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Meta-comment: I often see the above pattern on HN. Someone writes a very informative comment with a minor inaccuracy. Someone replies to it only to correct that

by nandemo 16y ago

Meta-comment: I often see the above pattern on HN. Someone writes a very informative comment with a minor inaccuracy. Someone replies to it only to correct that inaccuracy. The reply then gets way more upvotes than the original comment. I don't particularly care about "karma", so what bothers me is not that the original commenter didn't get enough points, but rather what people in the community think it's important in a conversation.

ryanjmo 16y ago
I think the point that it was a she and not he is particularly important. I also think the point that the original commenter missed this point is particularly important. Knowing the HN community, that is the reason why the comment got voted up.
- langarto 16y ago
  I think the point that it was a she and not he is particularly important Why? I don't see why it should be relevant at all!
  - petsos 16y ago
    It may not be important by itself, but it is important to be right. Her nationality may also not be relevant but if someone writes that she is Chinese and she is actually Russian (example), it is important that it gets corrected.
    - fedd 16y ago
      is she Russian? :)
    - tesseract 16y ago
      Fortunately this is not a common scenario, because the nature of the English language doesn't make it easy to inadvertently imply that someone is Chinese, Russian, or indeed any nationality at all. (I am aware that singular 'they' is grammatical. Doesn't stop it from sounding really awkward when the referent is a specific individual.)
  - hartror 16y ago
    It shouldn't be relevant but given the state of female involvement in many traditionally male fields it is always important to highlight women making a contribution. The idea is it will both change perceptions without and within the field and attract more women.
    - krschultz 16y ago
      What it really highlights is how English desperately lacks a gender independent way of saying he/she. I can't tell if you are a guy or girl based on your name, I bet most people don't know if the K in my name is Kevin, Kyle, Kris (guy or girl!), Kathy, Katrina etc. (for the record, it's Kevin). But most people when talking about me will just assume I'm a guy and use he. I'm not offended by people incorrectly using gender pronouns, it is just really awkward to write something without knowing the gender of the person you are talking about.
      - Groxx 16y ago
        No, we have two. A kludge: "he/she" (which I personally despise and refuse to use), and something which people have used for a long time, but educational-America refuses to accept: "they". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Historical_solutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Historic... In particular: >The singular "they" is widely used and accepted in Britain, Australia, and North America in conversation and, often, in at least informal writing as well. It is important to note that this is not recognized by the SATs and other standardized tests.
        TheSOB88 16y ago
        'They' can't really refer to a person whose identity is known, though. At least, not for me. It feels wrong.
        Groxx 16y ago
        It's also less efficient for anyone who's listening to you. Gender-specific pronouns help ensure you're talking about the same person. Personally though, I find myself saying "that's what they said" (or similar, in a non-joke-related context) pretty often. Usually past-tense, for some reason. * shrug * to each their own. I do boggle that "they" isn't technically acceptable for cases where gender isn't known, though. "He/she" seems like insanity, both in writing and in speaking, when "they" sits there waiting to be used. It's extremely rare that context isn't sufficient to determine if it's plural or not. Heck, Japanese essentially does without plurals entirely, and that's a functioning language.
axod 16y ago
Don't forget the reverse sexism always at play on HN. Oh meh a new website someone wrote. Nothing new... Holy cow it says it was written by a woman upvote! Well done her! Amazing!
- iwwr 16y ago
  Technical communities in general are more devoid of women. There's nothing wrong in a little upvote encouragement.
  - axod 16y ago
    It's condescending, belittling and sarcastic IMHO. Judge things on their merit. Seeing posts upvoted simply because they're made by females is sad.
    - Stormbringer 16y ago
      Automatically attributing all the high quality posts to men is enormously much worse. And it will only perpetuate the problem or even make it worse, because it makes it harder for women to get the recognition they deserve. You might say that the recognition they deserve is equal recognition. I would agree. IFF they were currently getting equal recognition, then everything you say about giving them extra recognition would be true. It would be condescending, belittling and sarcastic. The problem is though that they don't get equal recognition. So until the day they do, you can put that "condescending, belittling and sarcastic" attitude right back where you found it.
      - axod 16y ago
        If you're going into 'tech' to get recognition, you're probably going into it for the wrong reasons. This debate reminds me of the failed 'Women only shortlists" debacle in the UK under the Labour government, where they put forward only Women candidates, in order to get more women MPs. Regardless of their merit to actually do the job.
personalcompute 16y ago
I think another thing that plays into this is how the longer a comment is, the high the chance it will be disagreed with because there are more things to disagree with. The short and simple comment may 100% of the time be appreciated but the points inside a longer comment may mostly be 100% appreciated but a couple disliked. This leads to the larger comment getting less upvotes even though it contains much more agreeable points than the shorter comment.
- jimmyjim 16y ago
  Or, on the flip side, if a comment holistically seem strong, the weak points within (which, otherwise as isolates may have been viciously voted down) stand to get leverage by the strength of the comment's whole worth. And perhaps thereby granted earnest consideration and a chance to discussion (which arguably they may not have gotten a chance to otherwise as a one-liner).
demallien 16y ago
Or, maybe just maybe, the community is signalling that it appreciates members making the effort to correct errors. For the life of me, I can't think why you would have a problem with that.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  Often it isn't even that. It is just that someone has made a generalization, and there is an obvious exception that everyone knows about and normal people would just take as given, and then someone writes a one line 'toss off' reply, and rakes in the free karma. This is the utmost BS. Giving someone that puts thought, time and effort into a response a tiny bit of karma - and then having the 'correction' which involves neither time, nor effort, nor thought 10x the amount of karma indicates a couple of things: (1) Hacker News will rapidly descend into one line reply chaos where it is nigh impossible to have an interesting discussion (2) Hacker news does not value time effort and thought (3) Hacker news greatly rewards the absence of time, effort and thought How can any of those be good? (#2) is the antithesis of reasoned debate, (#3) is actively rewarding anti-intellectualism. (#1) indicates that HN is either just a poorly implemented version of Slashdot (which would be sad) or it is going to descend into diggery (which is horrifying). Put some thought into it and you might see why we have a problem with that.
  - jimmyjim 16y ago
    I regret that my comment came off as being snippy -- indeed I was in a hurry to get to my sleep and chose not to remark on additional things. > [...] and then someone writes a one line 'toss off' reply, and rakes in the free karma. This is the utmost BS. I should hope that the HN community doesn't impulsively ascribe so much value and pride into winning some system of karmic points. I don't. I think it's a non-issue. And because of the HN interface being so sleek and minimal, we can at least afford to have a few one-liners here and there without wasting a significant amount of screen space. Lastly, I would like to point out that my comment at least was not a derisive or snide one but one of an observation/correction which I thought was worth the trouble pointing out. But, again, I do regret not supplementing my comment with more substance.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Stormbringer 16y ago
"Someone replies to it only to correct that inaccuracy." Correction: "Someone replies to it only to nitpick" /humour
shin_lao 16y ago
This is called anal-retentiveness and is very frequent amongst geeks. Just ignore it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentive
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Or as Futurama put it: "Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct -- the best kind of correct."
- jimfl 16y ago
  Actually, it is called pedantry.
  - generalk 16y ago
    There's a joke there somewhere.
    - jberryman 16y ago
      Wait... this whole thread wasn't a running meta-gag?
- reinhardt 16y ago
  Or for more recent catchy term, it's the well, actually crowd: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html
seles 16y ago
"but rather what people in the community think it's important in a conversation" should be "but rather that people..." or "...think is important in a conversation" For the record, I agree, but enjoy irony.
Groxx 16y ago
Curiosity: the trend (in this case) has reversed itself with time. Quite possibly due to your reply, but that's impossible to tell from a single instance. How many maintain that reversed-upvoting trend after a full day or two?

by nandemo 16y ago

ryanjmo 16y ago

I think the point that it was a she and not he is particularly important. I also think the point that the original commenter missed this point is particularly important. Knowing the HN community, that is the reason why the comment got voted up.

langarto 16y ago
I think the point that it was a she and not he is particularly important Why? I don't see why it should be relevant at all!
- petsos 16y ago
  It may not be important by itself, but it is important to be right. Her nationality may also not be relevant but if someone writes that she is Chinese and she is actually Russian (example), it is important that it gets corrected.
  - fedd 16y ago
    is she Russian? :)
  - tesseract 16y ago
    Fortunately this is not a common scenario, because the nature of the English language doesn't make it easy to inadvertently imply that someone is Chinese, Russian, or indeed any nationality at all. (I am aware that singular 'they' is grammatical. Doesn't stop it from sounding really awkward when the referent is a specific individual.)
- hartror 16y ago
  It shouldn't be relevant but given the state of female involvement in many traditionally male fields it is always important to highlight women making a contribution. The idea is it will both change perceptions without and within the field and attract more women.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    What it really highlights is how English desperately lacks a gender independent way of saying he/she. I can't tell if you are a guy or girl based on your name, I bet most people don't know if the K in my name is Kevin, Kyle, Kris (guy or girl!), Kathy, Katrina etc. (for the record, it's Kevin). But most people when talking about me will just assume I'm a guy and use he. I'm not offended by people incorrectly using gender pronouns, it is just really awkward to write something without knowing the gender of the person you are talking about.
    - Groxx 16y ago
      No, we have two. A kludge: "he/she" (which I personally despise and refuse to use), and something which people have used for a long time, but educational-America refuses to accept: "they". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Historical_solutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Historic... In particular: >The singular "they" is widely used and accepted in Britain, Australia, and North America in conversation and, often, in at least informal writing as well. It is important to note that this is not recognized by the SATs and other standardized tests.
      - TheSOB88 16y ago
        'They' can't really refer to a person whose identity is known, though. At least, not for me. It feels wrong.
        Groxx 16y ago
        It's also less efficient for anyone who's listening to you. Gender-specific pronouns help ensure you're talking about the same person. Personally though, I find myself saying "that's what they said" (or similar, in a non-joke-related context) pretty often. Usually past-tense, for some reason. * shrug * to each their own. I do boggle that "they" isn't technically acceptable for cases where gender isn't known, though. "He/she" seems like insanity, both in writing and in speaking, when "they" sits there waiting to be used. It's extremely rare that context isn't sufficient to determine if it's plural or not. Heck, Japanese essentially does without plurals entirely, and that's a functioning language.

axod 16y ago

Don't forget the reverse sexism always at play on HN. Oh meh a new website someone wrote. Nothing new... Holy cow it says it was written by a woman upvote! Well done her! Amazing!

iwwr 16y ago
Technical communities in general are more devoid of women. There's nothing wrong in a little upvote encouragement.
- axod 16y ago
  It's condescending, belittling and sarcastic IMHO. Judge things on their merit. Seeing posts upvoted simply because they're made by females is sad.
  - Stormbringer 16y ago
    Automatically attributing all the high quality posts to men is enormously much worse. And it will only perpetuate the problem or even make it worse, because it makes it harder for women to get the recognition they deserve. You might say that the recognition they deserve is equal recognition. I would agree. IFF they were currently getting equal recognition, then everything you say about giving them extra recognition would be true. It would be condescending, belittling and sarcastic. The problem is though that they don't get equal recognition. So until the day they do, you can put that "condescending, belittling and sarcastic" attitude right back where you found it.
    - axod 16y ago
      If you're going into 'tech' to get recognition, you're probably going into it for the wrong reasons. This debate reminds me of the failed 'Women only shortlists" debacle in the UK under the Labour government, where they put forward only Women candidates, in order to get more women MPs. Regardless of their merit to actually do the job.

personalcompute 16y ago

I think another thing that plays into this is how the longer a comment is, the high the chance it will be disagreed with because there are more things to disagree with. The short and simple comment may 100% of the time be appreciated but the points inside a longer comment may mostly be 100% appreciated but a couple disliked. This leads to the larger comment getting less upvotes even though it contains much more agreeable points than the shorter comment.

jimmyjim 16y ago
Or, on the flip side, if a comment holistically seem strong, the weak points within (which, otherwise as isolates may have been viciously voted down) stand to get leverage by the strength of the comment's whole worth. And perhaps thereby granted earnest consideration and a chance to discussion (which arguably they may not have gotten a chance to otherwise as a one-liner).

demallien 16y ago

Or, maybe just maybe, the community is signalling that it appreciates members making the effort to correct errors. For the life of me, I can't think why you would have a problem with that.

Stormbringer 16y ago
Often it isn't even that. It is just that someone has made a generalization, and there is an obvious exception that everyone knows about and normal people would just take as given, and then someone writes a one line 'toss off' reply, and rakes in the free karma. This is the utmost BS. Giving someone that puts thought, time and effort into a response a tiny bit of karma - and then having the 'correction' which involves neither time, nor effort, nor thought 10x the amount of karma indicates a couple of things: (1) Hacker News will rapidly descend into one line reply chaos where it is nigh impossible to have an interesting discussion (2) Hacker news does not value time effort and thought (3) Hacker news greatly rewards the absence of time, effort and thought How can any of those be good? (#2) is the antithesis of reasoned debate, (#3) is actively rewarding anti-intellectualism. (#1) indicates that HN is either just a poorly implemented version of Slashdot (which would be sad) or it is going to descend into diggery (which is horrifying). Put some thought into it and you might see why we have a problem with that.
- jimmyjim 16y ago
  I regret that my comment came off as being snippy -- indeed I was in a hurry to get to my sleep and chose not to remark on additional things. > [...] and then someone writes a one line 'toss off' reply, and rakes in the free karma. This is the utmost BS. I should hope that the HN community doesn't impulsively ascribe so much value and pride into winning some system of karmic points. I don't. I think it's a non-issue. And because of the HN interface being so sleek and minimal, we can at least afford to have a few one-liners here and there without wasting a significant amount of screen space. Lastly, I would like to point out that my comment at least was not a derisive or snide one but one of an observation/correction which I thought was worth the trouble pointing out. But, again, I do regret not supplementing my comment with more substance.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Stormbringer 16y ago

"Someone replies to it only to correct that inaccuracy." Correction: "Someone replies to it only to nitpick" /humour

shin_lao 16y ago

This is called anal-retentiveness and is very frequent amongst geeks. Just ignore it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentive

steveklabnik 16y ago
Or as Futurama put it: "Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct -- the best kind of correct."
jimfl 16y ago
Actually, it is called pedantry.
- generalk 16y ago
  There's a joke there somewhere.
  - jberryman 16y ago
    Wait... this whole thread wasn't a running meta-gag?
reinhardt 16y ago
Or for more recent catchy term, it's the well, actually crowd: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html

seles 16y ago

"but rather what people in the community think it's important in a conversation" should be "but rather that people..." or "...think is important in a conversation" For the record, I agree, but enjoy irony.

Groxx 16y ago

Curiosity: the trend (in this case) has reversed itself with time. Quite possibly due to your reply, but that's impossible to tell from a single instance. How many maintain that reversed-upvoting trend after a full day or two?