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My experience of this on HN has led me to basically conclude it’s not very possible to be constructive in internet comments. I may clearly re-state a point of v

by mlthoughts2018 8y ago

My experience of this on HN has led me to basically conclude it’s not very possible to be constructive in internet comments. I may clearly re-state a point of view I disagree with, and the response will always be that I have either misunderstood it, no matter what, or that my replies (which are tailored exactly to the item I’m responding to) don’t refute the original point and I’m “not providing evidence.” In other words, the most common type of reply I get is something to the effect of, “Despite re-stating my argument with clear articulation, you did not understand it (and I won’t say why) and further, your counterpoints don’t constitute “evidence” or induce any information transfer (which I will take to imply your deficiency and not mine), and before looking further into any of this, the burden of collecting, organizing and disseminating evidence is all on you.” This attitude seems often to get rewarded with upvotes as well. It’s very distressing to me personally.

nabla9 8y ago
Internet discussions suffer from lack of common context and bad faith arguments. People also like to argue for fun. Sometimes people intentionally misunderstand. The effect I mentioned can only be detected when you talk face to face with someone in good faith and you both try to come to conclusion.
vharuck 8y ago
One problem with internet debates is the debators only ever know about the people they're debating. Rarely will you convince your "opponent," but you'll probably have an impact on people who read but don't comment. You're debating for the audience. This is also why people should challenge others in public when needed. Your boss might not change his ways, but your colleagues could.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  I agree with you very much, but you do learn something about your audience by observing what is up-voted, down-voted or flagged, and what responses moderators provide. In general I find those things to be very personally discouraging on Hacker News. It’s a community I’d like to belong to, but feel that when I abide very carefully by the community standard of discourse, I still receive punitive downvotes for disagreeing with crowdthink or receive canned moderator responses that don’t explain the specific mechanics by which a comment is considered failing to meet guidelines, with no serious appeals process when you believe you’re being treated unfairly.

nabla9 8y ago

Internet discussions suffer from lack of common context and bad faith arguments. People also like to argue for fun. Sometimes people intentionally misunderstand. The effect I mentioned can only be detected when you talk face to face with someone in good faith and you both try to come to conclusion.

vharuck 8y ago

One problem with internet debates is the debators only ever know about the people they're debating. Rarely will you convince your "opponent," but you'll probably have an impact on people who read but don't comment. You're debating for the audience. This is also why people should challenge others in public when needed. Your boss might not change his ways, but your colleagues could.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I agree with you very much, but you do learn something about your audience by observing what is up-voted, down-voted or flagged, and what responses moderators provide. In general I find those things to be very personally discouraging on Hacker News. It’s a community I’d like to belong to, but feel that when I abide very carefully by the community standard of discourse, I still receive punitive downvotes for disagreeing with crowdthink or receive canned moderator responses that don’t explain the specific mechanics by which a comment is considered failing to meet guidelines, with no serious appeals process when you believe you’re being treated unfairly.