or uncivil discourse, however correct, never seem to do much when the problem is occurring in a system that benefits from the opposite.
Animats 10y ago
Recommended reading: "Assholes, a Theory", by Aaron James. This is a serious analysis of asshole behavior and why society rewards it. The latter is the key point. There are benefits to being an asshole in some organizations.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  Sooo... anecdote. My phone (and Internet) company only allowed switching to a different plan (for phone and Internet at home) when at least two years had passed since the initial contract. So there still was about a month before I could do anything, their web interface would not let me switch the plan and instead told me the above. So the day after the two years are over I go back to the web form to switch my plan - only this time they told me "it's too late, you should have told us before the two years period is over. We have extended your contract by another year and you cannot make a switch during that time - please come back in a year!" I had tried to switch a month prior and it didn't work! So I asked them. Nicely. Only got the standard response (copy and paste of a text block). I asked again. Still quite nicely. The same. Then no more reaction at all. NOTE: The plan I switched to was better for THEM too! They wanted to switch as many people as possible to VoIP and that is what I wanted to get, and I still paid the same. More speed - but that doesn't really make a difference to them, and I don't even use it apart from very rare and very brief peaks. There were articles in the newspaper about the trouble they had getting people to switch to VoIP which they needed for cost-cutting, and how they tried to bait them. I volunteered! I switched to full-out asshole behavior. I send them an email several times a day (and I know they can't just suppress it, it was a new ticket each time). I called them several times. My thought process: If I'm nice they can just ignore me. No disadvantage for them at all. So instead I tried to raise their costs. Since they can't ignore the tickets and the calls - they don't know it's me - I calculated that they would react when it costs them money, when I occupy real people's time. A week later I had the new contract. I regret nothing. PS: It was Deutsche Telekom. ------------------------------------- By the way, bonus content, speaking about assholes here is what I found is the best way to be an asshole in Internet forums. I found out the hard way - by finding out what I myself found hardest to ignore when getting trolled. - You must not be emotionally invested. The best trolling can be done when you yourself don't care at all, when whatever you write is more like "work", you just "have to get it done". - Important: Act stupid! Nothing affects people as deeply as having a complete idiot troll them. It also makes the first rule easier, because you don't need to think. You can just write whatever. The best thing is to exude complete confidence but post something completely irrelevant, but not too much so: It must be believable that you seem to believe your irrelevant link as proof of your opinion is indeed relevant. Acting-stupid behavior also makes it much more believable that the responses don't get through to you, so you deprive the other person of the satisfaction of trolling you. - Don't bother replying right away! Let the other person think it's over. A new message out of the blue 3 days later has significantly more impact because they don't expect it and think they are safe. This goes with the first rule, 3 days later you have no emotional connection to the original conversation and probably forgot all about it. So sending replies so much later indeed is just a chore without emotional involvement. I think in order to fight trolling one has to first understand where its power lies. The last rule has implications for criticizing anyone in real life: You get the worst reaction when it's not expected. So in order to make criticizing e.g. of co-workers safer for everybody we could introduce times, for example once per week, where we announce that the only allowed conversation is something critical. Just a thought. Something along those lines, obviously needs more thinking and needs to be adapted to the local situation.
jbmorgado 10y ago
Actually I see the present problem as exactly the opposite. More and more we live in a culture where people think it's their right to feel offended and for anyone saying anything that makes them fell that way to just be shut up by someone (some faculty department for instance). It is becoming basically a Politically Correct culture of censorship and we keep seeing opinion texts (just like this one) that appeal to that censorship like if it was a good thing. I don't see it as more and more people becoming jerks, I see it as more and more people becoming thin skinned.
- lj3 10y ago
  > I don't see it as more and more people becoming jerks, I see it as more and more people becoming thin skinned. People claim to be "thin skinned" because it works as far as effecting an overall narrative. You can limit the conversation to what you want to talk about by declaring anything you don't want to talk about as 'triggering'. It's unreasonably effective, as is the jerk approach. People aren't overly harsh on online communities because they're all jerks. People respond more strongly to harsh or negative rhetoric than they do calmly stated facts or figures. The phenomenon we're seeing are people identifying what tactics work and applying them. It's the weaponization of social media.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  There are people who are genuinely toxic. If they get in your company, they'll destroy it. (The worst I've ever seen, I fortunately never had to work with. But if I did, I would make it clear to management that it was me or him within five minutes of his being hired.) Then there are people who are genuinely too thin skinned. If you listen to their complaints, they'll lead you to destroy your company, because you'll persecute perfectly reasonable behavior and create a "witch hunt" atmosphere. But some of the "thin skinned" stuff is realizing that people shouldn't have to put up with things that used to be considered "normal". Sometimes we grow up and realize that what we used to do was really pretty crummy. For those who haven't realized that yet, it looks like people becoming more thin skinned. (I'm not saying that this is your situation. But if you perceive others as becoming too thin skinned toward specific behavior, you maybe should at least consider whether that behavior is as benign as you think.)
MrZongle2 10y ago
I would add one thing to the author's list of admirable behavior: always seek out the truth, no matter where it lies. IMO a component of the growing toxic atmosphere in public discourse is the "win at all costs" mindset, that fosters the belief that a little white lie here and there is justified by the end goal.
- smacktoward 10y ago
  Not all truths are the same size, though. If someone is ugly, telling them so in conversation is both completely truthful and completely unhelpful. Just because something is true doesn't mean it's necessary to say it out loud, or constructive to building a civil, respectful space.
  - MrZongle2 10y ago
    Useless but brutally honest truths aren't something we have abundance of in our society. We are, however, drowning in possibly-actionable nuggets of data that range from the somewhat-truthy to the probably-bullshit area of the honesty spectrum. That people fabricate -- and worse, repeat without fact-checking -- such information contributes to the problem I refer to.
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      The principle of "fact-checking" has a fatal flaw - it gives power to those who have time and resources to fact-check, and even more to those that can control the availability of facts. Consider information regarding the Iraq war before wiki-leaks - only facts beneficial to the image of the US military were released.
  - Mz 10y ago
    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Calling someone ugly says at least as much about you as it does them, possibly more. Furthermore, the whole point of the piece about civility is that it protects individuals so we can more effectively hash out ideas that matter. Unless you are hiring a model, whether someone is "ugly" or not is likely not terribly relevant to the work you are trying to do.
rsp1984 10y ago
Straight to the point. My colleague clearly and succinctly explained why an inappropriate behavior occurred and what motivated him to respond. If this happens visibly to the team it is likely that the person behind the behavior will take this as an attack, especially if he/she is a true asshole. Not good for long-term working climate. Also, it has a flavor of "white-knighting" oneself if it's done in front of the team. A more diplomatic and expedient approach would be a) Approaching the person behind the behavior in private and letting him/her know that such behavior isn't tolerated. And b) approaching the targeted person in private and assuring him/her of your support in case it happens again.
- stygiansonic 10y ago
  I would also like to add that in my experience, unfortunately, "asshole"-like behavior isn't going to change when the source is a person in authority or a person close to someone in authority. I've been at two separate jobs where I encountered people like this. (Thankfully, I did not have to directly work with them - that would have been tough). Coincidentally, both had the title of "Senior Architect" or something like that, and both were extremely bellicose and condescending in their tone to a variety of people, both in person, on the phone and in emails. In both cases, I knew of multiple people who had complained about the individual's behavior to management yet in both circumstances, nothing was done and the behavior continued. In one case, more than one person quit and specifically called out the offensive person in their "farewell" email. (This is not something I would recommend) I eventually left both positions, for other reasons. In one case, during my exit interview, I was specifically asked by HR if I'd ever experienced any "difficult" behavior from the individual in question. I declined to give any details, as by that point it was clear to me that management not only ignored this behavior but condoned it as well. (You may not agree with my course of action) As far as I know, both of these people are still working at the same places, and I'm assuming nothing has changed. This is unfortunately how many of these situations end up. My advice is to choose your battles wisely.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  Note that as a general adage, this is "praise in public and criticize in private" (which doesn't just go for managers/higher ups). But it's not bullet-proof. When the criticism is private, there is no signal to the rest of the group that the behavior in question is not appropriate. The person being criticized certainly isn't going to say anything. This can lead to the situation where the behavior by one person is stopped, but as a whole it continues due to the fact that there is no social signal to the rest of the group to stop. So, as with many things, there is no clear cut approach that works all of the time. Knowing when to signal something publicly or privately is a skill like any other.
HillaryBriss 10y ago
"People like bullies." -- Daniel Kahneman http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/05/british-voters-succumbing-to-impulse-irritation-and-anger---and/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/05/british-voter...
jarsin 10y ago
The biggest asshole I ever worked for had a "No Assholes Allowed" rule. I came to learn that it meant if you ever say or do or criticize anything this guy did not like he would label you an asshole and then your career path was over there if he did not fire you. It created a culture of the ass-kissers vs the assholes lol.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >The biggest asshole I ever worked for had a "No Assholes Allowed" rule. Well, he probably meant "there's only room for one in this company".
WheelsAtLarge 10y ago
I'm a true believer of monkey see and monkey do. Unfortunately much of our entertainment deals with the ugly side of human nature. The most popular comedies deal with insults and getting back at people. You can say the same for other forms of entertainment. This includes what goes by as news. Yes, NEWS. I understand that it's make believe and it happens to others but lines are crossed that where there for a reason. You might say that all of this does not effect you but if you see it enough it becomes ok to do. We need to think about what's civil and live by that. There's a reason why codes of conduct are created. Mostly, they don't appear because some person wants to impose rules. They happen because enough people feel that too many crossed the line and it's best to let people know what's acceptable.
- mratzloff 10y ago
  I tend to agree. For example, I know some parents who could always tell when their son and daughter had watched The Disney Channel at a friend's house. For days afterward their kids would be sarcastic and obnoxious—imitating every tween show on that channel. They weren't allowed to watch the channel in their own house for that reason, because it had such a negative effect on their behavior.
  - kagamine 10y ago
    I thought it was just me being a horrible father. I have noticed this in my own children too. They come back as different people from the neighbor's house where they watch TV they aren't allowed to watch at home. Using vocabulary, including in the past some swear words that I know they did not learn at home (bi-lingual household, I never swear in the local language). I just ask them, "why are talking that way? Where did you learn to say that?" and then tell them "Civilized people don't speak that way". I really cannot stand the Cartoon Network and most TV aimed at children. The standards are very low. And quite a lot of seems to be adults testing to see how much adult humor they can slip into a "Kid's" show.
current_call 10y ago
This is so badly written I'm having trouble finding a way to explain it without resorting to nitpicking. The essay starts with respect, decorum, and civility, but only discusses civility. Almost every special term is stuck between scare quotes instead of being explained. It's so bad. Nitpicking Time Respect, decorum and civility are not only disappearing from the political discourse. Why mention respect and decorum if the essay is only about civility? It is also about the public and private interactions among workers of the so-called “knowledge economies”, which include scientists and entrepreneurs (or their wannabes). Interactions are between people, not among them. Saying interactions are among people makes them sound like the aliens from They Live. It isn't important to specify private and public. Nobody would have assumed this was only for public interactions or only for private interactions. The phrase "knowledge economies" shouldn't be quoted; it should be explained. Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule defines the... There are more scare quotes instead of explanations for terms and there's another unnecessary distinction in parentheses. Nobody would have assumed only non-verbal or only verbal. This type of behavior is not only inappropriate and unfortunate. It can have negative consequences on individuals, organizations and societies. Saying it can have negative consequences is not the same as saying it does have negative consequences. The gap between the two is so big I could ship oil between it. This “way of life” can be witnessed in physical and more virtual settings, including emails, discussion forums and social media. More pointless scare quotes. The phrase "more virtual settings" is terrible. Just say online. Even better, don't say talk about physical and online settings. Here's an example, "These attitudes can be seen in person as well as in emails, discussion forums, and social media." That's much clearer. I have encountered a good number of “polite” and smiling fools, who have mastered an astounding capacity for incivility. There's another scare quote. This one is used correctly, but scare quotes are awful anyway. This is another clunky sentence that's hard to follow. This is my attempt, "I have met many polite people that are still very uncivil." Civility means bringing discussion of problems to a ground where people emphasize arguments and the evidence to support or refute the arguments... Civility also requires (and benefits from) conversations that are based on facts or reproducible observations... These next two paragraphs start with a different version of the same sentence. This sentence defines civility and could replace both paragraphs, because neither paragraph helps clarify the sentence. The rest of these paragraphs is confusing. The other sentences give civility several different meanings instead of one specific meaning. This is actually too important to let a few noxious people to hijack public or more circumscribed interactions for their selfish gains. I didn't realize I had something to gain from being rude. Hopefully, everyone here didn't need any of this pointed out.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Mendenhall 10y ago
Moderators just need a 1 click button that bans the account and deletes all their posts. 1 moderator could get rid of hundreds of accounts an hour. I am a huge fan of the banhammer with no warnings. Rules should be posted and those not following get banned. No one has time for that nonsense IMO.
- CM30 10y ago
  That exists in quite a few forum scripts. XenForo has a one click spam cleaner, which deletes all of a member's posts and topics, bans the account, checks their IP and mails them a message you type in about the ban (if you want to send one). Quite a few others have similar solutions, sometimes as add ons.
- krapp 10y ago
  Plenty of imageboards have that feature. It doesn't tend to lead to higher quality content or a better community, though, it just leads to sockpuppet accounts, shitposting (because no one has any reason to invest themselves beyond the most superficial level) and mods with Napoleon complexes.
  - Mendenhall 10y ago
    Do you think part of the "mods with Nepolean complexes" often happen because they are not paid ? I think mods need to get reviewed and logs looked at as to why they deleted accounts etc. To me a mod deleting things that shouldnt be is a rogue employee. Personally I am part of some very heavily moderated forums and I really enjoy them. I find people invest because they appreciate it being looked after and not a childish troll fest that muddles finding good posts.
    - krapp 10y ago
      I think it's less the lack of pay as a lack of maturity, although getting paid might help them take their jobs a bit more seriously (assuming there's enough money to make that worthwhile.) A lot of fault lies with the administrators or whomever selects the moderators, who themselves may not be willing or able to act impartially or reasonably. A lack of transparency in the moderation process can protect moderators from the social consequences of. Having known moderator accounts (not necessarily linked to user accounts) and a public mod log might make it more difficult for moderators to feel their position puts them outside the community. And I think reversibility is important as well - nothing a moderator does should be destructive, as far as the database is concerned. At best, they should be able to flag posts and users for review later. I would even go so far as to suggest that mod actions which aren't approved get automatically reversed after a certain amount of time.
gozur88 10y ago
Is there really less civility today, or have people redrawn the boundaries of civility such that other people's opinions are more likely to fall outside its bounds?
- coldtea 10y ago
  I think today we are much more casual. In the past it was more common to be much more professional and civil, at least in certain white collar occupations. Now a lot more "personal expression", including assholery, is allowed and tolerated even. Consider propellerhead programmers in the 60s with pocket protectors and all, and modern brogrammers.
agjacobson 10y ago
Well, bless your heart!
kstenerud 10y ago
It's not actually "vanishing" civility. Life has always been that way among those who live above subsistence levels. Court life in the middle ages is rife with examples. It's important to realize that these "jerks", "bozos", and "assholes" are all engaged in political maneuvering. They're playing an entirely different game than you, and the only way to stop them is to remove possible political reward for such actions, or at least raise the risks so high as to not be worth the effort to begin with. HN has largely been successful in this endeavor through a mix of technology and culture. You can't get rid of it entirely, but you can certainly subdue it.
overgard 10y ago
I used to work with this guy that was a prick to almost epic levels. We'll call him "Richard", because he was a Dick. (Not his real name of course) Most assholes are subtle, but somehow this guy kept his job despite being, basically, a monster. A few of the things he did: - Once, he kicked over a trashcan and stormed out for the rest of the day because I checked in a visual effect he didn't like (.. even though he approved the code review and it was trivial to disable). - Another time, he very authoritatively started inventing policy around branching. (Keep in mind, he was nobodies boss). When one of the senior engineers politely asked him if that was from our boss, or just something he wanted us to do, he incoherently started shouting and, once again, stormed out. - Every scrum, he would pounce on even the smallest misstatement to "correct" people (even if they weren't wrong). When it came to be his turn to give an update, he would condescendingly give the most terse eye-roll of an answer he possibly could, as if the entire thing was beneath him. - At a certain point, he just stopped showing up regularly. He'd maybe appear two out of five days of the week. Which meant three-out-of-five workdays were great! Despite this, he would get upset about not being consulted on decisions by people that actually did work daily... even though he wasn't there. - When he did show up, for the last six months or so he was employed there, instead of working on our product, he would take his laptop, co-opt the empty front-desk, and work on his own startup. (Luckily, he would still take the time to tell us the work the rest of us were doing was not to his liking). - One time, when me and my boss were bouncing some light-hearted banter back in forth, he immediately jumped in and started attacking my boss, which turned into a shouting match between them and he ended up storming out early... again. (notice a pattern here?) - Once, we had to pack our desks and move around some office furniture for some office construction. Being that Richard was a Dick, he decided not to show up for this, so his colleagues had to pack his desk for him. After three hours of heavy lifting, our boss decided to take us out for lunch. ... And suddenly, Dick shows up. Team player. That's actually the tip of the iceberg with this guy. I never thought much of the no-assholes-rule before (though I was familiar with it), but now I'm pretty much adamant that I won't work with people who think being an asshole is ok, even if it just comes to tolerating misbehaviour.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  Why was he kept on board for so long? With that much abuse I'd make it clear to my superiors that someone like him needs to have his future with the company reevaluated.
youngButEager 10y ago
The problem with calling out 'jerks, bozos and assholes' is contextual -- social norms/what works in NYC is quite different from small-town Indiana for example. Two ways to handle someone you think is being a 'jerk/bozo/asshole': 1) what percentage of their behavior is 'bad behavior'? 2) what is my threshold percentage for what I personally consider bad behavior? After I got married and witnessed PMS in action, the proportion good/proportion bad became essential. The same is true at work. And there is no OBJECTIVELY jerk/bozo/asshole behavior. What you think is jerk/bozo/asshole may not even CHART with what your boss, friend, family member think is jerk/bozo/asshole behavior. If I hire a sales guy who blows away the next 10 sales guys but 25% of the time he is reported to be a jerk/bozo/asshole I'm NOT firing him/her. This is life and people have different psychological makeups and histories. If you're going to set your "tolerance level" for bad behavior to, say -- 5%? 10%? at home, or in the workplace -- you'll meet highly effective people who add value to relationships and businesses who will make you unhappy. They're out there. "For better or worse." "Take the good with the bad." "Lighten up Francis."
- jonahx 10y ago
  > you'll meet highly effective people who add value to relationships and businesses who will make you unhappy. Sure. > "For better or worse." "Take the good with the bad." "Lighten up Francis." That depends on what you want out of life. Leaving money on the table for the sake of happiness is perfectly reasonable too.
crucini 10y ago
This sentence jumped out at me: >You also have those individuals who are “not rude” but keep telling people to “suck it up”, to get “their act together” or to believe that disrespect is just a question of interpretation. Sounds like the author has a lot of conflicts. Sounds like he often receives unwanted advice to cool his jets. Talking about "assholes" is somewhat pointless because conflict is a fact of life, and in most conflicts both parties consider the counterparty an asshole. This author doesn't show any philosophy, self-insight or humility; rather he is surrounded by "assholes" with "inappropriate" behavior. (He keeps using that word "inappropriate" - but if people agreed on what was appropriate, would we still have conflict?) Here's something I've learned over decades of working with other people: fix yourself first. Become tactful, adroit and thick-skinned. Recognize that absorbing the bumps and jolts of social interaction is part of the job, whether your are a salesman or an engineer. Recognize that the "asshole" is right in his own mind and may in fact be be right, period.
- solipsism 10y ago
  if people agreed on what was appropriate, would we still have conflict? Yes. It strikes me as a strange question. People act in ways they themselves would consider inappropriate all the time. We're emotional creatures.
- losteric 10y ago
  I've heard this quote a couple times, it seems appropriate: > If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
- mintplant 10y ago
  > >You also have those individuals who are “not rude” but keep telling people to “suck it up”, to get “their act together” > fix yourself first. Become tactful, adroit and thick-skinned Aren't you just demonstrating exactly what the author was complaining about?
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    This is just a rephrasing of Postel's dictum. Be liberal in what you accept from others, but conservative in what you dish out.
orionblastar 10y ago
Wow hard to avoid negative people in the workplace and public. Jerks et all usually get what they want because agressive people are rewarded by management as getting stuff done through other people. Sometimes they become managers and supervisors. Sort of like in high school the bullies and popular kids get what they want and the school does nothing about them being jerks to other students.
xlayn 10y ago
I see an exploit of human interactions favoring employers, let me extend, for example below comment: __derek__ 5 I attended npm Camp on Saturday, and the tl;dr version of their policy may fit the bill: > be actively kind now imagine you are paired with 5 other "junior" programmers on trying to get some project to x state that requires 5 senior programmers. -saying that you require 5 senior, not juniors can be seen as non polite. -not helping them is not polite -go above and beyond to help them while you go the extra mile to deliver on time is both polite and altruistic... and of course you do on free your extra mile time and help the company avoid paying the senior devs...
- MaulingMonkey 10y ago
  > saying that you require 5 senior, not juniors can be seen as non polite. Depends on how you define politeness. To me, not saying that you require 5 senior programmers, or more time, is a form of grinfucking your manager and producers. It is intentionally keeping them out of the loop, which is rude. It is disrespecting their ability to take well intentioned, reasonable, important, and professional feedback as fellow professionals and adults, and ultimately undermining their ability to perform their jobs. Worse, not properly trying to manage expectations may leave your coworkers on the hook for crunch and overtime to try and meet said expectations - which I certainly don't consider "polite"! This is not to say there aren't rude ways to go about the task of informing your manager that you're understaffed, over-committed, and dealing with a unrealistic schedule. You can beat a dead horse, enumerate individual's faults (perceived or real) instead of focusing on what strengths the team needs (that it lacks), or whine about your boss's inability to estimate instead of trying to collaborate to figure out the discrepancy in your estimations, among a million other possible mistakes. The trick is to thoroughly internalize and stick to this definition of politeness. > not helping them is not polite Junior programmers can help me get the project done. The trick is to manage your time wisely. "Let me swing by after I finish up X" - either they'll figure it out, or they could really use the extra help. "I forget, does it say on the wiki?". I am assuming they're trying and have some basic competency though. > and of course you do on free your extra mile time and help the company avoid paying the senior devs... Crunching - or otherwise overworking - and burning out would decrease my overall productivity. It would be both rude and irresponsible of me to allow myself to be so mismanaged.
DHMO 10y ago
I think this is great. People need to be aware of toxic behavior. That said, though, I am often bugged at work because I am both an introvert and need to isolate my environment by wearing headphones. My team and others make assumptions that I'm unfriendly. It's frustrating and I've just started to go along with it and agree, "Yes, I'm wearing headphones because I am trying to shut you all out." The truth is, I am not mean, but I enjoy my alone time and need quiet to be productive. Also, a lot of times, I've gotten frustrated with the leadership in the companies I've worked for over the years. Not every company- about half. And a lot of times in the past, I would vent to co-workers about this. I'd also be honest in reviews and surveys describing in detail what had been done incorrectly. I don't think of myself as toxic, but because I've been so persistent at times talking about someone else failing to do their job correctly as a leader, people see me that way and as a pessimist. I'm aware of this and have made attempts to be more optimistic. It has really helped out, but it's still tough. I often realize too late that I'm being down on something, even as I try to imagine a future where everything gets better. I don't think I'm a jerk, bozo, or asshole, and I don't want to be any of those things. But, I also just want to be allowed to be who I am. I'm not always going to be sunshine.
dschiptsov 10y ago
That's just street/slums/ghetto behavior. Such heavy selection pressure selects the most adaptive and the most lucky (on the contrary to the popular misconception that the strongest and the smartest are selected). One could find a whole countries with this kind of society - Russia and some African states are good example. Highest level of corruption and crime produce such street-gang social norms. Such practices are plainly stupid and based on misconception and uneducated common sense and primitive memes. Every serious professional athlete will tell you that too much stress and pressure will dramatically diminish one's performance and health instead of making one "stronger". Relaxed self-control, proper habits and just enough of exercises will do. Any highly such competitive and stressful societies of assholes and jerks characterized by high turnaround, very short lifespan for participants, high injury and mortality rates, and hence adaptations, such as earlier reproductive age, smaller body sized, quicker but lower quality development, etc. It is just biology.
philjackson 10y ago
Is the irony in the title intentional?

173 points by azuajef 10y ago

A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. It’s much more effective to work learn about people, their predilections, biases and experiences. No one is a “checkbox” asshole. Much better to focus on specific behaviors, instead of writing off a person as a type. When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes.

honkhonkpants 10y ago
> When I see a company describe its “no asshole” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/how-to-figure-out-whos-the-jerk.html http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/ho...
partisan 10y ago
> When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. I agree. I'd rather they have a "golden rule" policy which would effectively accomplish the same thing, but coming from a positive perspective. Starting from a negative point means expectations are low. I had the good fortune of working at a place for 6 years where I never heard someone use a curse word or speak unprofessionally about another co-worker. People had opinions and there were heated debates, but ultimately with the goal of doing the right thing. There was stress and pressure, but it came from the work, not the interpersonal relationships. This place had no specific rule about culture. It just had leadership that led by example.
- __derek__ 10y ago
  I attended npm Camp on Saturday, and the tl;dr version of their policy may fit the bill: > be actively kind
freddyc 10y ago
>"When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes." I've seen variations of this pop-up more-and-more over the last few years and from my experience it usually hides the insecurities/bad behavior of the founder(s) and management team. Too often the "no asshole/jerk" rule is really code for "anyone who doesn't agree with us" and results in very vanilla organizations with little diversity.
crpatino 10y ago
IMHO, most people who misbehave online are decent people that get carried away in the emotion of the moment. If the community calls them upon it and force them to own up they comments, they will probably appologize. This requires explict rules and bounderies, as well as the community being able to disengage the minute the infractor does not show any signs of remorse. On the other hand most online misbehavior comes from a minority of repeat infractors. I am willing to believe that the majority of those are not checkbox assholes, but inmature individuals that do not know any better. However, I do not think trying to understand them and accomodate them do any good to either the community of the asshole-to-be. The best online communities I have been part of do have a sort of virtual sign at the entrance saying: "Your manners have to be this tall in for you to ride this game." If you fail to meet the requirements, your posts are erased (or never put thru in the first place). In an ideal world, a moderator may contact you and invite you to express your point with a minimum of decency. If this cannot be achived by personal message, a broadcast announcing an otherwise worthwhile post have been deleted due to open disregard for civility rules can be an acceptable compromise. Finally, there is such thing as a "checkbox asshole", and nothing you do will make them change, because they trive on negative emotions they trigger. You just dont feed the trolls, keep hellbanning them over and over, and hope they get tired and go trolling elsewhere.
coldtea 10y ago
>A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. Yes, but you can easily blow up the stack with all this recursion, since the real world doesn't have TCO. >If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. Well, some people legitimately and truly are "jerks, bozos and assholes" though, some even embrace the jerk ethos openly. If you're addressing them, it's fair game to call them that. Except if your worry is that calling them that wont help them change but alienate them -- but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. >When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. That's not the bad thing though is it? The bad thing would be being an asshole, not calling out one. So, as long as the company doesn't do it to people undeserving the title...
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. Something about your phrasing made me think of this; https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/
- grkvlt 10y ago
  The point is more one of framing, not of tolerance to assholes. If you restate the 'no assholes' policy as a set of positive traits that are to be encouraged then the framing effect is to cause people to look for those desirable traits and emulate them. A 'no assholes' policy frames things in a way that makes people look for assholes, and causes them to think negatively about personality traits, in terms of not being something undesirable. Instead of 'calling out' people for being jerks, bozos and so on, the idea would be to talk instead about how they could become better at teamwork, interaction with others and so on. So rather than pigeonholing them as something undesirable, you show them they are on the start of a path that leads to improvement. I think the impact of these subtle semantic changes can be surprisingly effective, especially because it is all happening at an almost unconscious level. I also think some of it can certainly come across as a little cringe-worthy and perhaps rather strained. Sort of like the trend of looking for something to praise about everyone, and awarding certificates for merely showing up when that is the only positive thing that can be found. But, everything can be taken too far I suppose...
deleted 10y ago
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pavel_lishin 10y ago
> No one is a “checkbox” asshole. With all due respect, this is spoken like someone who's never moderated a forum. True, an actual human being, with meat and parents and bills is probably not a checkbox asshole - but online, we almost never deal with that person, aside from the people you know in meatspace on Facebook. I am not an actual human being to you, and vice versa, and can't be unless we take a very long time to actually get to know each other as such. On the internet, we are more two dimensional, because we present as such, and some people get their kicks out of exposing their asshole nature to others. There is no fixing this, at least not on any sort of scale, which does not work when you're moderating. You'd have to fix them as an actual person, and taking a human being on as a project is unfair to everyone else who doesn't get their kicks by doing things "for the lulz".
- bjohan 10y ago
  FTR, the original post was not about internet.

andrewbinstock 10y ago

When I was the editor of Dr. Dobb's, we were very concerned about how to create a lively discussion forum that was free from jerks and unpleasant people. Ultimately, we settled on two components: treat everyone respectfully even those who seemed to be trolling, and delete all insulting posts. This largely worked. Similar elements seem to work here on HN too. That the efficacy of this approach is repeatable suggests that the problem exists primarily b/c sites are willing to put up with bad behavior.

dang 10y ago
I'm glad to hear that an experienced editor sees HN that way, and also that you see evidence of a repeatable approach. Those are good signs. As I'm sure you know, it's a more complex problem than just being willing or unwilling to put up with bad behavior. There are costs to addressing it—quite a few, it turns out, no matter what approach one takes. Our plan is to move HN toward more community self-regulation. Each step we've taken that way—e.g. when we added vouching for dead comments—has worked well. I doubt the community can become completely autonomous (though a mod can dream), but we're pretty sure it can go further in that direction, especially if we do a good job of specifying what kind of site HN is, and isn't, supposed to be.
- vroombaprime 10y ago
  You guys do a great job with HN moderation and I've always been curious what ratio of mods:numComments is sustainable and still keep quality high and mods not burned out - do you think HN is a good datapoint or just special?
  - eon1 10y ago
    More mods doesn't necessarily mean more moderation, or the ability to moderate more content. From what I've seen it just means the moderation happens quicker and the mods pay less attention because "someone else will pick it up". This does kind of make sense; excepting some special moderation view that allocates posts directly to each mod, they're all viewing the forum in the same way, posts bumped to the top or sinking to the bottom, so things will get the same amount of attention or outrage either way. Speaking again from experience, it's all dependent on how long that fire's burning before a mod sees it. A crappy comment deleted quickly causes little fuss, a crappy comment left to fester for a couple hours then deleted will still have the aftermath hanging over it. Even if the entire thread is purged, it still exists in the memories of users and effects the overall tone/behavioural standard of the forum.

mjevans 10y ago

I want to inline a linked reference and provide a summary as a form of protecting the reference against link-rot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule Their unpleasant behaviours were catalogued by Sutton as The Dirty Dozen: (Robert Cipriano (2011), "No Jerks Allowed in This Department", Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 978-1-118-10764-5) Insults Violation of personal space Unsolicited touching Threats Sarcasm Flames Humiliation Shaming Interruption Backbiting Glaring Snubbing

throw12912 10y ago
The problem with this list is that there are vastly more refined ways of being an asshole, which no list can catch. So these coarse lists are often suggested by the refined assholes so that no one can call them out. Civility is a very powerful weapon of keeping power structures in place.
- bittercynic 10y ago
  Civility can also be a powerful weapon in dismantling corrupt power structures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
- dang 10y ago
  I think all that is true, but that argument is also sometimes invoked to excuse garden-variety incivility that a person ought to just take care of.
ank_the_elder 10y ago
But surely threats and sarcasm are not at the same level...?
Chris2048 10y ago
What some of these miss are context. It matters who threw the first punch. If snub you because you keep insulting me...

tribune 10y ago

"Vanishing" implies that there was some Golden Age of civility that has now gone by. This is not really true. I would argue that this impression comes from the fact that media options were much more limited in the recent past, and therefore had to appeal to and not offend a wider range of audiences than current sources. Watching TV programs from the 50s/60s, for example, they do seem quite polite and civil. Now though, options abound. Why should I watch a whitewashed and generic news program when I can listen to vitriolic talk radio or scroll through my website of choice and see exactly what I want to see? Not to mention that every "jerk/bozo/asshole" can pour his heart out online. The downfall of the previously-more-mainstream Mainstream Media has simply enabled more impolite and "uncivil" voices to stand out from the crowd (for better or worse). As far as personal and professional interaction, the responsibility for maintaining civility in such environments falls on the individuals taking part. Don't tolerate bullshit from employees. Be respectful to your friends/family, and expect the same in return.

digi_owl 10y ago
In other words, curation. For every readers letter that reached the opinion pages, 100s or perhaps even 1000s ended up in the bin at the hands of the editor. What seems to have happened is a mentality change. Rather than seeing ads as a funding source for journalism, journalism (or a watered down variant) has become the means of pushing ads in peoples faces.
freshhawk 10y ago
Yes! This is the inevitable outcome of the world of connectedness and giving a voice to the voiceless that we all wanted isn't it? It comes off as overly cynical, but this seems to me to merely be the removal of a veil of ignorance about what people actually think and how they actually want to behave when they are either anonymous or not present physically (with the possibility of having their mirror neurons engaged, physical assault, in person shaming, etc). If it wasn't obvious beforehand, then it must be obvious in retrospect that a culture war was the inevitable result right? While I agree that the responsibility falls on the individuals taking part ... pragmatically isn't the outrage economy going to work for a long time? And the physiological tools for encouraging uncivil behaviour just going to keep getting better for a long time? I have my doubts that any significant percentage of people will be able to follow that path of individual responsibility when so many smart people are constantly trying to nudge them off of it using subtle methods the targets don't even understand. Calls of "can't we all just get along", whether directed against physical violence or uncivil discourse, however correct, never seem to do much when the problem is occurring in a system that benefits from the opposite.

Animats 10y ago

Recommended reading: "Assholes, a Theory", by Aaron James. This is a serious analysis of asshole behavior and why society rewards it. The latter is the key point. There are benefits to being an asshole in some organizations.

Noseshine 10y ago
Sooo... anecdote. My phone (and Internet) company only allowed switching to a different plan (for phone and Internet at home) when at least two years had passed since the initial contract. So there still was about a month before I could do anything, their web interface would not let me switch the plan and instead told me the above. So the day after the two years are over I go back to the web form to switch my plan - only this time they told me "it's too late, you should have told us before the two years period is over. We have extended your contract by another year and you cannot make a switch during that time - please come back in a year!" I had tried to switch a month prior and it didn't work! So I asked them. Nicely. Only got the standard response (copy and paste of a text block). I asked again. Still quite nicely. The same. Then no more reaction at all. NOTE: The plan I switched to was better for THEM too! They wanted to switch as many people as possible to VoIP and that is what I wanted to get, and I still paid the same. More speed - but that doesn't really make a difference to them, and I don't even use it apart from very rare and very brief peaks. There were articles in the newspaper about the trouble they had getting people to switch to VoIP which they needed for cost-cutting, and how they tried to bait them. I volunteered! I switched to full-out asshole behavior. I send them an email several times a day (and I know they can't just suppress it, it was a new ticket each time). I called them several times. My thought process: If I'm nice they can just ignore me. No disadvantage for them at all. So instead I tried to raise their costs. Since they can't ignore the tickets and the calls - they don't know it's me - I calculated that they would react when it costs them money, when I occupy real people's time. A week later I had the new contract. I regret nothing. PS: It was Deutsche Telekom. ------------------------------------- By the way, bonus content, speaking about assholes here is what I found is the best way to be an asshole in Internet forums. I found out the hard way - by finding out what I myself found hardest to ignore when getting trolled. - You must not be emotionally invested. The best trolling can be done when you yourself don't care at all, when whatever you write is more like "work", you just "have to get it done". - Important: Act stupid! Nothing affects people as deeply as having a complete idiot troll them. It also makes the first rule easier, because you don't need to think. You can just write whatever. The best thing is to exude complete confidence but post something completely irrelevant, but not too much so: It must be believable that you seem to believe your irrelevant link as proof of your opinion is indeed relevant. Acting-stupid behavior also makes it much more believable that the responses don't get through to you, so you deprive the other person of the satisfaction of trolling you. - Don't bother replying right away! Let the other person think it's over. A new message out of the blue 3 days later has significantly more impact because they don't expect it and think they are safe. This goes with the first rule, 3 days later you have no emotional connection to the original conversation and probably forgot all about it. So sending replies so much later indeed is just a chore without emotional involvement. I think in order to fight trolling one has to first understand where its power lies. The last rule has implications for criticizing anyone in real life: You get the worst reaction when it's not expected. So in order to make criticizing e.g. of co-workers safer for everybody we could introduce times, for example once per week, where we announce that the only allowed conversation is something critical. Just a thought. Something along those lines, obviously needs more thinking and needs to be adapted to the local situation.

jbmorgado 10y ago

Actually I see the present problem as exactly the opposite. More and more we live in a culture where people think it's their right to feel offended and for anyone saying anything that makes them fell that way to just be shut up by someone (some faculty department for instance). It is becoming basically a Politically Correct culture of censorship and we keep seeing opinion texts (just like this one) that appeal to that censorship like if it was a good thing. I don't see it as more and more people becoming jerks, I see it as more and more people becoming thin skinned.

lj3 10y ago
> I don't see it as more and more people becoming jerks, I see it as more and more people becoming thin skinned. People claim to be "thin skinned" because it works as far as effecting an overall narrative. You can limit the conversation to what you want to talk about by declaring anything you don't want to talk about as 'triggering'. It's unreasonably effective, as is the jerk approach. People aren't overly harsh on online communities because they're all jerks. People respond more strongly to harsh or negative rhetoric than they do calmly stated facts or figures. The phenomenon we're seeing are people identifying what tactics work and applying them. It's the weaponization of social media.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
There are people who are genuinely toxic. If they get in your company, they'll destroy it. (The worst I've ever seen, I fortunately never had to work with. But if I did, I would make it clear to management that it was me or him within five minutes of his being hired.) Then there are people who are genuinely too thin skinned. If you listen to their complaints, they'll lead you to destroy your company, because you'll persecute perfectly reasonable behavior and create a "witch hunt" atmosphere. But some of the "thin skinned" stuff is realizing that people shouldn't have to put up with things that used to be considered "normal". Sometimes we grow up and realize that what we used to do was really pretty crummy. For those who haven't realized that yet, it looks like people becoming more thin skinned. (I'm not saying that this is your situation. But if you perceive others as becoming too thin skinned toward specific behavior, you maybe should at least consider whether that behavior is as benign as you think.)

MrZongle2 10y ago

I would add one thing to the author's list of admirable behavior: always seek out the truth, no matter where it lies. IMO a component of the growing toxic atmosphere in public discourse is the "win at all costs" mindset, that fosters the belief that a little white lie here and there is justified by the end goal.

smacktoward 10y ago
Not all truths are the same size, though. If someone is ugly, telling them so in conversation is both completely truthful and completely unhelpful. Just because something is true doesn't mean it's necessary to say it out loud, or constructive to building a civil, respectful space.
- MrZongle2 10y ago
  Useless but brutally honest truths aren't something we have abundance of in our society. We are, however, drowning in possibly-actionable nuggets of data that range from the somewhat-truthy to the probably-bullshit area of the honesty spectrum. That people fabricate -- and worse, repeat without fact-checking -- such information contributes to the problem I refer to.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    The principle of "fact-checking" has a fatal flaw - it gives power to those who have time and resources to fact-check, and even more to those that can control the availability of facts. Consider information regarding the Iraq war before wiki-leaks - only facts beneficial to the image of the US military were released.
- Mz 10y ago
  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Calling someone ugly says at least as much about you as it does them, possibly more. Furthermore, the whole point of the piece about civility is that it protects individuals so we can more effectively hash out ideas that matter. Unless you are hiring a model, whether someone is "ugly" or not is likely not terribly relevant to the work you are trying to do.

rsp1984 10y ago

Straight to the point. My colleague clearly and succinctly explained why an inappropriate behavior occurred and what motivated him to respond. If this happens visibly to the team it is likely that the person behind the behavior will take this as an attack, especially if he/she is a true asshole. Not good for long-term working climate. Also, it has a flavor of "white-knighting" oneself if it's done in front of the team. A more diplomatic and expedient approach would be a) Approaching the person behind the behavior in private and letting him/her know that such behavior isn't tolerated. And b) approaching the targeted person in private and assuring him/her of your support in case it happens again.

stygiansonic 10y ago
I would also like to add that in my experience, unfortunately, "asshole"-like behavior isn't going to change when the source is a person in authority or a person close to someone in authority. I've been at two separate jobs where I encountered people like this. (Thankfully, I did not have to directly work with them - that would have been tough). Coincidentally, both had the title of "Senior Architect" or something like that, and both were extremely bellicose and condescending in their tone to a variety of people, both in person, on the phone and in emails. In both cases, I knew of multiple people who had complained about the individual's behavior to management yet in both circumstances, nothing was done and the behavior continued. In one case, more than one person quit and specifically called out the offensive person in their "farewell" email. (This is not something I would recommend) I eventually left both positions, for other reasons. In one case, during my exit interview, I was specifically asked by HR if I'd ever experienced any "difficult" behavior from the individual in question. I declined to give any details, as by that point it was clear to me that management not only ignored this behavior but condoned it as well. (You may not agree with my course of action) As far as I know, both of these people are still working at the same places, and I'm assuming nothing has changed. This is unfortunately how many of these situations end up. My advice is to choose your battles wisely.
dsp1234 10y ago
Note that as a general adage, this is "praise in public and criticize in private" (which doesn't just go for managers/higher ups). But it's not bullet-proof. When the criticism is private, there is no signal to the rest of the group that the behavior in question is not appropriate. The person being criticized certainly isn't going to say anything. This can lead to the situation where the behavior by one person is stopped, but as a whole it continues due to the fact that there is no social signal to the rest of the group to stop. So, as with many things, there is no clear cut approach that works all of the time. Knowing when to signal something publicly or privately is a skill like any other.

HillaryBriss 10y ago

"People like bullies." -- Daniel Kahneman http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/05/british-voters-succumbing-to-impulse-irritation-and-anger---and/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/05/british-voter...

jarsin 10y ago

The biggest asshole I ever worked for had a "No Assholes Allowed" rule. I came to learn that it meant if you ever say or do or criticize anything this guy did not like he would label you an asshole and then your career path was over there if he did not fire you. It created a culture of the ass-kissers vs the assholes lol.

coldtea 10y ago
>The biggest asshole I ever worked for had a "No Assholes Allowed" rule. Well, he probably meant "there's only room for one in this company".

WheelsAtLarge 10y ago

I'm a true believer of monkey see and monkey do. Unfortunately much of our entertainment deals with the ugly side of human nature. The most popular comedies deal with insults and getting back at people. You can say the same for other forms of entertainment. This includes what goes by as news. Yes, NEWS. I understand that it's make believe and it happens to others but lines are crossed that where there for a reason. You might say that all of this does not effect you but if you see it enough it becomes ok to do. We need to think about what's civil and live by that. There's a reason why codes of conduct are created. Mostly, they don't appear because some person wants to impose rules. They happen because enough people feel that too many crossed the line and it's best to let people know what's acceptable.

mratzloff 10y ago
I tend to agree. For example, I know some parents who could always tell when their son and daughter had watched The Disney Channel at a friend's house. For days afterward their kids would be sarcastic and obnoxious—imitating every tween show on that channel. They weren't allowed to watch the channel in their own house for that reason, because it had such a negative effect on their behavior.
- kagamine 10y ago
  I thought it was just me being a horrible father. I have noticed this in my own children too. They come back as different people from the neighbor's house where they watch TV they aren't allowed to watch at home. Using vocabulary, including in the past some swear words that I know they did not learn at home (bi-lingual household, I never swear in the local language). I just ask them, "why are talking that way? Where did you learn to say that?" and then tell them "Civilized people don't speak that way". I really cannot stand the Cartoon Network and most TV aimed at children. The standards are very low. And quite a lot of seems to be adults testing to see how much adult humor they can slip into a "Kid's" show.

current_call 10y ago

This is so badly written I'm having trouble finding a way to explain it without resorting to nitpicking. The essay starts with respect, decorum, and civility, but only discusses civility. Almost every special term is stuck between scare quotes instead of being explained. It's so bad. Nitpicking Time Respect, decorum and civility are not only disappearing from the political discourse. Why mention respect and decorum if the essay is only about civility? It is also about the public and private interactions among workers of the so-called “knowledge economies”, which include scientists and entrepreneurs (or their wannabes). Interactions are between people, not among them. Saying interactions are among people makes them sound like the aliens from They Live. It isn't important to specify private and public. Nobody would have assumed this was only for public interactions or only for private interactions. The phrase "knowledge economies" shouldn't be quoted; it should be explained. Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule defines the... There are more scare quotes instead of explanations for terms and there's another unnecessary distinction in parentheses. Nobody would have assumed only non-verbal or only verbal. This type of behavior is not only inappropriate and unfortunate. It can have negative consequences on individuals, organizations and societies. Saying it can have negative consequences is not the same as saying it does have negative consequences. The gap between the two is so big I could ship oil between it. This “way of life” can be witnessed in physical and more virtual settings, including emails, discussion forums and social media. More pointless scare quotes. The phrase "more virtual settings" is terrible. Just say online. Even better, don't say talk about physical and online settings. Here's an example, "These attitudes can be seen in person as well as in emails, discussion forums, and social media." That's much clearer. I have encountered a good number of “polite” and smiling fools, who have mastered an astounding capacity for incivility. There's another scare quote. This one is used correctly, but scare quotes are awful anyway. This is another clunky sentence that's hard to follow. This is my attempt, "I have met many polite people that are still very uncivil." Civility means bringing discussion of problems to a ground where people emphasize arguments and the evidence to support or refute the arguments... Civility also requires (and benefits from) conversations that are based on facts or reproducible observations... These next two paragraphs start with a different version of the same sentence. This sentence defines civility and could replace both paragraphs, because neither paragraph helps clarify the sentence. The rest of these paragraphs is confusing. The other sentences give civility several different meanings instead of one specific meaning. This is actually too important to let a few noxious people to hijack public or more circumscribed interactions for their selfish gains. I didn't realize I had something to gain from being rude. Hopefully, everyone here didn't need any of this pointed out.

deleted 10y ago

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Mendenhall 10y ago

Moderators just need a 1 click button that bans the account and deletes all their posts. 1 moderator could get rid of hundreds of accounts an hour. I am a huge fan of the banhammer with no warnings. Rules should be posted and those not following get banned. No one has time for that nonsense IMO.

CM30 10y ago
That exists in quite a few forum scripts. XenForo has a one click spam cleaner, which deletes all of a member's posts and topics, bans the account, checks their IP and mails them a message you type in about the ban (if you want to send one). Quite a few others have similar solutions, sometimes as add ons.
krapp 10y ago
Plenty of imageboards have that feature. It doesn't tend to lead to higher quality content or a better community, though, it just leads to sockpuppet accounts, shitposting (because no one has any reason to invest themselves beyond the most superficial level) and mods with Napoleon complexes.
- Mendenhall 10y ago
  Do you think part of the "mods with Nepolean complexes" often happen because they are not paid ? I think mods need to get reviewed and logs looked at as to why they deleted accounts etc. To me a mod deleting things that shouldnt be is a rogue employee. Personally I am part of some very heavily moderated forums and I really enjoy them. I find people invest because they appreciate it being looked after and not a childish troll fest that muddles finding good posts.
  - krapp 10y ago
    I think it's less the lack of pay as a lack of maturity, although getting paid might help them take their jobs a bit more seriously (assuming there's enough money to make that worthwhile.) A lot of fault lies with the administrators or whomever selects the moderators, who themselves may not be willing or able to act impartially or reasonably. A lack of transparency in the moderation process can protect moderators from the social consequences of. Having known moderator accounts (not necessarily linked to user accounts) and a public mod log might make it more difficult for moderators to feel their position puts them outside the community. And I think reversibility is important as well - nothing a moderator does should be destructive, as far as the database is concerned. At best, they should be able to flag posts and users for review later. I would even go so far as to suggest that mod actions which aren't approved get automatically reversed after a certain amount of time.

gozur88 10y ago

Is there really less civility today, or have people redrawn the boundaries of civility such that other people's opinions are more likely to fall outside its bounds?

coldtea 10y ago
I think today we are much more casual. In the past it was more common to be much more professional and civil, at least in certain white collar occupations. Now a lot more "personal expression", including assholery, is allowed and tolerated even. Consider propellerhead programmers in the 60s with pocket protectors and all, and modern brogrammers.

agjacobson 10y ago

Well, bless your heart!

kstenerud 10y ago

It's not actually "vanishing" civility. Life has always been that way among those who live above subsistence levels. Court life in the middle ages is rife with examples. It's important to realize that these "jerks", "bozos", and "assholes" are all engaged in political maneuvering. They're playing an entirely different game than you, and the only way to stop them is to remove possible political reward for such actions, or at least raise the risks so high as to not be worth the effort to begin with. HN has largely been successful in this endeavor through a mix of technology and culture. You can't get rid of it entirely, but you can certainly subdue it.

overgard 10y ago

I used to work with this guy that was a prick to almost epic levels. We'll call him "Richard", because he was a Dick. (Not his real name of course) Most assholes are subtle, but somehow this guy kept his job despite being, basically, a monster. A few of the things he did: - Once, he kicked over a trashcan and stormed out for the rest of the day because I checked in a visual effect he didn't like (.. even though he approved the code review and it was trivial to disable). - Another time, he very authoritatively started inventing policy around branching. (Keep in mind, he was nobodies boss). When one of the senior engineers politely asked him if that was from our boss, or just something he wanted us to do, he incoherently started shouting and, once again, stormed out. - Every scrum, he would pounce on even the smallest misstatement to "correct" people (even if they weren't wrong). When it came to be his turn to give an update, he would condescendingly give the most terse eye-roll of an answer he possibly could, as if the entire thing was beneath him. - At a certain point, he just stopped showing up regularly. He'd maybe appear two out of five days of the week. Which meant three-out-of-five workdays were great! Despite this, he would get upset about not being consulted on decisions by people that actually did work daily... even though he wasn't there. - When he did show up, for the last six months or so he was employed there, instead of working on our product, he would take his laptop, co-opt the empty front-desk, and work on his own startup. (Luckily, he would still take the time to tell us the work the rest of us were doing was not to his liking). - One time, when me and my boss were bouncing some light-hearted banter back in forth, he immediately jumped in and started attacking my boss, which turned into a shouting match between them and he ended up storming out early... again. (notice a pattern here?) - Once, we had to pack our desks and move around some office furniture for some office construction. Being that Richard was a Dick, he decided not to show up for this, so his colleagues had to pack his desk for him. After three hours of heavy lifting, our boss decided to take us out for lunch. ... And suddenly, Dick shows up. Team player. That's actually the tip of the iceberg with this guy. I never thought much of the no-assholes-rule before (though I was familiar with it), but now I'm pretty much adamant that I won't work with people who think being an asshole is ok, even if it just comes to tolerating misbehaviour.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
Why was he kept on board for so long? With that much abuse I'd make it clear to my superiors that someone like him needs to have his future with the company reevaluated.

youngButEager 10y ago

The problem with calling out 'jerks, bozos and assholes' is contextual -- social norms/what works in NYC is quite different from small-town Indiana for example. Two ways to handle someone you think is being a 'jerk/bozo/asshole': 1) what percentage of their behavior is 'bad behavior'? 2) what is my threshold percentage for what I personally consider bad behavior? After I got married and witnessed PMS in action, the proportion good/proportion bad became essential. The same is true at work. And there is no OBJECTIVELY jerk/bozo/asshole behavior. What you think is jerk/bozo/asshole may not even CHART with what your boss, friend, family member think is jerk/bozo/asshole behavior. If I hire a sales guy who blows away the next 10 sales guys but 25% of the time he is reported to be a jerk/bozo/asshole I'm NOT firing him/her. This is life and people have different psychological makeups and histories. If you're going to set your "tolerance level" for bad behavior to, say -- 5%? 10%? at home, or in the workplace -- you'll meet highly effective people who add value to relationships and businesses who will make you unhappy. They're out there. "For better or worse." "Take the good with the bad." "Lighten up Francis."

jonahx 10y ago
> you'll meet highly effective people who add value to relationships and businesses who will make you unhappy. Sure. > "For better or worse." "Take the good with the bad." "Lighten up Francis." That depends on what you want out of life. Leaving money on the table for the sake of happiness is perfectly reasonable too.

crucini 10y ago

This sentence jumped out at me: >You also have those individuals who are “not rude” but keep telling people to “suck it up”, to get “their act together” or to believe that disrespect is just a question of interpretation. Sounds like the author has a lot of conflicts. Sounds like he often receives unwanted advice to cool his jets. Talking about "assholes" is somewhat pointless because conflict is a fact of life, and in most conflicts both parties consider the counterparty an asshole. This author doesn't show any philosophy, self-insight or humility; rather he is surrounded by "assholes" with "inappropriate" behavior. (He keeps using that word "inappropriate" - but if people agreed on what was appropriate, would we still have conflict?) Here's something I've learned over decades of working with other people: fix yourself first. Become tactful, adroit and thick-skinned. Recognize that absorbing the bumps and jolts of social interaction is part of the job, whether your are a salesman or an engineer. Recognize that the "asshole" is right in his own mind and may in fact be be right, period.

solipsism 10y ago
if people agreed on what was appropriate, would we still have conflict? Yes. It strikes me as a strange question. People act in ways they themselves would consider inappropriate all the time. We're emotional creatures.
losteric 10y ago
I've heard this quote a couple times, it seems appropriate: > If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
mintplant 10y ago
> >You also have those individuals who are “not rude” but keep telling people to “suck it up”, to get “their act together” > fix yourself first. Become tactful, adroit and thick-skinned Aren't you just demonstrating exactly what the author was complaining about?
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  This is just a rephrasing of Postel's dictum. Be liberal in what you accept from others, but conservative in what you dish out.

orionblastar 10y ago

Wow hard to avoid negative people in the workplace and public. Jerks et all usually get what they want because agressive people are rewarded by management as getting stuff done through other people. Sometimes they become managers and supervisors. Sort of like in high school the bullies and popular kids get what they want and the school does nothing about them being jerks to other students.

xlayn 10y ago

I see an exploit of human interactions favoring employers, let me extend, for example below comment: __derek__ 5 I attended npm Camp on Saturday, and the tl;dr version of their policy may fit the bill: > be actively kind now imagine you are paired with 5 other "junior" programmers on trying to get some project to x state that requires 5 senior programmers. -saying that you require 5 senior, not juniors can be seen as non polite. -not helping them is not polite -go above and beyond to help them while you go the extra mile to deliver on time is both polite and altruistic... and of course you do on free your extra mile time and help the company avoid paying the senior devs...

MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> saying that you require 5 senior, not juniors can be seen as non polite. Depends on how you define politeness. To me, not saying that you require 5 senior programmers, or more time, is a form of grinfucking your manager and producers. It is intentionally keeping them out of the loop, which is rude. It is disrespecting their ability to take well intentioned, reasonable, important, and professional feedback as fellow professionals and adults, and ultimately undermining their ability to perform their jobs. Worse, not properly trying to manage expectations may leave your coworkers on the hook for crunch and overtime to try and meet said expectations - which I certainly don't consider "polite"! This is not to say there aren't rude ways to go about the task of informing your manager that you're understaffed, over-committed, and dealing with a unrealistic schedule. You can beat a dead horse, enumerate individual's faults (perceived or real) instead of focusing on what strengths the team needs (that it lacks), or whine about your boss's inability to estimate instead of trying to collaborate to figure out the discrepancy in your estimations, among a million other possible mistakes. The trick is to thoroughly internalize and stick to this definition of politeness. > not helping them is not polite Junior programmers can help me get the project done. The trick is to manage your time wisely. "Let me swing by after I finish up X" - either they'll figure it out, or they could really use the extra help. "I forget, does it say on the wiki?". I am assuming they're trying and have some basic competency though. > and of course you do on free your extra mile time and help the company avoid paying the senior devs... Crunching - or otherwise overworking - and burning out would decrease my overall productivity. It would be both rude and irresponsible of me to allow myself to be so mismanaged.

DHMO 10y ago

I think this is great. People need to be aware of toxic behavior. That said, though, I am often bugged at work because I am both an introvert and need to isolate my environment by wearing headphones. My team and others make assumptions that I'm unfriendly. It's frustrating and I've just started to go along with it and agree, "Yes, I'm wearing headphones because I am trying to shut you all out." The truth is, I am not mean, but I enjoy my alone time and need quiet to be productive. Also, a lot of times, I've gotten frustrated with the leadership in the companies I've worked for over the years. Not every company- about half. And a lot of times in the past, I would vent to co-workers about this. I'd also be honest in reviews and surveys describing in detail what had been done incorrectly. I don't think of myself as toxic, but because I've been so persistent at times talking about someone else failing to do their job correctly as a leader, people see me that way and as a pessimist. I'm aware of this and have made attempts to be more optimistic. It has really helped out, but it's still tough. I often realize too late that I'm being down on something, even as I try to imagine a future where everything gets better. I don't think I'm a jerk, bozo, or asshole, and I don't want to be any of those things. But, I also just want to be allowed to be who I am. I'm not always going to be sunshine.

dschiptsov 10y ago

That's just street/slums/ghetto behavior. Such heavy selection pressure selects the most adaptive and the most lucky (on the contrary to the popular misconception that the strongest and the smartest are selected). One could find a whole countries with this kind of society - Russia and some African states are good example. Highest level of corruption and crime produce such street-gang social norms. Such practices are plainly stupid and based on misconception and uneducated common sense and primitive memes. Every serious professional athlete will tell you that too much stress and pressure will dramatically diminish one's performance and health instead of making one "stronger". Relaxed self-control, proper habits and just enough of exercises will do. Any highly such competitive and stressful societies of assholes and jerks characterized by high turnaround, very short lifespan for participants, high injury and mortality rates, and hence adaptations, such as earlier reproductive age, smaller body sized, quicker but lower quality development, etc. It is just biology.

philjackson 10y ago

Is the irony in the title intentional?