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OK.. I think I now understand what you're trying to get across, and it may have to be one of those "agree to disagree" situations. In the spirit of HN furtherin

• mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  Yes, definitely. If the parent comment that I disagreed with had come with huge disclaimers that it was only intended as a technique to be applied precisely in the OP's use case of persuading people to give up certain modern tech, then that's fine, maybe it's good advice, maybe not, but it's not a morality or "general rule" sort of topic. The comment is not written that way at all and it's not implied from context, especially because the comment talks about it as advice heard in a corporate setting, which begs the interpretation of a generic corporate policy or something "team players" will do, etc. It is specifically because the parent comment was written that way (a generic heuristic for corporate settings) that I felt it was useful to offer a disagreeing perspective and highlight that it could be quite harmful to encourage adopting such a thing as a generic "corporate setting" rule of thumb.
  • mmt 8y ago
    > Yes, definitely. In that case, as I said, I see your point, and I think we merely disagree on fundamentals, which is fine. > If the parent comment that I disagreed with had come with huge disclaimers that it was only intended as a technique to be applied precisely in the OP's use case At the risk of breaking the HN taboo of bringing up voting as well as potentially sparking another meta-discussion, I'll say this: The consistent downvoting combined with the lengthy sub-thread with the OC insisting, in essence, that the context was sufficient to convey intent (and subsequently confirming original intent), in the absence of disclaimers, suggests that your position here may be tending toward the unreasonable. This isn't to say that you're categorically wrong and that nobody else could possibly intepret it differently, just that it might be beyond a "reasonable person" standard of interpretation. Personally, I prefer being required to exert extra effort to gain context, so as to have writing be more succinct and free of disclaimers. Perhaps most importantly, though, your belaboring of this point had, at least for me, distracted from your main thesis. It probably still does for some readers, and I find that unfortunate for HN, as diversity of thought is something that I believe helps us all.
    • mlthoughts2018 8y ago
      > "The consistent downvoting combined with the lengthy sub-thread with the OC insisting, in essence, that the context was sufficient to convey intent" I'll have to disagree strongly on that one. Hacker News is a place where the voting is extremely tribalistic. People downvote what they don't like, regardless of its merits or worthwhileness. Hacker News exhibits this just as much as any online community I've ever seen, and it's pure bias that so many of us believe we're exempt and use votes efficiently. Voting on HN is very often about popularity or trying to downvote what you don't like, rather than reserving downvotes for types of discourse that truly fall outside the guidelines or scope. > "Perhaps most importantly, though, your belaboring of this point had, at least for me, distracted from your main thesis." I agree, and felt saddened that I was pushed into a corner where I felt it was clearly necessary to belabor it. > "as diversity of thought is something that I believe helps us all." Yes indeed, but there truly are many topics for which HN is just another echo chamber and downvotes are just expressions of loyalty to ideological sides of an issue.
      • mmt 8y ago
        > People downvote what they don't like, regardless of its merits or worthwhileness. [...] > Voting on HN is very often about popularity or trying to downvote what you don't like Well, yes and no. I certainly agree with your point about tribalism and being like other online communities, but I don't agree with the "just as much" part, at least not within the bounds of certain topics or sub-threads. It takes an effort to see just that HN. My own experience is that my comments receive few votes one way or the other (and very rarely fall negative), but I believe that's because I make a concerted effort to avoid topics where discussion appear to yield nothing but further controversy. I'll even just hit the "[-]" on the whole sub-thread after reading a few levels and detecting the pattern. I also self-censor (and let go of things and not take bait). Frequently. How much of a loss this is, to others, is unknown, but I do know I ultimately feel worse when I am the character in the xkcd cartoon who won't leave the computer because "someone is wrong on the Internet". > rather than reserving downvotes for types of discourse that truly fall outside the guidelines or scope. I'd say that this reservation (certainly the more severe guidelines violations) is appropriate for flagging, not (just) downvoting. > I was pushed into a corner where I felt it was clearly necessary to belabor it. To hang on to one shred of on-topic material :) ... Considering there was only one other participant in the long chain, that's a strange characterization. More importantly, though, in light of your subsequent remarks regarding guidelines, you may want to take a hard look at whether your initial response, that sparked it all, fully complied with their spirit. In particular, the one that ends "Assume good faith" (suggesting disclaimers are unneeded), and the one regarding ideology (which I know does not specifically what happened here, but there may be echoes). Just something to think about in the whole pragmatism vs. morality in advice tension. > People downvote what they don't like, regardless of its merits or worthwhileness. I'll personally tend to downvote comments that bring ideology into what had previously been a practical discussion, since, as you may have guessed from my original distillation of our positions, I'm a pragmatist. Of course, this is also idealogical (a position on worthwhileness). All that said, I recognize your username (which means you comment on topics of interest to me) and generally find myself upvoting your comments.