4 ms·

It's really grinding when the top comments of any sort of alternative thing to come out are always so negative. Long list of reasons why this will never work ou

It's really grinding when the top comments of any sort of alternative thing to come out are always so negative. Long list of reasons why this will never work out. It's easy to be negative. It's more difficult but more fun to be inventive and industrious. To the peertube devs: don't let negative comments like this grind you down. Peertube has some great ideas and I think it can succeed.

yroc92 8y ago
The top comment of almost any post on HN is negative.
- meko 8y ago
  I've noticed this and wonder why it is... Maybe developers /engineers are prone to seeking out, trying to identify constraints?
  - DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
    There probably less incentive or pressure to comment if you agree. If you disagree, you presumably have an opposing view and rationale which you may be compelled to share.
    - charlchi 8y ago
      Criticising a technology for it's tech is one thing. Claiming that "X won't work because Y always works" casually but authoritatively isn't really criticism. And you can see a lot of people here getting upset over casual but massive sweeping statements like that without backup.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    I definitely was. It's much easier to appear smart when being critical than when being positive. One of the things that helped me was the notion of Appreciative Inquiry. Basically that when you are dealing with new things, you first look for the good points that you can amplify, not bad points to beat on. That said, I think coding is a powerful push back toward the negative. Code breaks so easily that we're thoroughly trained to be on the lookout for the next failure point.
    - mike10010100 8y ago
      There are also large mega-corps who have vested interests in ensuring that their products don't get eclipsed by these kinds of solutions. Don't underestimate the shilling force.
  - topmonk 8y ago
    It's definitely a lot easier. To argue that an idea is flawed, you only need to find one possible reason it wouldn't work. If you are correct, you are cheered for it. To argue an idea will succeed, you need to know and understand the whole concept, and be able to analyze it for flaws. And then you could be proved wrong by someone mentioning a single issue you didn't see before. Even if you did see the problems people mention, to defend your point, you have to explain why each of them don't apply, which can be a lot of work. And then, anyone deciding whether they agree with you or not would have to do the same thing, in order to be right in their opinion, so you get a lot less people willing to upvote you. In that way, comment systems are focused on the negative and aren't a good space for creativity and coming up with new ideas. Now, please, tear into this and tell me where I'm wrong ;)
- api 8y ago
  The most popular videos on YouTube and the most clicked articles on the web are generally those that complain, troll, mock, criticize, or fear-monger. Humans seem to be biased toward paying attention to criticism and negativity. Maybe it has evolutionary roots. If you ignore good hunting advice you'll probably live, but if you ignore the person telling you there's a mountain lion in that bush you're cat food. The paranoid probably passed on their genes a bit more often than the optimistic. You also see it in the arts. Dark edgy music is deep and profound while happy dancey music is trite and stupid... in spite of the fact that dark edgy music is often no more musically interesting or innovative than the happy dancey stuff.
- smolder 8y ago
  And that doesn't mean it's not very valuable feedback.
  - robotkdick 8y ago
    Having worked in TV for 15 years, I can say without a doubt the top comment is correct in many, many ways. Content creation and hosting is a small problem compared with distribution and marketing. That's much of the reason why it's taking so long for software to eat entertainment. Distribution to interested parties is a process that took Hollywood half a century (and YouTube and Netflix) decades. Keep in mind, Netflix started by focusing just on distribution. Good news is always good, but there's a difference between gaining access to tens of thousands of euros and getting to a first video distribution with 20 million views, for example. That's when people who work in content/entertainment will turn their heads and take notice.
  - hobofan 8y ago
    What part of that is valuable feedback that the PeerTube team could act upon in any other way than to say "Fuck it, this person on HN said that our project won't work out. Let's all pack up and go home."?
tehduder9 8y ago
It's really grinding when any criticism isn't addressed but complained about for being pointed out.
- hueving 8y ago
  It's not criticism. It's reactionary conjecture about why people are using YouTube without any evidence to back it up.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    I don't think you can place the burden of evidence on one side alone. Enough people have experience with YouTube as users, creators, or both that it's not wild to think that many people have reasonable intuitions about why YouTube dominates the market. And if we are going to demand evidence of critics, I think we should also demand evidence of promoters of things like this, who often seem guided by a Big Idea rather than any evidence of user needs or proven ability to solve those user needs.
  - charlchi 8y ago
    This. If everyone in the tech industry adopted a "X works and many people use it, so we shouldn't try to make Y work" then you can say goodbye to progress. Specifically, some of us don't want the internet to serve as an interactive billboard, where our interactions with billboards are monitored. 99% of users probably don't care but being part of the next generation of software engineers I want to build things that influences people lives more positively than the previous generation of tech. I honestly question the moral integrity of my fellow technologists. There's a massive gap some commenters are missing between looking at the outcome of a model and the technical or conceptual changes it could undergo over time. Just because something has been working for 5/10 years doesn't mean it's the only proven way nor do we need to enforce it as the "proven ©" status quo for everyone else because we're too afraid of technical changes.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      Conversely, if we aren't sufficiently critical of new projects, we risk wasting incredible sums of money on things that never could have worked. Our industry has a long history of that kind of waste. Exhibit A is the dot-com bubble, but there are plenty of modern failures too. If we want to maximize innovation, we cannot be too suspicious of novelty, but we also can't let it blind us.
Kalium 8y ago
You're right! It's incredibly depressing and deflating when the most popular comments are always, always so negative. So down. Yet, is it perhaps possible that there might be something to be learned from the comments? Each is an exciting new opportunity for readers and developers to learn and perhaps even improve!
themagician 8y ago
I mean, it does have some great ideas. They just aren't ideas that YouTube's audience or content creators care about.

yroc92 8y ago

The top comment of almost any post on HN is negative.

meko 8y ago
I've noticed this and wonder why it is... Maybe developers /engineers are prone to seeking out, trying to identify constraints?
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  There probably less incentive or pressure to comment if you agree. If you disagree, you presumably have an opposing view and rationale which you may be compelled to share.
  - charlchi 8y ago
    Criticising a technology for it's tech is one thing. Claiming that "X won't work because Y always works" casually but authoritatively isn't really criticism. And you can see a lot of people here getting upset over casual but massive sweeping statements like that without backup.
- wpietri 8y ago
  I definitely was. It's much easier to appear smart when being critical than when being positive. One of the things that helped me was the notion of Appreciative Inquiry. Basically that when you are dealing with new things, you first look for the good points that you can amplify, not bad points to beat on. That said, I think coding is a powerful push back toward the negative. Code breaks so easily that we're thoroughly trained to be on the lookout for the next failure point.
  - mike10010100 8y ago
    There are also large mega-corps who have vested interests in ensuring that their products don't get eclipsed by these kinds of solutions. Don't underestimate the shilling force.
- topmonk 8y ago
  It's definitely a lot easier. To argue that an idea is flawed, you only need to find one possible reason it wouldn't work. If you are correct, you are cheered for it. To argue an idea will succeed, you need to know and understand the whole concept, and be able to analyze it for flaws. And then you could be proved wrong by someone mentioning a single issue you didn't see before. Even if you did see the problems people mention, to defend your point, you have to explain why each of them don't apply, which can be a lot of work. And then, anyone deciding whether they agree with you or not would have to do the same thing, in order to be right in their opinion, so you get a lot less people willing to upvote you. In that way, comment systems are focused on the negative and aren't a good space for creativity and coming up with new ideas. Now, please, tear into this and tell me where I'm wrong ;)
api 8y ago
The most popular videos on YouTube and the most clicked articles on the web are generally those that complain, troll, mock, criticize, or fear-monger. Humans seem to be biased toward paying attention to criticism and negativity. Maybe it has evolutionary roots. If you ignore good hunting advice you'll probably live, but if you ignore the person telling you there's a mountain lion in that bush you're cat food. The paranoid probably passed on their genes a bit more often than the optimistic. You also see it in the arts. Dark edgy music is deep and profound while happy dancey music is trite and stupid... in spite of the fact that dark edgy music is often no more musically interesting or innovative than the happy dancey stuff.
smolder 8y ago
And that doesn't mean it's not very valuable feedback.
- robotkdick 8y ago
  Having worked in TV for 15 years, I can say without a doubt the top comment is correct in many, many ways. Content creation and hosting is a small problem compared with distribution and marketing. That's much of the reason why it's taking so long for software to eat entertainment. Distribution to interested parties is a process that took Hollywood half a century (and YouTube and Netflix) decades. Keep in mind, Netflix started by focusing just on distribution. Good news is always good, but there's a difference between gaining access to tens of thousands of euros and getting to a first video distribution with 20 million views, for example. That's when people who work in content/entertainment will turn their heads and take notice.
- hobofan 8y ago
  What part of that is valuable feedback that the PeerTube team could act upon in any other way than to say "Fuck it, this person on HN said that our project won't work out. Let's all pack up and go home."?

tehduder9 8y ago

It's really grinding when any criticism isn't addressed but complained about for being pointed out.

hueving 8y ago
It's not criticism. It's reactionary conjecture about why people are using YouTube without any evidence to back it up.
- wpietri 8y ago
  I don't think you can place the burden of evidence on one side alone. Enough people have experience with YouTube as users, creators, or both that it's not wild to think that many people have reasonable intuitions about why YouTube dominates the market. And if we are going to demand evidence of critics, I think we should also demand evidence of promoters of things like this, who often seem guided by a Big Idea rather than any evidence of user needs or proven ability to solve those user needs.
- charlchi 8y ago
  This. If everyone in the tech industry adopted a "X works and many people use it, so we shouldn't try to make Y work" then you can say goodbye to progress. Specifically, some of us don't want the internet to serve as an interactive billboard, where our interactions with billboards are monitored. 99% of users probably don't care but being part of the next generation of software engineers I want to build things that influences people lives more positively than the previous generation of tech. I honestly question the moral integrity of my fellow technologists. There's a massive gap some commenters are missing between looking at the outcome of a model and the technical or conceptual changes it could undergo over time. Just because something has been working for 5/10 years doesn't mean it's the only proven way nor do we need to enforce it as the "proven ©" status quo for everyone else because we're too afraid of technical changes.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Conversely, if we aren't sufficiently critical of new projects, we risk wasting incredible sums of money on things that never could have worked. Our industry has a long history of that kind of waste. Exhibit A is the dot-com bubble, but there are plenty of modern failures too. If we want to maximize innovation, we cannot be too suspicious of novelty, but we also can't let it blind us.

Kalium 8y ago

You're right! It's incredibly depressing and deflating when the most popular comments are always, always so negative. So down. Yet, is it perhaps possible that there might be something to be learned from the comments? Each is an exciting new opportunity for readers and developers to learn and perhaps even improve!

themagician 8y ago

I mean, it does have some great ideas. They just aren't ideas that YouTube's audience or content creators care about.