4 ms·

Ah, so many downvotes. And I see people are so mad that they've gone out of their way to downvote other, unrelated posts of mine. Oh well, I guess it's not surp

Ah, so many downvotes. And I see people are so mad that they've gone out of their way to downvote other, unrelated posts of mine. Oh well, I guess it's not surprising that HN has become infected with the same virulent "anti-SJW" folks that have been running rampant everywhere else. To be honest I'm somewhat looking forward to proof that HN has sunk into an irredeemable slide into the abyss, it would probably increase my productivity if I avoided this place.

hx87 10y ago
You know a place is in the sweet spot when people complain about it being too left wing and too right wing at the same time.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Not at all. You know a place is in the sweet spot when people say "I really value the discussion here, it's often very enlightening and interesting." Being left/right/center or whatever is an oversimplification of "political" discussions, and claiming that having a "balance" is healthy is the same silliness that leads to things like "Crossfire" on CNN. What matters more is ensuring that productive debates on potentially thorny topics can occur.
  - hx87 10y ago
    And in my experience at least, I have seen and participated in many, many valuable, interesting and enlightening discussions here on HN, and see little evidence that it is going away from that. True, badly made arguments are treated rather harshly, but that is more of an advantage than a disadvantage for a discussion forum.
GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
From the HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html): "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Interesting. The guidelines say nothing about commenting about commenting about being downvoted. According to my current working theory of comedy, you have to go all the way to commenting about commenting about commenting about commenting about being downvoted before the meta-introspection hyperbole counteracts the boredom and raises the humor potentials back to positive values. So please carefully read any response to this comment, and take detailed notes as to how humorous you found it to be, measured to the nearest milliguffaw. Please be honest; this is for science. And if you choose to respond to this, please avoid commenting about downvoting, commenting about commenting about downvoting, or commenting about commenting about commenting about downvoting. It is critically important that your comment be exactly three steps removed from the thing already declared to be boring. Also, try to preferentially use words with more 'p's and 'k's in them, whenever possible--using "pants" rather than "trousers", for instance. And lest you start to believe that this post is itself off-topic, only a deconstructed modern comedic calculus such as mine is even capable of explaining why those New Yorker single-panel cartoons are only funny to readers of the New Yorker, and only when published in the New Yorker! From there, the fully automated joke-writing machine is only just over the horizon.
pessimizer 10y ago
Everything's not gamergate/alt-right; it's just a function of the demographics of the people in programming. It's good to remember that the internet points on a comment are a sum, and (especially if you see your points jumping up and down), you're also getting upvoted a lot, too.

hx87 10y ago

You know a place is in the sweet spot when people complain about it being too left wing and too right wing at the same time.

InclinedPlane 10y ago
Not at all. You know a place is in the sweet spot when people say "I really value the discussion here, it's often very enlightening and interesting." Being left/right/center or whatever is an oversimplification of "political" discussions, and claiming that having a "balance" is healthy is the same silliness that leads to things like "Crossfire" on CNN. What matters more is ensuring that productive debates on potentially thorny topics can occur.
- hx87 10y ago
  And in my experience at least, I have seen and participated in many, many valuable, interesting and enlightening discussions here on HN, and see little evidence that it is going away from that. True, badly made arguments are treated rather harshly, but that is more of an advantage than a disadvantage for a discussion forum.

GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago

From the HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html): "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

logfromblammo 10y ago
Interesting. The guidelines say nothing about commenting about commenting about being downvoted. According to my current working theory of comedy, you have to go all the way to commenting about commenting about commenting about commenting about being downvoted before the meta-introspection hyperbole counteracts the boredom and raises the humor potentials back to positive values. So please carefully read any response to this comment, and take detailed notes as to how humorous you found it to be, measured to the nearest milliguffaw. Please be honest; this is for science. And if you choose to respond to this, please avoid commenting about downvoting, commenting about commenting about downvoting, or commenting about commenting about commenting about downvoting. It is critically important that your comment be exactly three steps removed from the thing already declared to be boring. Also, try to preferentially use words with more 'p's and 'k's in them, whenever possible--using "pants" rather than "trousers", for instance. And lest you start to believe that this post is itself off-topic, only a deconstructed modern comedic calculus such as mine is even capable of explaining why those New Yorker single-panel cartoons are only funny to readers of the New Yorker, and only when published in the New Yorker! From there, the fully automated joke-writing machine is only just over the horizon.

pessimizer 10y ago

Everything's not gamergate/alt-right; it's just a function of the demographics of the people in programming. It's good to remember that the internet points on a comment are a sum, and (especially if you see your points jumping up and down), you're also getting upvoted a lot, too.