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I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. Most of it just describes the usual internet bike-shedding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_tr

I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. Most of it just describes the usual internet bike-shedding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality#Examples), and then says that you could have avoided it by just... telling a story or naming something, but doesn't elaborate at all on what it means by that, how to do it, or why it would help.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
veritas_veritad 8y ago
something meta about this comment
DelightOne 8y ago
You tell a story in which you show the problem and the solution besides. There is no other way to create interest. It has to solve a problem of yours (a potential problem may be enough). If you don't know it does, why would you care about the solution? Or that's my interpretation of the article anyway.
coldtea 8y ago
>I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. It says that most users wont try hard enough to understand a post, and instead comment like people are doing in this thread. (It also suggests to try and give name to what you've built, and and try and weave it into an explicit narrative, to help people understand it and give more focused responses).
- Vinnl 8y ago
  If that's the case, then it appears that the suggested solution -telling a story- doesn't work...
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Worked for many. Few things work for all people. Some need more time, others never get it. What's important is if it's better than the baseline of not doing what he suggests.
  - adventured 8y ago
    Telling a story is the only solution that works. You either tell your story, over and over and over again until you can't stand to hear it, or you disappear into the noise. You pound the story home, or your competition will and they'll take up that mind share. There are many ways to tell and disseminate a story, that's the primary variable in successful products, not whether there's a story at all.
- Deimorz 8y ago
  Okay, but what does that mean in practice? Almost every project posted on HN already has a name and at least a short description of why it exists or what it's trying to do (often in the title itself). They still get bikeshedded to hell, so obviously the name and story alone aren't enough. I see a ton of posts where people bicker specifically about the name or the story (half the comments are "is this actually an issue?"). The linked post spends the entire time describing the problem but only 4 tiny sentences on the solution. It's really not self-explanatory even though it treats it like it is. Was writing it this way intended to be some kind of meta-commentary that's just going over my head?
  - Benjammer 8y ago
    I honestly think part of this is just Dan's writing style in general. When I read his posts I often get a sense of him wanting to try and explain ideas at a conceptual level and teach people how to think and apply the concepts themselves, rather than provide step by step instructions for anything. I am far from an avid Overreacted reader though, I just read what gets posted here, mostly.
    - acemarke 8y ago
      Yep, this is absolutely the case. As an example, see the "Middleware" tutorial page in the Redux docs [0], which Dan wrote. It walks through the process of "how and why did we end up at the final middleware API?", by demonstrating several "failed" attempts at solving the problem of logging. The page itself is well-written, and definitely demonstrates Dan's standard teaching style. But, it's also true that it's not obvious from glancing at the page how to _use_ middleware, because that doesn't come until the "failed" attempts. Another good example is his "Redux tutorial" videos on Egghead [1], where he walks through basically building Redux as the process for teaching how to use it and how it works. For some people, that teaching style is great. For others, they just want to know _how_ to use something, not necessarily how it _works_ right now. (We're planning to revamp the Redux docs soon-ish [2], and I do plan to change the contents of that "Middleware" tutorial to be an actual explanation of how to _use_ middleware correctly, and then move the "why does it work this way?" explanation to a different section of the docs.) [0] https://redux.js.org/advanced/middleware https://redux.js.org/advanced/middleware [1] https://egghead.io/courses/getting-started-with-redux https://egghead.io/courses/getting-started-with-redux [2] https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3313 https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3313
- baddox 8y ago
  Dan doesn't say this, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the point I take away from this isn't that people are lazy and don't want to dive deep on a new idea, but instead that people are not obligated to discuss and give you exactly the type of feedback you want. Even if your idea makes it to the top of HN, people are completely free to discuss ancillary topics or give feedback on areas you aren't interested in (like the coding style or design of the blog post). And Dan proposes a solution. The solution isn't to decry the low quality of online discourse, or call people lazy, or use moderators to force people onto specific topics. The solution is to tell a story that people are interested in.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >but instead that people are not obligated to discuss and give you exactly the type of feedback you want. That we knew already though. It's a free country, and everything. And I'm not sure his examples with the comments diverting into "landing pages" and such are meant in a good light of those making such comments.
- coleifer 8y ago
  > most users wont try hard enough to understand a post When it is obviously written by a tryhard, self-aware people tend to be a bit dismissive of this kind of pandering.
- ValleyOfTheMtns 8y ago
  So he should've named the naming problem. Wait, is that what it's called? The Naming Problem?
  - aliswe 8y ago
    In all fairness, at least he told the story!
  - cben 8y ago
    I think "Name it and they will come" is now a pretty good quotable name for the Naming / storytelling Solution.
worldsayshi 8y ago
I think that the article itself is a pretty good example of its own point. The bike shedding phenomenon is not new but it's hard to relate to it in the particular form described by the article. So the article describes that form as - a story. Besides, I find that there's often/sometimes a big gap between understanding a concept (like bike shedding) on an abstract level compared to being able to relate and to it when it arises in practice (unless perhaps you've grasped in some special way). Telling various stories that exemplify such concept in a multitude of ways can reveal new facets of it.
undershirt 8y ago
He’s telling a story describing our situation that is hard to directly talk about. David Foster Wallace once said in an interview [1]: > Let me insert one thing, which I'll bet you've noticed from talking to writers—is that most of the stuff that we think we're writing about in books is very difficult to talk about straight out. You know, question and answer. In some sense, it probably can't be talked about directly, and that's why people make up stories about it. [1]:https://youtu.be/iGLzWdT7vGc?t=1002 https://youtu.be/iGLzWdT7vGc?t=1002
danmaz74 8y ago
It says that when the sage points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger. Or, at least, this is how the author feels.
skybrian 8y ago
I believe part of the point is that we often go beyond bike-shedding to off-topic bike-shedding. Something written in X language turns into a discussion of whether X is a good language. An announcement from company Y becomes a discussion of everything else Y has ever done. It's a website and has a design, so let's discuss web design. On-topic bike-shedding would actually be an improvement. I believe this happens most often with announcements that are legitimate news but kind of boring. The larger, generic topic is more interesting and it's sorta related, so it's more attractive to talk about that. A possible solution: be more interesting. Tell a story.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

veritas_veritad 8y ago

something meta about this comment

DelightOne 8y ago

You tell a story in which you show the problem and the solution besides. There is no other way to create interest. It has to solve a problem of yours (a potential problem may be enough). If you don't know it does, why would you care about the solution? Or that's my interpretation of the article anyway.

coldtea 8y ago

>I honestly don't understand what this post is trying to say. It says that most users wont try hard enough to understand a post, and instead comment like people are doing in this thread. (It also suggests to try and give name to what you've built, and and try and weave it into an explicit narrative, to help people understand it and give more focused responses).

Vinnl 8y ago
If that's the case, then it appears that the suggested solution -telling a story- doesn't work...
- coldtea 8y ago
  Worked for many. Few things work for all people. Some need more time, others never get it. What's important is if it's better than the baseline of not doing what he suggests.
- adventured 8y ago
  Telling a story is the only solution that works. You either tell your story, over and over and over again until you can't stand to hear it, or you disappear into the noise. You pound the story home, or your competition will and they'll take up that mind share. There are many ways to tell and disseminate a story, that's the primary variable in successful products, not whether there's a story at all.
Deimorz 8y ago
Okay, but what does that mean in practice? Almost every project posted on HN already has a name and at least a short description of why it exists or what it's trying to do (often in the title itself). They still get bikeshedded to hell, so obviously the name and story alone aren't enough. I see a ton of posts where people bicker specifically about the name or the story (half the comments are "is this actually an issue?"). The linked post spends the entire time describing the problem but only 4 tiny sentences on the solution. It's really not self-explanatory even though it treats it like it is. Was writing it this way intended to be some kind of meta-commentary that's just going over my head?
- Benjammer 8y ago
  I honestly think part of this is just Dan's writing style in general. When I read his posts I often get a sense of him wanting to try and explain ideas at a conceptual level and teach people how to think and apply the concepts themselves, rather than provide step by step instructions for anything. I am far from an avid Overreacted reader though, I just read what gets posted here, mostly.
  - acemarke 8y ago
    Yep, this is absolutely the case. As an example, see the "Middleware" tutorial page in the Redux docs [0], which Dan wrote. It walks through the process of "how and why did we end up at the final middleware API?", by demonstrating several "failed" attempts at solving the problem of logging. The page itself is well-written, and definitely demonstrates Dan's standard teaching style. But, it's also true that it's not obvious from glancing at the page how to _use_ middleware, because that doesn't come until the "failed" attempts. Another good example is his "Redux tutorial" videos on Egghead [1], where he walks through basically building Redux as the process for teaching how to use it and how it works. For some people, that teaching style is great. For others, they just want to know _how_ to use something, not necessarily how it _works_ right now. (We're planning to revamp the Redux docs soon-ish [2], and I do plan to change the contents of that "Middleware" tutorial to be an actual explanation of how to _use_ middleware correctly, and then move the "why does it work this way?" explanation to a different section of the docs.) [0] https://redux.js.org/advanced/middleware https://redux.js.org/advanced/middleware [1] https://egghead.io/courses/getting-started-with-redux https://egghead.io/courses/getting-started-with-redux [2] https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3313 https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3313
baddox 8y ago
Dan doesn't say this, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the point I take away from this isn't that people are lazy and don't want to dive deep on a new idea, but instead that people are not obligated to discuss and give you exactly the type of feedback you want. Even if your idea makes it to the top of HN, people are completely free to discuss ancillary topics or give feedback on areas you aren't interested in (like the coding style or design of the blog post). And Dan proposes a solution. The solution isn't to decry the low quality of online discourse, or call people lazy, or use moderators to force people onto specific topics. The solution is to tell a story that people are interested in.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >but instead that people are not obligated to discuss and give you exactly the type of feedback you want. That we knew already though. It's a free country, and everything. And I'm not sure his examples with the comments diverting into "landing pages" and such are meant in a good light of those making such comments.
coleifer 8y ago
> most users wont try hard enough to understand a post When it is obviously written by a tryhard, self-aware people tend to be a bit dismissive of this kind of pandering.
ValleyOfTheMtns 8y ago
So he should've named the naming problem. Wait, is that what it's called? The Naming Problem?
- aliswe 8y ago
  In all fairness, at least he told the story!
- cben 8y ago
  I think "Name it and they will come" is now a pretty good quotable name for the Naming / storytelling Solution.

worldsayshi 8y ago

I think that the article itself is a pretty good example of its own point. The bike shedding phenomenon is not new but it's hard to relate to it in the particular form described by the article. So the article describes that form as - a story. Besides, I find that there's often/sometimes a big gap between understanding a concept (like bike shedding) on an abstract level compared to being able to relate and to it when it arises in practice (unless perhaps you've grasped in some special way). Telling various stories that exemplify such concept in a multitude of ways can reveal new facets of it.

undershirt 8y ago

He’s telling a story describing our situation that is hard to directly talk about. David Foster Wallace once said in an interview [1]: > Let me insert one thing, which I'll bet you've noticed from talking to writers—is that most of the stuff that we think we're writing about in books is very difficult to talk about straight out. You know, question and answer. In some sense, it probably can't be talked about directly, and that's why people make up stories about it. [1]:https://youtu.be/iGLzWdT7vGc?t=1002 https://youtu.be/iGLzWdT7vGc?t=1002

danmaz74 8y ago

It says that when the sage points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger. Or, at least, this is how the author feels.

skybrian 8y ago

I believe part of the point is that we often go beyond bike-shedding to off-topic bike-shedding. Something written in X language turns into a discussion of whether X is a good language. An announcement from company Y becomes a discussion of everything else Y has ever done. It's a website and has a design, so let's discuss web design. On-topic bike-shedding would actually be an improvement. I believe this happens most often with announcements that are legitimate news but kind of boring. The larger, generic topic is more interesting and it's sorta related, so it's more attractive to talk about that. A possible solution: be more interesting. Tell a story.