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I disagree. For a community as diverse as Hacker News, I've found it to be anything but toxic. The quality of posts is generally high and the people who commen

I disagree. For a community as diverse as Hacker News, I've found it to be anything but toxic. The quality of posts is generally high and the people who comment tend to keep things on topic and impersonal. Personal attacks and jabs are not common and people don't just say things for the sake of winning arguments. Of course, I don't click on every single story - I stick to the things that interest me, which admittedly are narrowing as of late, unlike in my early 20s.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
It can be a little more toxic than I'd like, but I don't find the issue to be how nice people are about correcting others' mistakes. Instead it's the undercurrent I occasionally see of reactionary politics and weird misinformation. It's not usually horrible, but I tend to stay away when the subject turns to politics or social justice.
- projectazorian 5y ago
  Yeah, what a community tolerates in such discussions reveals a lot about its values, and I don't like what I've seen from HN.
boc 5y ago
The main thing I've noticed on HN is that having a contrarian mindset is rewarded, even in situations where it doesn't add to the conversation. If you read the two examples the author gave, he's actually being reflexively contrarian, not a know-it-all. In my opinion, that's the "toxic" behavior he's trying to identify, not personal attacks or glib jabs.
- bepzi 5y ago
  "Reflexively contrarian" is an excellent way to describe this phenomenon. I think you've hit the nail on the head.
- fivea 5y ago
  > The main thing I've noticed on HN is that having a contrarian mindset is rewarded, even in situations where it doesn't add to the conversation. Is it really being contrarian, or supporting multiple views in intellectually stimulating discussions? A few days ago there was a discussion on CORS where some people defended the thesis it made sites less secure, and others stepped in and defended that CORS in fact improved security. Both sides posted their rationales. Arguably neither position was right or wrong. It just depends on perspective. A glass can be half full and half empty at the same time. Is anyone being contrarian to point out either interpretation?
  - 0x008 5y ago
    I think in a _discussion_ forum like hacker news, being contrarian can be very much adding to the discussion. That these comments end up on the top is just showing that it is appreciated by the community. It doesn't mean that _all_ comments are contrarian. IMO the line the author did not seam to make clear in his blog post, which leads to some confusion in the comment section, is that being contrarian in a _discussion_ format - where all parties agree it is a discussion - is something else entirely than being contrarian to proposals from random people in real life.
deltaonefour 5y ago
The toxicity is there it's just subtle and disguised. Here's a typical one you see on HN that is used directly to escape moderation: "I find it odd that even when someone tells you the logical outcome you still deny it." "It's baffles me and is so interesting to see someone behave this way even though it's not logical." It's this intellectual arrogance where the commenter acts like he's some sort of hyper intelligent savant observing creatures of lower intelligence that is completely toxic. Whenever I see that type of garbage comment, I think dude... the other person just disagrees with you stop talking about him like he's some animal your observing in a laboratory.
- titzer 5y ago
  > It's this intellectual arrogance where the commenter acts like he's some sort of hyper intelligent savant observing creatures of lower intelligence that is completely toxic. Whenever I see that type of garbage comment, I think dude... the other person just disagrees with you stop talking about him like he's some animal your observing in a laboratory. Enlightenment ensues when the meta loop is closed. All criticism winds back on itself, including this comment and the next comment commenting on it...they keep wrestling to get outside or on top of each other. The singularity of meta-commentary is a deep belly laugh.
dboshardy 5y ago
Did HN do any kind of survey to demonstrate their user demographics? And it is absolutely toxic on certain topics, particularly anything economics related or that challenges capitalism and the "line go up" mentality of the VC culture. If you offer anything that criticizes that at all, you're in for an earful.
- dang 5y ago
  Everyone with strong ideological passions thinks that HN is stacked against them ideologically. People routinely say that not only about the community, but about the mods. These perceptions are entirely predictable from the passions of the perceiver. I just happened to write a long comment about this to a commenter who sees HN in just the opposite way to you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30346954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30346954. Who's right? Neither. It's exactly the same perception, just with opposite polarity, because the polarity is coming from inside the person. More precisely, both are right in the sense that HN generates enough data points for everybody to run into whatever they dislike the most; and both are wrong in that they dramatically overweight that sample, because that's what the brain does with samples like that. What makes this perception so common on all sides is that HN doesn't partition the site into like-minded silos (e.g. follow lists or social graphs or subforums). Everyone is in the same non-siloed room, so everyone is frequently bumping into views they dislike and normally don't have to deal with as much, at least not in their home base. The irony is that this is actually a step closer both to reality (society is divided on divisive topics) and to genuine tolerance (bearing the presence of what one dislikes). There's more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098.
  - projectazorian 5y ago
    I don't think HN is stacked against me ideologically, quite the contrary, my views are fairly pedestrian and middle of the road for the West Coast tech industry. I do think that when it comes to politics and social justice HN is content to let people who aggressively hold certain viewpoints have an outsize role in the discussion, despite engaging in toxic behaviors that wouldn't be tolerated on other threads. This may be because the people running the show here are sympathetic to such views, or maybe they're just naive.
escapedmoose 5y ago
I've long assumed that HN is one of the least diverse online platforms that I frequent. Can you provide some data/info that disproves my assumption?
- sabas123 5y ago
  Without knowing any statistics on the demographic of HN, I would assume that it really isn't that diverse speaking from a cultural ground, but rather that we have a place that accepts disagreement a lot (or at least doesn't punish you as hard compared to other places). Which can be seen as a form of diverse-ness I guess?

mrtranscendence 5y ago

It can be a little more toxic than I'd like, but I don't find the issue to be how nice people are about correcting others' mistakes. Instead it's the undercurrent I occasionally see of reactionary politics and weird misinformation. It's not usually horrible, but I tend to stay away when the subject turns to politics or social justice.

projectazorian 5y ago
Yeah, what a community tolerates in such discussions reveals a lot about its values, and I don't like what I've seen from HN.

boc 5y ago

The main thing I've noticed on HN is that having a contrarian mindset is rewarded, even in situations where it doesn't add to the conversation. If you read the two examples the author gave, he's actually being reflexively contrarian, not a know-it-all. In my opinion, that's the "toxic" behavior he's trying to identify, not personal attacks or glib jabs.

bepzi 5y ago
"Reflexively contrarian" is an excellent way to describe this phenomenon. I think you've hit the nail on the head.
fivea 5y ago
> The main thing I've noticed on HN is that having a contrarian mindset is rewarded, even in situations where it doesn't add to the conversation. Is it really being contrarian, or supporting multiple views in intellectually stimulating discussions? A few days ago there was a discussion on CORS where some people defended the thesis it made sites less secure, and others stepped in and defended that CORS in fact improved security. Both sides posted their rationales. Arguably neither position was right or wrong. It just depends on perspective. A glass can be half full and half empty at the same time. Is anyone being contrarian to point out either interpretation?
- 0x008 5y ago
  I think in a _discussion_ forum like hacker news, being contrarian can be very much adding to the discussion. That these comments end up on the top is just showing that it is appreciated by the community. It doesn't mean that _all_ comments are contrarian. IMO the line the author did not seam to make clear in his blog post, which leads to some confusion in the comment section, is that being contrarian in a _discussion_ format - where all parties agree it is a discussion - is something else entirely than being contrarian to proposals from random people in real life.

deltaonefour 5y ago

The toxicity is there it's just subtle and disguised. Here's a typical one you see on HN that is used directly to escape moderation: "I find it odd that even when someone tells you the logical outcome you still deny it." "It's baffles me and is so interesting to see someone behave this way even though it's not logical." It's this intellectual arrogance where the commenter acts like he's some sort of hyper intelligent savant observing creatures of lower intelligence that is completely toxic. Whenever I see that type of garbage comment, I think dude... the other person just disagrees with you stop talking about him like he's some animal your observing in a laboratory.

titzer 5y ago
> It's this intellectual arrogance where the commenter acts like he's some sort of hyper intelligent savant observing creatures of lower intelligence that is completely toxic. Whenever I see that type of garbage comment, I think dude... the other person just disagrees with you stop talking about him like he's some animal your observing in a laboratory. Enlightenment ensues when the meta loop is closed. All criticism winds back on itself, including this comment and the next comment commenting on it...they keep wrestling to get outside or on top of each other. The singularity of meta-commentary is a deep belly laugh.

dboshardy 5y ago

Did HN do any kind of survey to demonstrate their user demographics? And it is absolutely toxic on certain topics, particularly anything economics related or that challenges capitalism and the "line go up" mentality of the VC culture. If you offer anything that criticizes that at all, you're in for an earful.

dang 5y ago
Everyone with strong ideological passions thinks that HN is stacked against them ideologically. People routinely say that not only about the community, but about the mods. These perceptions are entirely predictable from the passions of the perceiver. I just happened to write a long comment about this to a commenter who sees HN in just the opposite way to you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30346954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30346954. Who's right? Neither. It's exactly the same perception, just with opposite polarity, because the polarity is coming from inside the person. More precisely, both are right in the sense that HN generates enough data points for everybody to run into whatever they dislike the most; and both are wrong in that they dramatically overweight that sample, because that's what the brain does with samples like that. What makes this perception so common on all sides is that HN doesn't partition the site into like-minded silos (e.g. follow lists or social graphs or subforums). Everyone is in the same non-siloed room, so everyone is frequently bumping into views they dislike and normally don't have to deal with as much, at least not in their home base. The irony is that this is actually a step closer both to reality (society is divided on divisive topics) and to genuine tolerance (bearing the presence of what one dislikes). There's more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098.
- projectazorian 5y ago
  I don't think HN is stacked against me ideologically, quite the contrary, my views are fairly pedestrian and middle of the road for the West Coast tech industry. I do think that when it comes to politics and social justice HN is content to let people who aggressively hold certain viewpoints have an outsize role in the discussion, despite engaging in toxic behaviors that wouldn't be tolerated on other threads. This may be because the people running the show here are sympathetic to such views, or maybe they're just naive.

escapedmoose 5y ago

I've long assumed that HN is one of the least diverse online platforms that I frequent. Can you provide some data/info that disproves my assumption?

sabas123 5y ago
Without knowing any statistics on the demographic of HN, I would assume that it really isn't that diverse speaking from a cultural ground, but rather that we have a place that accepts disagreement a lot (or at least doesn't punish you as hard compared to other places). Which can be seen as a form of diverse-ness I guess?