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you had me until this: > Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. that statement floored me be

you had me until this: > Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. that statement floored me because historically, HN has been one of the most toxic comment forums I've seen. I've kept coming back despite it, not because of it. there's enough signal to justify it. but it's a kind of low-grade toxicity: a weird mix of passive aggressiveness, disagree-based-downvoting, "cite paper!"-ness, minutial edge case-oriented pedantry (that misses the forest for the trees) and neverending humblebragging. To give just one example I can't think of any place I've seen more humble-bragging and stealth-but-blatant self-promotion as on HN. Whereas on Reddit I know I can always read discussions where the participants are friendly, funny, insightful, mature, organic, etc. Not always, not everywhere, but I don't have to wade through a shit salad like I've had to do here on HN for years. I do think it's gotten better in the last year, maybe due to the work of dang and some of the other UI improvements. I do agree that on sites like CNN, YouTube, the comment threads tend to be overrun with the LCD behavior. Lots of noise there.

nikdaheratik 10y ago
If this is one of the most toxic forums you've come across, you must be very fortunate almost to the point of being sheltered. Not saying this is the best ever, but it's nowhere near the worst. The worst traits on HN seem to be an abundance of nitpicking with some disagreements on a few pet topics. Many other sites have active anti-social posters that abuse users for fun, start flamewars for the "lulz" and will argue any side of any issue that causes grief to someone. Not even close to seeing that sort of nonsense here.
- syngrog66 10y ago
  you're right and wrong. :-) (which is the best kind of right/wrong? haha) what I mean is... I tried to make a subtle point, but it didn't come across. what I was trying to say was this is one of the most toxic sites I've seen for a certain mix of toxic behaviors: mostly passive-aggressive, hyper-nerdy/autism-spectrum types of comments, humblebragging, etc. I agree with you wholeheartedly, from my own experience that yes there are other sites where there is more direct abuse, more direct trolling and harassment, which doesn't happen (or nearly as much) here on HN. what I'm saying is, on the flip side, I see a lot more of a certain kind of... there needs to be a word for it... the slang terms I learned for it were douchebags, pinheads, compulsives, booksmart-yet-streetdumb, etc. I just have never encountered that as much over on Reddit (itself a broad category because so much variance between subreddits there, and front page vs not) as I have here on HN. again, I wasn't saying there's no signal here, and no politeness. I see lots of politeness and maturity here. also lots of muck. thus my slang term "shit salad" -- mix of good and bad. my point was that there's a different assortment of bad behavior I see here than on Reddit, CNN etc. it does appear to me to have improved a lot, especially over the last several months. we'll see. YMMV.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    I mean, when you say: >>a weird mix of passive aggressiveness, disagree-based-downvoting, "cite paper!"-ness, minutial edge case-oriented pedantry You are basically describing software developers. They are passive aggressive because they don't like direct confrontation. They downvote when they disagree because if they disagree that means you are wrong. They nitpick on edge cases because edge cases are what they deal with everyday in their code, so they can't help it. So really, it's not HN you have an issue with, but the developer crowd. ;)
ryandrake 10y ago
The nit-picking and edge-casing is what spoils it for me. You can write 500 words about a general topic and someone will reply, "See in that sentence, you said 'all' there instead of 'some' and I can show you a counter-example! Your entire message is therefore wrong!!"
- syngrog66 10y ago
  bingo! well said. part of why it's become, for me, that whenever I make a comment on HN, I almost always regret it. I'm so tired of having to think about filtering my comments to cater to every possible fine-grained exceptional case, or conforming to P.C.ness, or this site's particular participant hive-mind (which seems focused disproportionately around what it's like being a current semi-autistic teen/twenty-something white American male programmer of a relatively privileged background financially. Sorry if this hurts, but it's the best broadstrokes description I can think of for the median commenter personality I've seen here on HN.)

nikdaheratik 10y ago

If this is one of the most toxic forums you've come across, you must be very fortunate almost to the point of being sheltered. Not saying this is the best ever, but it's nowhere near the worst. The worst traits on HN seem to be an abundance of nitpicking with some disagreements on a few pet topics. Many other sites have active anti-social posters that abuse users for fun, start flamewars for the "lulz" and will argue any side of any issue that causes grief to someone. Not even close to seeing that sort of nonsense here.

syngrog66 10y ago
you're right and wrong. :-) (which is the best kind of right/wrong? haha) what I mean is... I tried to make a subtle point, but it didn't come across. what I was trying to say was this is one of the most toxic sites I've seen for a certain mix of toxic behaviors: mostly passive-aggressive, hyper-nerdy/autism-spectrum types of comments, humblebragging, etc. I agree with you wholeheartedly, from my own experience that yes there are other sites where there is more direct abuse, more direct trolling and harassment, which doesn't happen (or nearly as much) here on HN. what I'm saying is, on the flip side, I see a lot more of a certain kind of... there needs to be a word for it... the slang terms I learned for it were douchebags, pinheads, compulsives, booksmart-yet-streetdumb, etc. I just have never encountered that as much over on Reddit (itself a broad category because so much variance between subreddits there, and front page vs not) as I have here on HN. again, I wasn't saying there's no signal here, and no politeness. I see lots of politeness and maturity here. also lots of muck. thus my slang term "shit salad" -- mix of good and bad. my point was that there's a different assortment of bad behavior I see here than on Reddit, CNN etc. it does appear to me to have improved a lot, especially over the last several months. we'll see. YMMV.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  I mean, when you say: >>a weird mix of passive aggressiveness, disagree-based-downvoting, "cite paper!"-ness, minutial edge case-oriented pedantry You are basically describing software developers. They are passive aggressive because they don't like direct confrontation. They downvote when they disagree because if they disagree that means you are wrong. They nitpick on edge cases because edge cases are what they deal with everyday in their code, so they can't help it. So really, it's not HN you have an issue with, but the developer crowd. ;)

ryandrake 10y ago

The nit-picking and edge-casing is what spoils it for me. You can write 500 words about a general topic and someone will reply, "See in that sentence, you said 'all' there instead of 'some' and I can show you a counter-example! Your entire message is therefore wrong!!"

syngrog66 10y ago
bingo! well said. part of why it's become, for me, that whenever I make a comment on HN, I almost always regret it. I'm so tired of having to think about filtering my comments to cater to every possible fine-grained exceptional case, or conforming to P.C.ness, or this site's particular participant hive-mind (which seems focused disproportionately around what it's like being a current semi-autistic teen/twenty-something white American male programmer of a relatively privileged background financially. Sorry if this hurts, but it's the best broadstrokes description I can think of for the median commenter personality I've seen here on HN.)