10 ms·

I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments that floods several discussion forums that I have come across. "Nice article", "Great write-up" an

I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments that floods several discussion forums that I have come across. "Nice article", "Great write-up" and the next thing you know, you have created a place where people are only interested in submitting their articles and getting it upvoted rather than make meaningful contributions. People want to make good contributions here and that's something that differentiates HN from other news aggregators.

willvarfar 10y ago
Sometimes really good articles don't have lots of comments. In these circumstances, I post an "excellent article!" comment just to give the author some feedback that someone somewhere actually read the article, and they really liked it! Humans writing articles appreciate that.
- shubhamjain 10y ago
  I am denying importance of compliments but they lose their lustre if the whole culture of forum is to "appear too nice"; it just gives an impression of everyone making comments for the sake of it. Besides that, the entire point of a forum doesn't bode well if there aren't any strong comments touching the subject, even if they are cynical or scornful. Take a look at OP's example of the "Should you leave a bad job?" thread [1]. The first comment is surely harsh and questions the entire thought process of hating a mundane job. Some people would disagree with it; some would not but I would be disappointed if the comment didn't exist. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789014
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Indeed. When my comments or articles hit the frontpage/top of the thread, I don't really care. What excites me is when I get a ton of responses from more experienced people. Because that gives me an opportunity to learn something.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  I second this. I watched the votes for a while to gauge what style, topics, or counterpoints had impact. Then, I mostly just ignored them. The real value is learning from people that know better than me on numerous topics. On top of helping out others with whatever I've learned. I've learned a ton, though, from other commenters with some things might have lasting significance in business or software developments I participate in.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    I mean, yeah. I learned about security, how deoptimization works, why CPU cache misses matter, how to program better, and a bunch of other stuff. So thanks to the lot of you, in no small part for putting up with me being an idiot. And yes, thank you Nick P, (author of parent, if you couldn't tell), as you taught me a good bit of it. And I just looked at my account info page: I'm ~30 days off from 1 year on HN. Funny how that worked out...
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      Yeah, it's been quite the experience. I appreciated you comments as well as I learned from many I agreed and disagreed with. Still have the Scheme ones bookmarked for when I have time to start on it. :)
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        It's always good to know you've helped someone out. Who knows, by the time you get started on Scheme, I may have finished one of may many side projects. Did I mention I tend to get distracted a lot? Speaking of which, DFHack is unbelievably impressive. I mean, jeez. This has nothing to do with scheme, I've just been trying to work with it the past few days. And with that, I think I've made my point.
nabla9 10y ago
".. the measure of a healthy organization is probably the degree to which negative thoughts are allowed. In places where great work is being done, the attitude always seems to be critical and sarcastic, not "positive" and "supportive". The people I know who do great work think that they suck, but that everyone else sucks even more." -- Paul Graham
- zazen 10y ago
  This may very well be true in organizations where the sarcasm exists in an established context of mutual respect (or at least, the knowledge that you'll have to keep working with the other person). But it's very different when total strangers communicate by text over the internet: sarcastic comments breed aggressive replies, and threads degenerate into arguments very rapidly. I think good conversations online need more restraint and empathic effort than good conversations IRL.
  - nabla9 10y ago
    I have noticed in HN that well justified critical comments without hostile tone are faced with aggressive tone if the subject is some new hot technology. The underdone seems to be "say positive things", not say intelligent or insightful things.
    - eximius 10y ago
      I've noticed that too. However, since any criticisms I might have usually do not entirely detract from the... whatever, you can just preface it with something positive. "This is great! But, I wonder about X..." You get your criticism, they get their happy feelings.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      I followed by doing it even more on more topics containing bullshit. I had a steady following of people that respected that I continued counterpoints to fads while linking to evidence justifying it. I have opponents, too, that prefer I cancel my Internet service or end my unrelenting, evidence-driven "attacks" on certain things. Anyway, the trend exists but can just be ignored. There is a huge crowd of people here that appreciate thoughtful, civil counterpoints. I'll add that quite a few are also professionals in industry worth having in one's network for people that use HN that way.
SmokyBorbon 10y ago
I could not agree more. I'm so sick of the fake-nice, passive-agessive millenial crap on the internet. Telling someone what they want to hear isn't nice. It's demeaning. Promoting groupthink isn't nice. It's alienating. Spouting platitudes isn't nice. It's insulting. To hell with comfort. If something is wrong, say so.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  ...Which is why us millenials hang out on sites like HN and other forums (or 4chan, for the truly insane), where this kind of crap shows up less. Some people accuse HN of being a circlejerk, or a groupthink. It's not. I can tell, because if you want to see real groupthink, look at sites like Tumblr, where "speshul snowflakes" are in abundance. Look at Twitter, which is so filled with skub at this point that it's just a rage machine. Look at Facebook, where saying anything offensive is rare. It astonishes me that people on these sites can have the audacity to call themselves "liberals" and yet don't believe in something as basic as the idea of freedom of speech. And I'm using that correctly, yes: it's not that they say "that shouldn't be allowed on our site," it's that they say "that shouldn't be allowed anywhere."
jordanpg 10y ago
It's important to distinguish between cynicism/negativity and terseness. Good comments are just that: comments. They contain no emotional content at all and make a technical point. Nothing more, nothing less. Of course, some flavor of tone is unavoidable in written or spoken language, but if terseness or conciseness is labeled as mean or cynical, then I think that's fine (and irrelevant).
dominotw 10y ago
> I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments Reminds me of the episode from latest black mirror episode where the truck driver falls from 4.6 rating to 1.8 because she is critical of other people, thoughts.

willvarfar 10y ago

Sometimes really good articles don't have lots of comments. In these circumstances, I post an "excellent article!" comment just to give the author some feedback that someone somewhere actually read the article, and they really liked it! Humans writing articles appreciate that.

shubhamjain 10y ago
I am denying importance of compliments but they lose their lustre if the whole culture of forum is to "appear too nice"; it just gives an impression of everyone making comments for the sake of it. Besides that, the entire point of a forum doesn't bode well if there aren't any strong comments touching the subject, even if they are cynical or scornful. Take a look at OP's example of the "Should you leave a bad job?" thread [1]. The first comment is surely harsh and questions the entire thought process of hating a mundane job. Some people would disagree with it; some would not but I would be disappointed if the comment didn't exist. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789014

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Indeed. When my comments or articles hit the frontpage/top of the thread, I don't really care. What excites me is when I get a ton of responses from more experienced people. Because that gives me an opportunity to learn something.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
I second this. I watched the votes for a while to gauge what style, topics, or counterpoints had impact. Then, I mostly just ignored them. The real value is learning from people that know better than me on numerous topics. On top of helping out others with whatever I've learned. I've learned a ton, though, from other commenters with some things might have lasting significance in business or software developments I participate in.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  I mean, yeah. I learned about security, how deoptimization works, why CPU cache misses matter, how to program better, and a bunch of other stuff. So thanks to the lot of you, in no small part for putting up with me being an idiot. And yes, thank you Nick P, (author of parent, if you couldn't tell), as you taught me a good bit of it. And I just looked at my account info page: I'm ~30 days off from 1 year on HN. Funny how that worked out...
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Yeah, it's been quite the experience. I appreciated you comments as well as I learned from many I agreed and disagreed with. Still have the Scheme ones bookmarked for when I have time to start on it. :)
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      It's always good to know you've helped someone out. Who knows, by the time you get started on Scheme, I may have finished one of may many side projects. Did I mention I tend to get distracted a lot? Speaking of which, DFHack is unbelievably impressive. I mean, jeez. This has nothing to do with scheme, I've just been trying to work with it the past few days. And with that, I think I've made my point.

nabla9 10y ago

".. the measure of a healthy organization is probably the degree to which negative thoughts are allowed. In places where great work is being done, the attitude always seems to be critical and sarcastic, not "positive" and "supportive". The people I know who do great work think that they suck, but that everyone else sucks even more." -- Paul Graham

zazen 10y ago
This may very well be true in organizations where the sarcasm exists in an established context of mutual respect (or at least, the knowledge that you'll have to keep working with the other person). But it's very different when total strangers communicate by text over the internet: sarcastic comments breed aggressive replies, and threads degenerate into arguments very rapidly. I think good conversations online need more restraint and empathic effort than good conversations IRL.
- nabla9 10y ago
  I have noticed in HN that well justified critical comments without hostile tone are faced with aggressive tone if the subject is some new hot technology. The underdone seems to be "say positive things", not say intelligent or insightful things.
  - eximius 10y ago
    I've noticed that too. However, since any criticisms I might have usually do not entirely detract from the... whatever, you can just preface it with something positive. "This is great! But, I wonder about X..." You get your criticism, they get their happy feelings.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    I followed by doing it even more on more topics containing bullshit. I had a steady following of people that respected that I continued counterpoints to fads while linking to evidence justifying it. I have opponents, too, that prefer I cancel my Internet service or end my unrelenting, evidence-driven "attacks" on certain things. Anyway, the trend exists but can just be ignored. There is a huge crowd of people here that appreciate thoughtful, civil counterpoints. I'll add that quite a few are also professionals in industry worth having in one's network for people that use HN that way.

SmokyBorbon 10y ago

I could not agree more. I'm so sick of the fake-nice, passive-agessive millenial crap on the internet. Telling someone what they want to hear isn't nice. It's demeaning. Promoting groupthink isn't nice. It's alienating. Spouting platitudes isn't nice. It's insulting. To hell with comfort. If something is wrong, say so.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
...Which is why us millenials hang out on sites like HN and other forums (or 4chan, for the truly insane), where this kind of crap shows up less. Some people accuse HN of being a circlejerk, or a groupthink. It's not. I can tell, because if you want to see real groupthink, look at sites like Tumblr, where "speshul snowflakes" are in abundance. Look at Twitter, which is so filled with skub at this point that it's just a rage machine. Look at Facebook, where saying anything offensive is rare. It astonishes me that people on these sites can have the audacity to call themselves "liberals" and yet don't believe in something as basic as the idea of freedom of speech. And I'm using that correctly, yes: it's not that they say "that shouldn't be allowed on our site," it's that they say "that shouldn't be allowed anywhere."

jordanpg 10y ago

It's important to distinguish between cynicism/negativity and terseness. Good comments are just that: comments. They contain no emotional content at all and make a technical point. Nothing more, nothing less. Of course, some flavor of tone is unavoidable in written or spoken language, but if terseness or conciseness is labeled as mean or cynical, then I think that's fine (and irrelevant).

dominotw 10y ago

> I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments Reminds me of the episode from latest black mirror episode where the truck driver falls from 4.6 rating to 1.8 because she is critical of other people, thoughts.