6 ms·

It’s pretty lonely over here in technical discussion land. Have we considered Reuters’s intern’s take on this?

dang 5y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments yourself. If other threads/comments aren't good, options include posting something better, or not posting. Degrading things even further is not a good choice (edit: particularly when the thread is new—threads are extremely sensitive to initial conditions, and a flamebait/unsubstantive comment early on can have a strongly degrading effect). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20threads%20sensitive%20initial%20conditions&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- shuckles 5y ago
  Sincere question: why doesn’t this policy apply to the innumerable number of hot takes which are variations on the exact same, often misinformed, reaction? I’m thinking of comments like, “Apple will send me to prison for taking bath tub pics of my infant!” I have seen many on here.
  - dang 5y ago
    Two answers. First, it does apply. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here—there is far too much. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. Second, there are degrees of these things. It's definitely bad for comments to repeat the same shallow things over and over, but the GP was particularly information-free and snarky, and mucking up this thread while claiming to be speaking in favor of technical discussion is particularly counterproductive. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=likeliest%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
    - shuckles 5y ago
      I think the flagging mechanism is rife for abuse. There are clearly more people interested in low information reactions than substantive discussion. If all you act on is reports, you will be biased towards whatever they care about. That is not a good way to moderate for nuance. I’m sure you may have considered this, but I don’t think it’s coming through in the discussion of this important topic which has been mostly hysterical.
      - dang 5y ago
        Reports are not all we act on. We read the threads too. No one can read all of them though. Discussion on this topic has certainly been mixed, but "mostly hysterical" sounds like an exaggeration to me. People's reactions to these things are conditioned by the cognitive bias that causes us to weight the things we dislike much more strongly than the things we agree with (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
        shuckles 5y ago
        I think the fact that no technical document has lasted on the front page but various rumors have is a strong point for my view. An article about internal dissent at Apple has hung on for most of the day, yet almost no comments on it engage with any of the key concepts in the article: what does it mean for an 800 post slack thread to exist? Why does it matter that the security employees don’t seem against the idea on the thread? Similarly, I doubt anyone would be able to reliably match the comments section of any of the dozen articles about this announcement that have reached the front page in the last 8 days with the actual article content. These are all bad signs about the healthiness of discussion.
        dang 5y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28173134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28173134 is #1 on the front page right now. Matthew Green and Alex Stamos both wrote things about this that were on HN's front page for a long time. I'm pretty sure there have been other technical threads as well.

dang 5y ago

Please don't post unsubstantive comments yourself. If other threads/comments aren't good, options include posting something better, or not posting. Degrading things even further is not a good choice (edit: particularly when the thread is new—threads are extremely sensitive to initial conditions, and a flamebait/unsubstantive comment early on can have a strongly degrading effect). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20threads%20sensitive%20initial%20conditions&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

shuckles 5y ago
Sincere question: why doesn’t this policy apply to the innumerable number of hot takes which are variations on the exact same, often misinformed, reaction? I’m thinking of comments like, “Apple will send me to prison for taking bath tub pics of my infant!” I have seen many on here.
- dang 5y ago
  Two answers. First, it does apply. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here—there is far too much. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. Second, there are degrees of these things. It's definitely bad for comments to repeat the same shallow things over and over, but the GP was particularly information-free and snarky, and mucking up this thread while claiming to be speaking in favor of technical discussion is particularly counterproductive. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=likeliest%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  - shuckles 5y ago
    I think the flagging mechanism is rife for abuse. There are clearly more people interested in low information reactions than substantive discussion. If all you act on is reports, you will be biased towards whatever they care about. That is not a good way to moderate for nuance. I’m sure you may have considered this, but I don’t think it’s coming through in the discussion of this important topic which has been mostly hysterical.
    - dang 5y ago
      Reports are not all we act on. We read the threads too. No one can read all of them though. Discussion on this topic has certainly been mixed, but "mostly hysterical" sounds like an exaggeration to me. People's reactions to these things are conditioned by the cognitive bias that causes us to weight the things we dislike much more strongly than the things we agree with (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
      - shuckles 5y ago
        I think the fact that no technical document has lasted on the front page but various rumors have is a strong point for my view. An article about internal dissent at Apple has hung on for most of the day, yet almost no comments on it engage with any of the key concepts in the article: what does it mean for an 800 post slack thread to exist? Why does it matter that the security employees don’t seem against the idea on the thread? Similarly, I doubt anyone would be able to reliably match the comments section of any of the dozen articles about this announcement that have reached the front page in the last 8 days with the actual article content. These are all bad signs about the healthiness of discussion.
        dang 5y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28173134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28173134 is #1 on the front page right now. Matthew Green and Alex Stamos both wrote things about this that were on HN's front page for a long time. I'm pretty sure there have been other technical threads as well.