7 ms·

Has there ever been a useful thread from a quillette submission?

by DanBC 7y ago

dang 7y ago
It is downweighted on HN like most ideologically driven publications, but we've found there's occasionally a worthwhile article for discussion, as with other such publications. One test is whether there's enough new information in a piece to provide support for conversation, as opposed to angry opposing recitals. Since this is a well-known case with new developments, it seems to qualify. Also, first-person accounts tend to allow for additional aspects because human lives are complicated. His story about being gay seems to me an example of that. Whatever point one occupies in these spaces, in whatever region sectioned off by the major divides, it's uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector. Every one of us has this experience. Even users who identify with occupying no such region have this experience—maybe most of all, since they don't want to see any of these, whereas most of us quite like the ones from the spaces we identify with. I don't think there's any way out of this conundrum. We all have to tolerate that discomfort if we're to survive as a whole community. Indeed it seems to me that tolerating such discomfort is the essence of tolerance. Fortunately it's a skill that can slowly be learned, so the hopeful view is that we're slowly learning it together.
- kick 7y ago
  it's acutely uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector There are plenty of respected neo/conservative outlets (or as Quillette calls itself, "centrist"); I don't think this framing is right. The Economist gets onto the front page of HN frequently, and they're the first to admit they're in the center of the spectrum. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/is-the-economist-left-or-right-wing https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/... The Wall Street Journal does as well, and they not only are openly conservative, but also controlled by the same man who runs FOX News. Quillette, however, seems to be based on airing rage-bait. If you look at the front page of it, there are two types of article: first-person storytelling using deliberately inflammatory and confrontational wording and structure, and articles on trends that use the same, covered elsewhere less-controversially. There are thousands of outlets covering the beats that Quillette does, including many outlets on the same side as Quillette, and most of those outlets don't get the same outrage that Quillette does, because Quillette's concern seems to lie with working social media outrage into mass viewership. When headlines are filled with phrases like "Brave New World" and "the Decline of Excellence" and article previews stuffed with things like "manufactured rape crisis," it's apparent that they're aiming for outrage marketing rather than articles that can stand on their own merits. While I'm not sure what the solution is, I think editorializing the titles of certain Quillette articles might help.
- tptacek 7y ago
  It is unfair to good-faith commenters who care about HN and its community to allow the site to play host to articles that will generate outrageous horrible threads, so that people like 'geofft feel obligated to write 1,000 words in response to this stupid article, or 'evgen 300 to respond to a comment about male IQ. You know that's essentially what Quillette does to this site, and you could trivially stop it from happening, and you can see clearly from Quillette's history on HN that it would be no loss to block it entirely. Whatever the opposite of Quillette is, it doesn't belong here either. The problem isn't about discomfort with exposure to the opposing sector. It's about bad-faith content generating bad-faith threads that make demands on good commenters who could make better contributions elsewhere on HN. Please reconsider.
  - dang 7y ago
    This thread has been bad enough that I will.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      As I hope you already know, I deeply appreciate it; if you didn't do such a careful job managing this place, it would be easier to care less about stuff like this.
    - iron0013 7y ago
      This is greatly appreciated, thank you!
    - lawnchair_larry 7y ago
      That’s unfortunate, because you’re caving to people who oppose it on ideological grounds as well. I don’t see how it’s off topic, given that one of pg’s most viewed essays is What You Can’t Say. Most perplexing is that someone cited users writing long comments as some sort of problem. So, it turns out that complex subjects generate more discussion? I’m not even sure what comments people are finding so offensive in this thread that you feel the need to blacklist the source. tptacek has trashed Quillete as a whole many times in the past, so I think it’s safe to say that his opposition extends much further than “makes for bad comment threads”, and is a little closer to your initial assessment of being uncomfortable with ideas from an opposing sector, which is pretty much nailed it.
- blueboo 7y ago
  No. Tolerating intolerance isn’t the same as tolerance.
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    It's easy to label any idea you disagree with as "intolerant" then use that Popper quote as an excuse to be intolerant of it and the people who hold it.
  - zeta0134 7y ago
    This is an interesting, if contradictory stance to take. I should probably downvote it, but I see an opportunity for a philosophical discussion, so here we go anyway. I am a gay man. I grew up Christian, but ended up rejecting the Christian faith initially due to incompatibilities with my church and my sexuality. Over time it became more ideological (I dislike binary moral systems) but that's irrelevant. In my experience, my original church (certainly not all of Christianity) chose to reject people of my orientation. They express intolerance to the highest degree. So, as a gay man, should I respond in turn and completely cut all Christians out of my life, declaring them all intolerant? Of course not. You see, Christianity actually preaches tolerance. Not all Christians follow this to the same degree, but Christians are taught to love their neighbors, even the gentiles, and especially the tax collectors, prostitutes, and folks that the rest of society would choose to reject on principal. Even if I disagree with the teaching as a whole, there's a ton of good moral lessons to be had within that book. It is generally useful as a means of teaching a system of right and wrong, through parables and stories, even if some of its teachings disagree with my personal world view. I think it's dangerous to reject other people entirely just because you choose to reject one of their beliefs. We may find it easy to label people and sort them into boxes, but it's easy to lose track of the humanity underneath those labels. So, yes, I will choose to tolerate people whose beliefs I strongly disagree with, because that one belief does not solely define them as a person. Even if we fundamentally disagree on something as core to my being as who I choose to love, we can still have an interesting discussion and gain perspective through that discourse. I value that discourse far too much to reject any person on the misguided notion that they are somehow "wrong" or "flawed." They are simply different. And if I want them to tolerate me, the very least I can do is agree to tolerate them in return, whether we like each other or not.
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  Most sites will block articles like this because they're so much effort to moderate as they're an opening for the trolls to shout down dissent. > His story about being gay seems to me an example of that. In my experience as a queer woman, there are a lot of extremely misogynistic gay men, so I'm not sure that excuses anything.
  - dang 7y ago
    It's not possible to block all such articles on HN, for a bunch of reasons; nor would that be desirable. We try to manage it by favoring the articles that have enough substance to burn more slowly. Re the author's story, it's not that it excuses anything; it's just that it's an additional aspect. When articles like this are also about personal experience, they hold more information, and posts with more information seem to support better discussion.
- downerending 7y ago
  If "downweighted on HN" means that prior to user voting, HN starts articles from Quillette with a lower score, this really disappoints me. It's a professionally curated and edited journalistic publication, and the pieces I read are generally calm, nuanced, and make some effort not to be mere outrage-bait. (more than I can say for our papers of record these days) The idea that one of the country's best CS programs is (or is considering) lowering its degree standards matters for us here on HN. This article is worthy and worth our consideration.

Has there ever been a useful thread from a quillette submission?

by DanBC 7y ago

Has there ever been a useful thread from a quillette submission?

dang 7y ago

It is downweighted on HN like most ideologically driven publications, but we've found there's occasionally a worthwhile article for discussion, as with other such publications. One test is whether there's enough new information in a piece to provide support for conversation, as opposed to angry opposing recitals. Since this is a well-known case with new developments, it seems to qualify. Also, first-person accounts tend to allow for additional aspects because human lives are complicated. His story about being gay seems to me an example of that. Whatever point one occupies in these spaces, in whatever region sectioned off by the major divides, it's uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector. Every one of us has this experience. Even users who identify with occupying no such region have this experience—maybe most of all, since they don't want to see any of these, whereas most of us quite like the ones from the spaces we identify with. I don't think there's any way out of this conundrum. We all have to tolerate that discomfort if we're to survive as a whole community. Indeed it seems to me that tolerating such discomfort is the essence of tolerance. Fortunately it's a skill that can slowly be learned, so the hopeful view is that we're slowly learning it together.

kick 7y ago
it's acutely uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector There are plenty of respected neo/conservative outlets (or as Quillette calls itself, "centrist"); I don't think this framing is right. The Economist gets onto the front page of HN frequently, and they're the first to admit they're in the center of the spectrum. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/is-the-economist-left-or-right-wing https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/... The Wall Street Journal does as well, and they not only are openly conservative, but also controlled by the same man who runs FOX News. Quillette, however, seems to be based on airing rage-bait. If you look at the front page of it, there are two types of article: first-person storytelling using deliberately inflammatory and confrontational wording and structure, and articles on trends that use the same, covered elsewhere less-controversially. There are thousands of outlets covering the beats that Quillette does, including many outlets on the same side as Quillette, and most of those outlets don't get the same outrage that Quillette does, because Quillette's concern seems to lie with working social media outrage into mass viewership. When headlines are filled with phrases like "Brave New World" and "the Decline of Excellence" and article previews stuffed with things like "manufactured rape crisis," it's apparent that they're aiming for outrage marketing rather than articles that can stand on their own merits. While I'm not sure what the solution is, I think editorializing the titles of certain Quillette articles might help.
tptacek 7y ago
It is unfair to good-faith commenters who care about HN and its community to allow the site to play host to articles that will generate outrageous horrible threads, so that people like 'geofft feel obligated to write 1,000 words in response to this stupid article, or 'evgen 300 to respond to a comment about male IQ. You know that's essentially what Quillette does to this site, and you could trivially stop it from happening, and you can see clearly from Quillette's history on HN that it would be no loss to block it entirely. Whatever the opposite of Quillette is, it doesn't belong here either. The problem isn't about discomfort with exposure to the opposing sector. It's about bad-faith content generating bad-faith threads that make demands on good commenters who could make better contributions elsewhere on HN. Please reconsider.
- dang 7y ago
  This thread has been bad enough that I will.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    As I hope you already know, I deeply appreciate it; if you didn't do such a careful job managing this place, it would be easier to care less about stuff like this.
  - iron0013 7y ago
    This is greatly appreciated, thank you!
  - lawnchair_larry 7y ago
    That’s unfortunate, because you’re caving to people who oppose it on ideological grounds as well. I don’t see how it’s off topic, given that one of pg’s most viewed essays is What You Can’t Say. Most perplexing is that someone cited users writing long comments as some sort of problem. So, it turns out that complex subjects generate more discussion? I’m not even sure what comments people are finding so offensive in this thread that you feel the need to blacklist the source. tptacek has trashed Quillete as a whole many times in the past, so I think it’s safe to say that his opposition extends much further than “makes for bad comment threads”, and is a little closer to your initial assessment of being uncomfortable with ideas from an opposing sector, which is pretty much nailed it.
blueboo 7y ago
No. Tolerating intolerance isn’t the same as tolerance.
- lopmotr 7y ago
  It's easy to label any idea you disagree with as "intolerant" then use that Popper quote as an excuse to be intolerant of it and the people who hold it.
- zeta0134 7y ago
  This is an interesting, if contradictory stance to take. I should probably downvote it, but I see an opportunity for a philosophical discussion, so here we go anyway. I am a gay man. I grew up Christian, but ended up rejecting the Christian faith initially due to incompatibilities with my church and my sexuality. Over time it became more ideological (I dislike binary moral systems) but that's irrelevant. In my experience, my original church (certainly not all of Christianity) chose to reject people of my orientation. They express intolerance to the highest degree. So, as a gay man, should I respond in turn and completely cut all Christians out of my life, declaring them all intolerant? Of course not. You see, Christianity actually preaches tolerance. Not all Christians follow this to the same degree, but Christians are taught to love their neighbors, even the gentiles, and especially the tax collectors, prostitutes, and folks that the rest of society would choose to reject on principal. Even if I disagree with the teaching as a whole, there's a ton of good moral lessons to be had within that book. It is generally useful as a means of teaching a system of right and wrong, through parables and stories, even if some of its teachings disagree with my personal world view. I think it's dangerous to reject other people entirely just because you choose to reject one of their beliefs. We may find it easy to label people and sort them into boxes, but it's easy to lose track of the humanity underneath those labels. So, yes, I will choose to tolerate people whose beliefs I strongly disagree with, because that one belief does not solely define them as a person. Even if we fundamentally disagree on something as core to my being as who I choose to love, we can still have an interesting discussion and gain perspective through that discourse. I value that discourse far too much to reject any person on the misguided notion that they are somehow "wrong" or "flawed." They are simply different. And if I want them to tolerate me, the very least I can do is agree to tolerate them in return, whether we like each other or not.
wayoutthere 7y ago
Most sites will block articles like this because they're so much effort to moderate as they're an opening for the trolls to shout down dissent. > His story about being gay seems to me an example of that. In my experience as a queer woman, there are a lot of extremely misogynistic gay men, so I'm not sure that excuses anything.
- dang 7y ago
  It's not possible to block all such articles on HN, for a bunch of reasons; nor would that be desirable. We try to manage it by favoring the articles that have enough substance to burn more slowly. Re the author's story, it's not that it excuses anything; it's just that it's an additional aspect. When articles like this are also about personal experience, they hold more information, and posts with more information seem to support better discussion.
downerending 7y ago
If "downweighted on HN" means that prior to user voting, HN starts articles from Quillette with a lower score, this really disappoints me. It's a professionally curated and edited journalistic publication, and the pieces I read are generally calm, nuanced, and make some effort not to be mere outrage-bait. (more than I can say for our papers of record these days) The idea that one of the country's best CS programs is (or is considering) lowering its degree standards matters for us here on HN. This article is worthy and worth our consideration.