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> As I type this, every top-level comment here is a criticism or a nitpick. This is maybe going to sound snarky, but honestly I really am being serious: at thi

> As I type this, every top-level comment here is a criticism or a nitpick. This is maybe going to sound snarky, but honestly I really am being serious: at this point, what else do you expect from this website? HN has a well-earned reputation of being a bunch of kneejerk-critics and naysayers.

tjstankus 4y ago
I hear you and I agree. The HN vibe is nitpicky, for sure. I was a little surprised the comments here were 100% negative (or not positive, to be fair). I usually wouldn't bother reading all the comments, but I care about Ruby, so I was a little more irked by the negativity than usual. :)
maxbond 4y ago
Personally, I do expect this behavior, but I also call it out, because I don't accept this behavior. For better or worse HN is my community. Its given me so much over the years, even as it's infuriated me much of the time. As I recognize patterns of dysfunction I highlight them, so that the community can understand & overcome them. And I do think I see incremental progress. Not to say I caused that progress, I have no idea what if any role I played from my modest soap box (I suspect very little), but I think there's every reason to hope for the better.
- nixpulvis 4y ago
  Not all critique is knee-jerk just because it comes quickly.
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    Good point. I can rattle off criticisms of an idea instantly if it happens to touch my little corner of the industry I've been working in for over eight years. It's rare at this point that I ever encounter a novel idea that I haven't already given thought to.
joshspankit 4y ago
The core of that reputation is because people on HN want the best and many of them know that expecting the best can be an effective way of getting it. Yes, there are critics who are not ‘in the arena’, but for the rest I see a lot of care (AKA taste as defined in Ira Glass’ words on “The Gap”) put in to the comments.
- sidlls 4y ago
  This is a very polite and optimistic way of putting it. Having been in this industry for 15+ years now, I have a more jaundiced view.
  - code_biologist 4y ago
    I'm about 15ish years in and I have a jaundiced view of the jaundiced view. I've learned a lot of "the right way" things from HN that are genuinely better. True shop knowledge from people "in the arena" with expertise building and running the kind of systems I build and run. There are a lot of pricks though, to be sure.
    - debaserab2 4y ago
      I have definitely learned a lot too but it’s rarely from the knee-jerk first responses on tech posts.
- maxbond 4y ago
  I'm sure there is a lot of care, but I also see a lot of people abusing the concept of care in order to troll. I have had/seen this conversation over and over again on HN: Commenter: This topic sucks, I wish people would stop posting it to HN. Me: I understand this topic isn't interesting to you. Why don't you ignore it and click on something else? Commenter: I care so deeply for this community, I hate to see this topic reduce it's SNR. Does the commenter care about HN? Presumably. Does that make their complaint legitimate? No. They're bothered by how a subset of people on the site want to discuss some topic, and they're manufacturing a reason that sounds better than, "I don't want to see it." But no one is entitled to have articles that are to their taste posted to HN. Sometimes this is expressed more like, "this isn't appropriate for the HN audience." But the audience of an HN post isn't what anyone imagines HN looks like, it's the subset of HN members who find that post in particular to be interesting and worthy of discussion.

tjstankus 4y ago

I hear you and I agree. The HN vibe is nitpicky, for sure. I was a little surprised the comments here were 100% negative (or not positive, to be fair). I usually wouldn't bother reading all the comments, but I care about Ruby, so I was a little more irked by the negativity than usual. :)

maxbond 4y ago

Personally, I do expect this behavior, but I also call it out, because I don't accept this behavior. For better or worse HN is my community. Its given me so much over the years, even as it's infuriated me much of the time. As I recognize patterns of dysfunction I highlight them, so that the community can understand & overcome them. And I do think I see incremental progress. Not to say I caused that progress, I have no idea what if any role I played from my modest soap box (I suspect very little), but I think there's every reason to hope for the better.

nixpulvis 4y ago
Not all critique is knee-jerk just because it comes quickly.
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  Good point. I can rattle off criticisms of an idea instantly if it happens to touch my little corner of the industry I've been working in for over eight years. It's rare at this point that I ever encounter a novel idea that I haven't already given thought to.

joshspankit 4y ago

The core of that reputation is because people on HN want the best and many of them know that expecting the best can be an effective way of getting it. Yes, there are critics who are not ‘in the arena’, but for the rest I see a lot of care (AKA taste as defined in Ira Glass’ words on “The Gap”) put in to the comments.

sidlls 4y ago
This is a very polite and optimistic way of putting it. Having been in this industry for 15+ years now, I have a more jaundiced view.
- code_biologist 4y ago
  I'm about 15ish years in and I have a jaundiced view of the jaundiced view. I've learned a lot of "the right way" things from HN that are genuinely better. True shop knowledge from people "in the arena" with expertise building and running the kind of systems I build and run. There are a lot of pricks though, to be sure.
  - debaserab2 4y ago
    I have definitely learned a lot too but it’s rarely from the knee-jerk first responses on tech posts.
maxbond 4y ago
I'm sure there is a lot of care, but I also see a lot of people abusing the concept of care in order to troll. I have had/seen this conversation over and over again on HN: Commenter: This topic sucks, I wish people would stop posting it to HN. Me: I understand this topic isn't interesting to you. Why don't you ignore it and click on something else? Commenter: I care so deeply for this community, I hate to see this topic reduce it's SNR. Does the commenter care about HN? Presumably. Does that make their complaint legitimate? No. They're bothered by how a subset of people on the site want to discuss some topic, and they're manufacturing a reason that sounds better than, "I don't want to see it." But no one is entitled to have articles that are to their taste posted to HN. Sometimes this is expressed more like, "this isn't appropriate for the HN audience." But the audience of an HN post isn't what anyone imagines HN looks like, it's the subset of HN members who find that post in particular to be interesting and worthy of discussion.