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Hacker News is the absolute pinnacle of non-toxicity on a site that allows essentially everybody to contribute. If everybody is going to have a voice, somebody

Hacker News is the absolute pinnacle of non-toxicity on a site that allows essentially everybody to contribute. If everybody is going to have a voice, somebody is going to be offended by it. If you consider this toxic, you consider message boards in particular and the internet itself in general toxic.

druadh 5y ago
AKA "Humans are toxic"
- danans 5y ago
  Humans absent an accountability structure are toxic. Accountability structures are provided by real in person institutions that have standards. For example, nobody is spurting toxic speech at their fellow churchgoers, because there would be a personal price for that. The anonymous Internet for better or worse removes much of the skin in the game for commenters, thereby incentivizing toxicity.
hamburglar 5y ago
HN definitely has a toxic "shoot it down" mentality when new things are presented. As an example, I recall a post where someone posted a browser-based implementation of some very nice airplane cockpit instruments, and I was not at all surprised when the top comment was about how stupid and dangerous it is to try to implement flight controls in a browser. The controls were intended for training purposes. It's as if the prevailing attitude often starts with "your idea is wrong and stupid and I know better even though the first thought I've ever put into the topic was 30 seconds ago." I often just shake my head at people's inability to sit back and appreciate what's interesting about something, rather than try to find things that are wrong with it.
- TrevorJ 5y ago
  Rose colored takes on new technology are not in short supply. What's difficult, is to find well reasoned and thoughtful discussions that pick apart new ideas. Yes, discussions on HN tend to bend towards the latter, but it's a useful counterbalance to the larger environment around technology.
  - hamburglar 5y ago
    I agree with this, but "I implemented $protocol in $lang and blogged about it as a learning exercise" or "I think these controls I made are nice and wanted to share" aren't things that need to be subjected to the Idea Thunderdome, and it just comes across as shitty behavior.
  - krapp 5y ago
    >What's difficult, is to find well reasoned and thoughtful discussions that pick apart new ideas. Unfortunately, that's as difficult to find on Hacker News as elsewhere. What we do get plenty of is aggressively ignorant hot takes and middlebrow dismissals and Dunning Krueger effects when the subject veers outside of the programming/CS wheelhouse. It's common enough that one might as well not even bother with the top subthread most of the time because it's bound to be the "this could have been trivially accomplished with FTP[0]" part of the conversation. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
    - tsuujin 5y ago
      Bravo on that reference link, that is a brutally succinct example of behavior we generally seem to dismiss.
  - blurker 5y ago
    Shallow, and mean hot takes are also not in short supply (not implying that about your response btw). I think that HN has an admirable goal related to this as part of its guidelines: > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. But I feel that it often isn't lived up to. I feel like I've seen a lot of criticisms here that add nothing of value. And even among the ones that do, they are often needlessly provocative. I shake my head every time I see a "I completely disagree" here. I mean sure, that's a fair thing to say, but I doubt it's true nearly as often as it's said. I think more often than not it's an ego-driven response. And that's just one example of what I perceive as a bit of a common, negative tone here. But I'm not just jumping on the hating on HN bandwagon either. No place is going to be perfect. I find a lot of value here. There are some really thoughtful comments. Even some of the rude ones are sometimes informative. I'm not aware of a better community and I'm not sure if it's possible for this one to be better. It is what it is, as they say.
ModernMech 5y ago
Yeah, if you want to see how bad it can really get, head on over to slashdot. I used to hang around there in the 90s and 00s, but it started going downhill and I left. Went back recently and wow has that place gone to hell. Just full on flamewars with cursing, vulgarities, and name calling in the comments. That kind of behavior would never fly here.
deltaonefour 5y ago
You're completely right. It's toxic everywhere. BUT just because it's toxic everywhere doesn't make it so you get to call HN the "pinnacle of non-toxicity." It's like saying the least toxic venom on the planet is the pinnacle of non-toxicity... I mean it's still venom. It's also worth talking about the toxicity on HN because it follows very specific patterns. It's also essentially a dictatorship. Whatever Dang says goes.
- fuzzfactor 5y ago
  I would say there's a big difference between a dictatorship and leadership with authority. One makes things worse and the other makes things better. Regardless of whatever they say goes where.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    Yes there is a difference and despite that difference it's still a dictatorship. The thing is, whatever Dang says goes. That's the definition of dictatorship. I think you just agree with him. Dang is a dictator whose policies you agree with, but ultimately you have no say in anything.
    - fuzzfactor 5y ago
      No, I do not always agree with the moderators or their entire approach. I do recognize this is nothing like a democracy, and the less like a democracy the more you have no say in anything. But it still ends up a better place so that's what counts to me, and I highly appreciate the effort that goes in and the creativity seen when difficult things are handled way better than could be expected otherwise.
      - deltaonefour 5y ago
        >But it still ends up a better place so that's what counts to me, and I highly appreciate the effort that goes in and the creativity seen when difficult things are handled way better than could be expected otherwise. So you don't agree, but you feel despite your disagreement it makes HN a better place. So in a sense, you agree that his decisions are for the better. Ultimately you didn't contradict anything I said. It is a dictatorship. You just agree with the outcome of his policies. We can caveat that with the fact you may not agree with individual policies but you agree with the overall outcome.

druadh 5y ago

AKA "Humans are toxic"

danans 5y ago
Humans absent an accountability structure are toxic. Accountability structures are provided by real in person institutions that have standards. For example, nobody is spurting toxic speech at their fellow churchgoers, because there would be a personal price for that. The anonymous Internet for better or worse removes much of the skin in the game for commenters, thereby incentivizing toxicity.

hamburglar 5y ago

HN definitely has a toxic "shoot it down" mentality when new things are presented. As an example, I recall a post where someone posted a browser-based implementation of some very nice airplane cockpit instruments, and I was not at all surprised when the top comment was about how stupid and dangerous it is to try to implement flight controls in a browser. The controls were intended for training purposes. It's as if the prevailing attitude often starts with "your idea is wrong and stupid and I know better even though the first thought I've ever put into the topic was 30 seconds ago." I often just shake my head at people's inability to sit back and appreciate what's interesting about something, rather than try to find things that are wrong with it.

TrevorJ 5y ago
Rose colored takes on new technology are not in short supply. What's difficult, is to find well reasoned and thoughtful discussions that pick apart new ideas. Yes, discussions on HN tend to bend towards the latter, but it's a useful counterbalance to the larger environment around technology.
- hamburglar 5y ago
  I agree with this, but "I implemented $protocol in $lang and blogged about it as a learning exercise" or "I think these controls I made are nice and wanted to share" aren't things that need to be subjected to the Idea Thunderdome, and it just comes across as shitty behavior.
- krapp 5y ago
  >What's difficult, is to find well reasoned and thoughtful discussions that pick apart new ideas. Unfortunately, that's as difficult to find on Hacker News as elsewhere. What we do get plenty of is aggressively ignorant hot takes and middlebrow dismissals and Dunning Krueger effects when the subject veers outside of the programming/CS wheelhouse. It's common enough that one might as well not even bother with the top subthread most of the time because it's bound to be the "this could have been trivially accomplished with FTP[0]" part of the conversation. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
  - tsuujin 5y ago
    Bravo on that reference link, that is a brutally succinct example of behavior we generally seem to dismiss.
- blurker 5y ago
  Shallow, and mean hot takes are also not in short supply (not implying that about your response btw). I think that HN has an admirable goal related to this as part of its guidelines: > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. But I feel that it often isn't lived up to. I feel like I've seen a lot of criticisms here that add nothing of value. And even among the ones that do, they are often needlessly provocative. I shake my head every time I see a "I completely disagree" here. I mean sure, that's a fair thing to say, but I doubt it's true nearly as often as it's said. I think more often than not it's an ego-driven response. And that's just one example of what I perceive as a bit of a common, negative tone here. But I'm not just jumping on the hating on HN bandwagon either. No place is going to be perfect. I find a lot of value here. There are some really thoughtful comments. Even some of the rude ones are sometimes informative. I'm not aware of a better community and I'm not sure if it's possible for this one to be better. It is what it is, as they say.

ModernMech 5y ago

Yeah, if you want to see how bad it can really get, head on over to slashdot. I used to hang around there in the 90s and 00s, but it started going downhill and I left. Went back recently and wow has that place gone to hell. Just full on flamewars with cursing, vulgarities, and name calling in the comments. That kind of behavior would never fly here.

deltaonefour 5y ago

You're completely right. It's toxic everywhere. BUT just because it's toxic everywhere doesn't make it so you get to call HN the "pinnacle of non-toxicity." It's like saying the least toxic venom on the planet is the pinnacle of non-toxicity... I mean it's still venom. It's also worth talking about the toxicity on HN because it follows very specific patterns. It's also essentially a dictatorship. Whatever Dang says goes.

fuzzfactor 5y ago
I would say there's a big difference between a dictatorship and leadership with authority. One makes things worse and the other makes things better. Regardless of whatever they say goes where.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Yes there is a difference and despite that difference it's still a dictatorship. The thing is, whatever Dang says goes. That's the definition of dictatorship. I think you just agree with him. Dang is a dictator whose policies you agree with, but ultimately you have no say in anything.
  - fuzzfactor 5y ago
    No, I do not always agree with the moderators or their entire approach. I do recognize this is nothing like a democracy, and the less like a democracy the more you have no say in anything. But it still ends up a better place so that's what counts to me, and I highly appreciate the effort that goes in and the creativity seen when difficult things are handled way better than could be expected otherwise.
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      >But it still ends up a better place so that's what counts to me, and I highly appreciate the effort that goes in and the creativity seen when difficult things are handled way better than could be expected otherwise. So you don't agree, but you feel despite your disagreement it makes HN a better place. So in a sense, you agree that his decisions are for the better. Ultimately you didn't contradict anything I said. It is a dictatorship. You just agree with the outcome of his policies. We can caveat that with the fact you may not agree with individual policies but you agree with the overall outcome.