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I’m not worried about my kids seeing curse words. I am concerned about the downward pull normalizing unprofessional writing has on my profession. Does it make

I’m not worried about my kids seeing curse words. I am concerned about the downward pull normalizing unprofessional writing has on my profession. Does it make our whole environment less professional? Does it influence us to be unprofessional in other parts of our craft? Do outside observers view us as less a profession because of it? I don’t know the answers but I certainly worry about it. Though perhaps I’m just aging out of this audience.

d1sxeyes 5y ago
I think there is something to worry about, but it's not 'unprofessional writing' or any kind of external downward pull, I'd say a lot of the problem is how much time professionals now spend in unprofessional contexts, even during working hours (he says, typing while clock-watching...). This is a post on someone's personal blog with some reflections on something they saw at work. I'm not sure why we should expect him to write professionally (leaving aside the question of whether swearing is acceptable in professional writing or not). I also wouldn't necessarily expect HN to only carry professional content - although some of what's shared here might be interesting from a professional viewpoint, it's not a portal for professionals (what even is 'hacker' as a profession? What percentage of the HN community are amateur hackers rather than professional hackers?). Ultimately, it's a discussion forum on the internet, where self-proclaimed hackers share things they think are cool, and if others think it's cool too, then it gets shown to more and more 'hackers' until not enough new people think it's cool enough, at which point it gets shown to fewer and fewer people.
TheGigaChad 5y ago
tptacek 5y ago
This audience is at a particular peak of glibness and superficiality this week. It's interesting to think about what kind of place it would be if there were a couple artificial norms of decorum, like "no swearing" (I'd find that difficult to adhere to, at least at first). It might be better; sometimes rules like that can subtly remind people that there's a minimum threshold of thoughtfulness required before chiming in.

d1sxeyes 5y ago

I think there is something to worry about, but it's not 'unprofessional writing' or any kind of external downward pull, I'd say a lot of the problem is how much time professionals now spend in unprofessional contexts, even during working hours (he says, typing while clock-watching...). This is a post on someone's personal blog with some reflections on something they saw at work. I'm not sure why we should expect him to write professionally (leaving aside the question of whether swearing is acceptable in professional writing or not). I also wouldn't necessarily expect HN to only carry professional content - although some of what's shared here might be interesting from a professional viewpoint, it's not a portal for professionals (what even is 'hacker' as a profession? What percentage of the HN community are amateur hackers rather than professional hackers?). Ultimately, it's a discussion forum on the internet, where self-proclaimed hackers share things they think are cool, and if others think it's cool too, then it gets shown to more and more 'hackers' until not enough new people think it's cool enough, at which point it gets shown to fewer and fewer people.

TheGigaChad 5y ago

tptacek 5y ago

This audience is at a particular peak of glibness and superficiality this week. It's interesting to think about what kind of place it would be if there were a couple artificial norms of decorum, like "no swearing" (I'd find that difficult to adhere to, at least at first). It might be better; sometimes rules like that can subtly remind people that there's a minimum threshold of thoughtfulness required before chiming in.