8 ms·

FWIW, I find it helpful. Stating the level of confidence, and that's what IANAL is to some degree, is helpful in judging a statement.

komali2 8y ago
Warning: completely unrelated to thread topic. Poor grandparent got nuked in the votes, but I actually think this is an interesting discussion. It ties to my thoughts about politeness and behavior on the internet, which ties to my thoughts about the same IRL. Dale Carnegie, "How to Win Friends" type stuff. Is it effective to "hedge" your arguments/posts/words with a "now I might be wrong" / "you may know more about this than me" / "I'm not a lawyer" ? I spent 4 years hearing sales gurus tell me to not do it, exude confidence. Then I had Dale Carnegie and my favorite manager ever tell me the exact opposite. I've tried both, and the "Carnegie" method seems to work best for me both online and off. It's not just "IANAL" - the most positive responses I've seen on reddit, twitter, and here have some sort of "hedge." When I employ it, I get great responses (and lots of upvotes, which is other than response rate and quality of responses the only measure we can really use). When I don't, I get downvotes. Sometimes the "confident asshole" approach works here and on reddit, but it can backfire HORRIBLY - see the absolute nightmare situation happening over at ArenaNet - some guy didn't quite hedge in the right way and caused a total breakdown of community/developer trust. What a mess. I bet the developer wouldn't have felt quite so attacked if the commentor had hedged a bit better. See also, any email chain Linus Torvald gets involved in. Now this just starts a whole other discussion about whether someone should "have to" hedge, etc etc. I'm just voicing my thoughts here, curious what others think.
- Retra 8y ago
  A lawyer wouldn't have to hedge and say "IANAL." Why would we expect Torvalds to hedge? He's the expert in change of his project. Etc..
  - komali2 8y ago
    A lawyer can be wrong, and so can Torvalds, but yea, they may be more likely to be wrong. Nobody has to, but in my experience, you do seem to get a much more positive reaction when you do. At least in Western culture, it seems a well played "humble" character is admirable, especially when it is known that the particular person has absolutely no reason to be humble. EDIT: I don't expect anybody to hedge "just because", but I expect that a person with extremely good interpersonal communication skills to hedge.
    - auslander 8y ago
      In small talk, yes, be polite and humble everywhere. In science and engineering, I prefer it has some meaning. If you're sure in what you're saying, have data to back it up, dealt with it before - say straight. If it's a guess, say it is a guess. So I would not spend time guessing was it politeness of lack of facts behind that hedging. Btw, I upvoted GP :)
  - anarazel 8y ago
    Sure, but a lawyer / Torvalds / any SME might want to hedge that their opinion is strong or not. There's a pretty darn big difference between "my gut feeling is that this approach is too complicated, but I've not analyzed the problem sufficiently to know whether my gut is correct" and "there's no way this is the right architecture, it'll have harmful impact, and there's lots of better ways to do it". It's imo especially important to do so from positions of authority where others might be less critical in accepting ones statements as truth.
- sillysaurus3 8y ago
  This ArenaNet situation sounds interesting. Could you post a link to it? I don't see much in search results.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Here's a couple analyses: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17565218/arenanet-guild-wars-firing-games-social-media-harassment https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17565218/arenanet-guild-w... https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/10/17550276/guild-wars-2-arenanet-firings-jessica-price-gamergate https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/10/17550276/guild-wars-2-aren... https://www.pcgamer.com/fired-arenanet-dev-calls-dismissal-an-active-solicitation-of-harassment/ https://www.pcgamer.com/fired-arenanet-dev-calls-dismissal-a... In short, a woman working at ArenaNet, the company running GuildWars2 (an MMORPG), posted a twitter thread about her thoughts on designing narratives in an MMO. A prominent (male) streamer of the game responded with his opinion, which (as he stated) was a disagreement of her point of view. To this, the ArenaNet employee expressed her opinion that the streamer was explaining to her how to do her job, and implied he was doing this because she is a woman. Quite predictably the exchange exploded into a shitstorm of epic proportions, which supernovaed when ArenaNet responded to the incident by firing the employee. I think the response by the community at large to the woman's firing is despicable, and the firing was probably not justified. But, I have been thinking a lot about the words of the exchange, and how much of a clusterfuck the situation is. The exchange itself is, in my opinion, not black and white. To be fair, I say this as a guy, so it's entirely possible that I Just Don't/Can't Get It. I accept that and am happy to be pushed back on. The words: >ArenaNetEmployee: {{29 tweet thread discussing character writing in MMOS}} >Streamer: "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly. I don't believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself..." >ArenaNetEmployee: "Today in being a female game dev: "Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job."" {{quotes streamer}} I feel like this whole shitstorm could have been avoided if the streamer had hedged just a bit better, or instead had asked her opinion. Basically, in the discussion, setting her up as the expert (which she is), while still expressing an opposed position. This is basically what hedging does anyway.
    - sillysaurus3 8y ago
- justinclift 8y ago
  Another way to hedge, but without obviously doing so, is to rephrase the statement as a question. For (a super basic) example, instead of going with: Now, I might be wrong... but you should probabably do foo, then bar. That would avoid baz completely. Rephrased as a simple question: Would it be better to do foo, then bar? That seems like it would avoid baz completely. Perhaps give that a try? :)
- caf 8y ago
  Linus uses hedging language quite a bit actually, eg. http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1807.0/01744.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1807.0/01744.html

komali2 8y ago

Warning: completely unrelated to thread topic. Poor grandparent got nuked in the votes, but I actually think this is an interesting discussion. It ties to my thoughts about politeness and behavior on the internet, which ties to my thoughts about the same IRL. Dale Carnegie, "How to Win Friends" type stuff. Is it effective to "hedge" your arguments/posts/words with a "now I might be wrong" / "you may know more about this than me" / "I'm not a lawyer" ? I spent 4 years hearing sales gurus tell me to not do it, exude confidence. Then I had Dale Carnegie and my favorite manager ever tell me the exact opposite. I've tried both, and the "Carnegie" method seems to work best for me both online and off. It's not just "IANAL" - the most positive responses I've seen on reddit, twitter, and here have some sort of "hedge." When I employ it, I get great responses (and lots of upvotes, which is other than response rate and quality of responses the only measure we can really use). When I don't, I get downvotes. Sometimes the "confident asshole" approach works here and on reddit, but it can backfire HORRIBLY - see the absolute nightmare situation happening over at ArenaNet - some guy didn't quite hedge in the right way and caused a total breakdown of community/developer trust. What a mess. I bet the developer wouldn't have felt quite so attacked if the commentor had hedged a bit better. See also, any email chain Linus Torvald gets involved in. Now this just starts a whole other discussion about whether someone should "have to" hedge, etc etc. I'm just voicing my thoughts here, curious what others think.

Retra 8y ago
A lawyer wouldn't have to hedge and say "IANAL." Why would we expect Torvalds to hedge? He's the expert in change of his project. Etc..
- komali2 8y ago
  A lawyer can be wrong, and so can Torvalds, but yea, they may be more likely to be wrong. Nobody has to, but in my experience, you do seem to get a much more positive reaction when you do. At least in Western culture, it seems a well played "humble" character is admirable, especially when it is known that the particular person has absolutely no reason to be humble. EDIT: I don't expect anybody to hedge "just because", but I expect that a person with extremely good interpersonal communication skills to hedge.
  - auslander 8y ago
    In small talk, yes, be polite and humble everywhere. In science and engineering, I prefer it has some meaning. If you're sure in what you're saying, have data to back it up, dealt with it before - say straight. If it's a guess, say it is a guess. So I would not spend time guessing was it politeness of lack of facts behind that hedging. Btw, I upvoted GP :)
- anarazel 8y ago
  Sure, but a lawyer / Torvalds / any SME might want to hedge that their opinion is strong or not. There's a pretty darn big difference between "my gut feeling is that this approach is too complicated, but I've not analyzed the problem sufficiently to know whether my gut is correct" and "there's no way this is the right architecture, it'll have harmful impact, and there's lots of better ways to do it". It's imo especially important to do so from positions of authority where others might be less critical in accepting ones statements as truth.
sillysaurus3 8y ago
This ArenaNet situation sounds interesting. Could you post a link to it? I don't see much in search results.
- komali2 8y ago
  Here's a couple analyses: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17565218/arenanet-guild-wars-firing-games-social-media-harassment https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17565218/arenanet-guild-w... https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/10/17550276/guild-wars-2-arenanet-firings-jessica-price-gamergate https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/10/17550276/guild-wars-2-aren... https://www.pcgamer.com/fired-arenanet-dev-calls-dismissal-an-active-solicitation-of-harassment/ https://www.pcgamer.com/fired-arenanet-dev-calls-dismissal-a... In short, a woman working at ArenaNet, the company running GuildWars2 (an MMORPG), posted a twitter thread about her thoughts on designing narratives in an MMO. A prominent (male) streamer of the game responded with his opinion, which (as he stated) was a disagreement of her point of view. To this, the ArenaNet employee expressed her opinion that the streamer was explaining to her how to do her job, and implied he was doing this because she is a woman. Quite predictably the exchange exploded into a shitstorm of epic proportions, which supernovaed when ArenaNet responded to the incident by firing the employee. I think the response by the community at large to the woman's firing is despicable, and the firing was probably not justified. But, I have been thinking a lot about the words of the exchange, and how much of a clusterfuck the situation is. The exchange itself is, in my opinion, not black and white. To be fair, I say this as a guy, so it's entirely possible that I Just Don't/Can't Get It. I accept that and am happy to be pushed back on. The words: >ArenaNetEmployee: {{29 tweet thread discussing character writing in MMOS}} >Streamer: "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly. I don't believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself..." >ArenaNetEmployee: "Today in being a female game dev: "Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job."" {{quotes streamer}} I feel like this whole shitstorm could have been avoided if the streamer had hedged just a bit better, or instead had asked her opinion. Basically, in the discussion, setting her up as the expert (which she is), while still expressing an opposed position. This is basically what hedging does anyway.
  - sillysaurus3 8y ago
justinclift 8y ago
Another way to hedge, but without obviously doing so, is to rephrase the statement as a question. For (a super basic) example, instead of going with: Now, I might be wrong... but you should probabably do foo, then bar. That would avoid baz completely. Rephrased as a simple question: Would it be better to do foo, then bar? That seems like it would avoid baz completely. Perhaps give that a try? :)
caf 8y ago
Linus uses hedging language quite a bit actually, eg. http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1807.0/01744.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1807.0/01744.html