3 ms·

[This is a update / rewrite of the sibling comment; I lost the ability to edit the other comment.] I intend for this to come across as somewhat philosophical,

by xpe 3y ago

[This is a update / rewrite of the sibling comment; I lost the ability to edit the other comment.] I intend for this to come across as somewhat philosophical, and I hope people can expand their points of view. We need more grounding in philosophy here in the technology world -- ways to combat a severely limited set of beliefs and habits that have grown out of a insular culture. > Discussion and subthreads off the main thread flow organically, and it's OK for them to not stay strictly on the main topic of the post Sure, it is "OK" per the HN Guidelines. Also, yes, these things happen. Lots of things happen, and they have a range of desirability. (See also the naturalistic fallacy, is-ought fallacy, and appeal to nature.) Not all comments and subthreads are equally useful to us. It is ok for me or anyone to shape the conversation in ways that they think are beneficial. We don't have to agree on the fundamental principles in play here; we have different approaches and probably values. > Besides, this is one of several comments you've left with the same putdowns in this thread. It is completely inaccurate to call my comments "putdowns" which are defined as "snub, disparaging remark, insult, slight, affront, rebuff, sneer, disparagement, humiliation, slap in the face, barb, jibe...". These comments are constructive criticisms. (You may not like that they involve an explicitly stated redirection. Not everyone may be as up-front as I am about what I'm doing, but redirection is common, useful, and essential.) People can take it, leave it, and/or comment about it. This is how discussion can work, and it is also how discussion should work in many cases. > They have added more irrelevant to the discussion noise than their parent comments ever did. My comments serve the purpose of refocusing conversation towards the primary topic. Calling that irrelevant seems silly to me. If you call my comment irrelevant, then logic requires a similar labeling for your comment. [3] It would be inconsistent to say "Discussion and subthreads off the main thread flow organically" while also saying my comment doesn't belong. (You didn't quite say that, but it is very much implied by your tone.) If it is ok for conversations to meander like you suggest, then it is ok to have conversations about what we're talking about, including suggestions about where to take them. You expressed your point of view. I happen to disagree, and I've given my reasoning. It has been civil. Good job, us. On Topic Drift: Let me ask you this: would you rather have a thread about debugging wander off into, e.g. criticisms of JetBrains the company? I personally would not. You might. Governance: There are questions of "what is best" that are not easily agreed upon. The Hacker News (HN) Guidelines are a good start, but they are incomplete. We also don't get a direct influence in what they are. They are "handed down" to us. We're participants here without direct influence on policy or goverance. We can vote up and down, flag, or persuade with discussion. We don't have other ways to guide policy or govern here on HN. There is are tracks/paths to increased moderation abilities, such as with Stack Exchange web sites or Wikipedia. There are no "meta" channels either. Infighting By Design: Due to the lack of proper governance, these kinds of discussions happen a lot, and they can be divisive. We should not "blame" ourselves when they happen. If anything, the unifying 'problem' is Hacker News itself. This is a design issue. Human nature is predictable. Until HN offers more ways to handle it directly, these kinds of conversations will keep happening. My goal here?: I hope I've elevated the discussion beyond what could have been a rather uninteresting clash over simplistic ideas over "what is on-topic?" or "what are the rules?" or even "what is right?". Personal Motivations: Both open discussions and ethics matter tremendously. Too often people don't address the elephant in the room, which often involves "how do we want these conversations to work"? while also admitting "we don't really have the levers of control we might want." Throughout a 20+ year career, I rarely see thoughtful, substantive conversations about these topics. Too many technology people skip right past them.

coldtea 3y ago
>It is completely inaccurate to call my comments "putdowns" which are defined as "snub, disparaging remark, insult, slight, affront, rebuff, sneer, disparagement, humiliation, slap in the face, barb, jibe...". You mean like the comments calling other people out for not commenting to your liking, and declaring how you'll "help move [their comment] down the page" in order to curate "the most useful discussion"? Or the part where you describe another person's perspective as '"pro-privacy" grift', and close by literally telling them to "piss off"?
- xpe 3y ago
  For context, here is my entire comment: > This thread of discussion isn't central to the idea of predictive debugging. In the spirit of my tiny influence on curating the most useful discussion, I'm going to help move it down the page. I'm not commenting one way or the other on the particular claims. (P.S. Having only one ranking mechanism inevitably leads to the conflation of user intentions. There are better ways out there; for example, I recommend the side-walking crustacean forum.) I can't control your interpretation, but I can assure you I didn't intend to insult anyone. Not all criticisms are putdowns. Think of my comment this way: it was an explanation of my downvote, which gives the commenter some feedback. Most downvotes don't give feedback. Per the golden rule, I prefer constructive criticism, so I gave it. Your interpretation (claiming that my comment was a putdown) was uncharitable. Your choice when quoting me was selective and did not give the whole context. No one acts in isolation. We are part of the patterns of many cultures. I regret that many people, including myself, have a tendency to rapidly escalate a situation. [1] They often jump from a valid feeling of discomfort to an accusation of intended harm. This is unwise, unfair, and destructive. We need to be able to criticize ideas without someone taking personal affront. You don't seem to acknowledge that I am aiming for a higher principle: useful, on-topic discussion. You don't have to agree with the principle to acknowledge that is the motivator of my comment. I'm criticizing your ideas. I'm hopeful if we met in person we could have an amicable conversation. If you like, we can do a video call. I'm serious. These kinds of misunderstandings are small but damaging to the fabric of what we have here. [1] I'm rather liberal when it comes to policy solutions. I say this for people that are swayed by tribalism: in many ways, I'm metaphorically 'on the same team' as people that speak up for the less fortunate. Standing up for civil rights and equality under the law is laudable. But this is quite different from uncharitably assuming bad intentions and "calling out" people. The latter undermines the core principles of civil discussion and probabilistic reasoning. In my view, civility and evidence work together quite well. Here's how: once you recognize the limits of your ability to divine someone else's intentions, particularly with only written text, it becomes illogical to accuse them of malice.

by xpe 3y ago

coldtea 3y ago

>It is completely inaccurate to call my comments "putdowns" which are defined as "snub, disparaging remark, insult, slight, affront, rebuff, sneer, disparagement, humiliation, slap in the face, barb, jibe...". You mean like the comments calling other people out for not commenting to your liking, and declaring how you'll "help move [their comment] down the page" in order to curate "the most useful discussion"? Or the part where you describe another person's perspective as '"pro-privacy" grift', and close by literally telling them to "piss off"?

xpe 3y ago
For context, here is my entire comment: > This thread of discussion isn't central to the idea of predictive debugging. In the spirit of my tiny influence on curating the most useful discussion, I'm going to help move it down the page. I'm not commenting one way or the other on the particular claims. (P.S. Having only one ranking mechanism inevitably leads to the conflation of user intentions. There are better ways out there; for example, I recommend the side-walking crustacean forum.) I can't control your interpretation, but I can assure you I didn't intend to insult anyone. Not all criticisms are putdowns. Think of my comment this way: it was an explanation of my downvote, which gives the commenter some feedback. Most downvotes don't give feedback. Per the golden rule, I prefer constructive criticism, so I gave it. Your interpretation (claiming that my comment was a putdown) was uncharitable. Your choice when quoting me was selective and did not give the whole context. No one acts in isolation. We are part of the patterns of many cultures. I regret that many people, including myself, have a tendency to rapidly escalate a situation. [1] They often jump from a valid feeling of discomfort to an accusation of intended harm. This is unwise, unfair, and destructive. We need to be able to criticize ideas without someone taking personal affront. You don't seem to acknowledge that I am aiming for a higher principle: useful, on-topic discussion. You don't have to agree with the principle to acknowledge that is the motivator of my comment. I'm criticizing your ideas. I'm hopeful if we met in person we could have an amicable conversation. If you like, we can do a video call. I'm serious. These kinds of misunderstandings are small but damaging to the fabric of what we have here. [1] I'm rather liberal when it comes to policy solutions. I say this for people that are swayed by tribalism: in many ways, I'm metaphorically 'on the same team' as people that speak up for the less fortunate. Standing up for civil rights and equality under the law is laudable. But this is quite different from uncharitably assuming bad intentions and "calling out" people. The latter undermines the core principles of civil discussion and probabilistic reasoning. In my view, civility and evidence work together quite well. Here's how: once you recognize the limits of your ability to divine someone else's intentions, particularly with only written text, it becomes illogical to accuse them of malice.