5 ms·

On a side note, I wish people would stop prefacing their comments with "At the risk of being downvoted..." or "Unpopular opinion here, but..." Just state your p

On a side note, I wish people would stop prefacing their comments with "At the risk of being downvoted..." or "Unpopular opinion here, but..." Just state your point as clearly as you can and allow your arguments to stand or fall on their own. One of the things which drew me to HN was the lack of this kind of language, and I feel like I've seen more and more of it recently.

nmussy 7y ago
I completely agree, and this is already mentioned in the guidelines: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
thedaemon 7y ago
I wish people wouldn't comment about other people's comments like this. Just up or down vote, this makes for even more boring reading than the comment you mentioned. Here I am breaking my own rule because I cannot down vote your comment.
- frereubu 7y ago
  But I don't want to downvote their comment (although I don't want to upvote it either). The issue with your suggestion is that a downvote will be seen as a vote on the content of the comment. There isn't a separate "downvote for special pleading" option.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    I think the current guideline on voting should be changed to "do not downvote if you disagree with the sentiment of a comment, provided it is substantive and factual". I see way too many downvoted comments that are purely statements of relevant fact, or are sincere questions. If HN members can't manage being reasonable and logical about controversial subjects, how do we ever expect the average person on the street to do so? No wonder politics is so screwed up these days.
dang 7y ago
I wonder if we should add a guideline about that, a la: Please don't comment about your own comment ('unpopular opinion here', etc). It's noise and it's boring.
- tptacek 7y ago
  We already have a guideline against talking about voting. "Unpopular opinion but here goes" or "spicy take here but" is just normal human conversation, and it doesn't actually add much noise; sometimes it's even a little useful. I wouldn't crud up the guidelines with this, but maybe refine the "commenting about voting" guideline.
  - dang 7y ago
    I wonder how to refine the "commenting about voting" guideline? Normal chattiness in comments is totally fine. What's tedious is "I, the noble freethinker against the hideous masses" posturing. It's also common, because of the biases in how people perceive the community; basically, anything you dislike shapes that perception 10x more than anything you like, so most people's image of the community becomes an inverse image of themselves. This leads to a lot of noise and pre-emptive defensiveness, a sense of being surrounded by enemies in a hostile place, when the reality is we're all just wandering in a big statistical cloud. It's such a fundamental dynamic at work here, that I'd love a way to distill it into a new guideline.
    - frereubu 7y ago
      "Preemptive defensiveness" hits the nail on the head for me. It's most problematic when it's the first thing in a comment, and makes it difficult for me to take the rest of the comment seriously, no matter carefully worded it is. I find it easier to write off as chatty if it's later in the comment and / or more offhanded like "... although I know that's not exactly flavour of the month on HN." The fact that it comes first carries a subtext of "I'm not really going to phrase this carefully and I don't care what you have to say," like they're already writing off anything critical that others have to say. How about something like: Don't try to preempt reactions by starting "At the risk of being downvoted..." or "Unpopular opinion here..." State your case clearly and let your ideas stand or fall on their own.

nmussy 7y ago

I completely agree, and this is already mentioned in the guidelines: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

thedaemon 7y ago

I wish people wouldn't comment about other people's comments like this. Just up or down vote, this makes for even more boring reading than the comment you mentioned. Here I am breaking my own rule because I cannot down vote your comment.

frereubu 7y ago
But I don't want to downvote their comment (although I don't want to upvote it either). The issue with your suggestion is that a downvote will be seen as a vote on the content of the comment. There isn't a separate "downvote for special pleading" option.
- mistermann 7y ago
  I think the current guideline on voting should be changed to "do not downvote if you disagree with the sentiment of a comment, provided it is substantive and factual". I see way too many downvoted comments that are purely statements of relevant fact, or are sincere questions. If HN members can't manage being reasonable and logical about controversial subjects, how do we ever expect the average person on the street to do so? No wonder politics is so screwed up these days.

dang 7y ago

I wonder if we should add a guideline about that, a la: Please don't comment about your own comment ('unpopular opinion here', etc). It's noise and it's boring.

tptacek 7y ago
We already have a guideline against talking about voting. "Unpopular opinion but here goes" or "spicy take here but" is just normal human conversation, and it doesn't actually add much noise; sometimes it's even a little useful. I wouldn't crud up the guidelines with this, but maybe refine the "commenting about voting" guideline.
- dang 7y ago
  I wonder how to refine the "commenting about voting" guideline? Normal chattiness in comments is totally fine. What's tedious is "I, the noble freethinker against the hideous masses" posturing. It's also common, because of the biases in how people perceive the community; basically, anything you dislike shapes that perception 10x more than anything you like, so most people's image of the community becomes an inverse image of themselves. This leads to a lot of noise and pre-emptive defensiveness, a sense of being surrounded by enemies in a hostile place, when the reality is we're all just wandering in a big statistical cloud. It's such a fundamental dynamic at work here, that I'd love a way to distill it into a new guideline.
  - frereubu 7y ago
    "Preemptive defensiveness" hits the nail on the head for me. It's most problematic when it's the first thing in a comment, and makes it difficult for me to take the rest of the comment seriously, no matter carefully worded it is. I find it easier to write off as chatty if it's later in the comment and / or more offhanded like "... although I know that's not exactly flavour of the month on HN." The fact that it comes first carries a subtext of "I'm not really going to phrase this carefully and I don't care what you have to say," like they're already writing off anything critical that others have to say. How about something like: Don't try to preempt reactions by starting "At the risk of being downvoted..." or "Unpopular opinion here..." State your case clearly and let your ideas stand or fall on their own.