4 ms·

Another strange blog where people use animals as some kind of conversation intermixed with normal prose. Very confusing.

pests 3y ago
It is deliberate - "soatok, of Dhole Moments, is heavily responsible for popularizing the mix of furry and technical content that this article is riffing off of, though the particular format is mostly borrowed from Xe Iaso."
- IshKebab 3y ago
  Still weird though. And ridiculously verbose.
  - lifthrasiir 3y ago
    Not because of furry though.
    - lloydatkinson 3y ago
      I’d say that’s still a contributing factor.
- forgotpwd16 3y ago
  What soatok is doing is basically similar to what many other blogs have been doing throwing random images/memes in the text. (Also wouldn't call the furry part any popular.) At least Xe's format has some logic[0] for its introduction. Albeit usage has been less of Socratic dialogue* and more like sidenotes**. Submitted article is an attempt to original concept but fails to it. *Socratic dialogue is a discussion between a teacher and his students where both teacher and students ask questions rather teacher be a sage. **Difference is those sidenotes appear in the main text and have highlighting making them standout. [0]: https://xeiaso.net/blog/how-mara-works-2020-09-30/ https://xeiaso.net/blog/how-mara-works-2020-09-30/
  - xena 3y ago
    Xe here. For what it's worth, I basically combined what Soatok does with the furry stickers and what fasterthanlime does with Cool Bear. This pseudonarrative style has a lot of promise for making things less gatekeepy in our industry and I can't see why encouraging people to fuck around with their formats in this way is a bad thing.
    - forgotpwd16 3y ago
      From fasterthanlime's only checked at start of linked article and saw it included some useful info, such as article being old and required rust version, so thought they used tips to do some snarky comments and provide info not belonging to main text but simultaneously important. Reading to end can see they also employ some pseudonarrative (actually a nice name for this style). Anyway, fucking around with formats isn't only fine but also welcome as want to believe are comments regarding whether said formats succeed in making article more enjoyable to read or not. For me guess you can say kinda enjoy Mara, Cadey, and Numa but not really Aoi.
- lloydatkinson 3y ago
  Yeah, that’s exactly the one I was thinking about when I wrote that. The normalisation of furry content as part of technical content is not a trend I’m looking forward to.
  - chias 3y ago
    More and more, people are bringing their whole selves to what they do, and how they present their own work. In my personal opinion, this is a good thing. If you find that furry content in writeups bothers you, then you can just not consume content by those authors. If the fact that these keep getting upvoted on HN bothers you, it may indicate that your preferences are not aligned with those of the community you're choosing to participate in.
    - lloydatkinson 3y ago
      Literally anything interesting gets upvoted, alignment is a non sequitur.
  - FeepingCreature 3y ago
    It's fine to dislike things! In this case, while I am riffing on Xe's design, because of how I wrote the article the people involved are, you know, actual other people, so it was genuinely useful to have an immediately visible shorthand for who was talking and what I thought their sentiment was. Using IRL photos for that would be for one impractical; for another, it's easier to make sentiments stand out on cartoons. (Not that SD was very good at this here.)
    - lloydatkinson 3y ago
      It’s just really hard to read
layer8 3y ago
The mix isn’t particularly confusing, but I find this kind of socratic dialogue quite annoying in general. It just adds cognitive overhead, because besides the author’s train of ideas I now also have to deal with the presentation as different characters and their way of commenting and interjecting and asking questions, all of which are immaterial to the actual ideas and arguments. In the present case, it also makes an already lengthy discussion even more laborious.
dang 3y ago
"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- lloydatkinson 3y ago
  Sorry but it’s perfectly acceptable to point out how an article has its prose written in a purposefully confusing and hard to read format.
  - dang 3y ago
    > purposefully confusing You can't know that, unless you have a mind reader and can scan someone else's purpose. > hard to read format Not everyone finds the same things hard to read, or equally hard. I'm not saying you're wrong!—I'm saying that this is not the basis for a good HN comment. If everyone who finds something hard-to-read rushes to the comments to complain, the thread will get bogged down in the weeds for sure. You should post when you have something interesting to say. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pests 3y ago

It is deliberate - "soatok, of Dhole Moments, is heavily responsible for popularizing the mix of furry and technical content that this article is riffing off of, though the particular format is mostly borrowed from Xe Iaso."

IshKebab 3y ago
Still weird though. And ridiculously verbose.
- lifthrasiir 3y ago
  Not because of furry though.
  - lloydatkinson 3y ago
    I’d say that’s still a contributing factor.
forgotpwd16 3y ago
What soatok is doing is basically similar to what many other blogs have been doing throwing random images/memes in the text. (Also wouldn't call the furry part any popular.) At least Xe's format has some logic[0] for its introduction. Albeit usage has been less of Socratic dialogue* and more like sidenotes**. Submitted article is an attempt to original concept but fails to it. *Socratic dialogue is a discussion between a teacher and his students where both teacher and students ask questions rather teacher be a sage. **Difference is those sidenotes appear in the main text and have highlighting making them standout. [0]: https://xeiaso.net/blog/how-mara-works-2020-09-30/ https://xeiaso.net/blog/how-mara-works-2020-09-30/
- xena 3y ago
  Xe here. For what it's worth, I basically combined what Soatok does with the furry stickers and what fasterthanlime does with Cool Bear. This pseudonarrative style has a lot of promise for making things less gatekeepy in our industry and I can't see why encouraging people to fuck around with their formats in this way is a bad thing.
  - forgotpwd16 3y ago
    From fasterthanlime's only checked at start of linked article and saw it included some useful info, such as article being old and required rust version, so thought they used tips to do some snarky comments and provide info not belonging to main text but simultaneously important. Reading to end can see they also employ some pseudonarrative (actually a nice name for this style). Anyway, fucking around with formats isn't only fine but also welcome as want to believe are comments regarding whether said formats succeed in making article more enjoyable to read or not. For me guess you can say kinda enjoy Mara, Cadey, and Numa but not really Aoi.
lloydatkinson 3y ago
Yeah, that’s exactly the one I was thinking about when I wrote that. The normalisation of furry content as part of technical content is not a trend I’m looking forward to.
- chias 3y ago
  More and more, people are bringing their whole selves to what they do, and how they present their own work. In my personal opinion, this is a good thing. If you find that furry content in writeups bothers you, then you can just not consume content by those authors. If the fact that these keep getting upvoted on HN bothers you, it may indicate that your preferences are not aligned with those of the community you're choosing to participate in.
  - lloydatkinson 3y ago
    Literally anything interesting gets upvoted, alignment is a non sequitur.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  It's fine to dislike things! In this case, while I am riffing on Xe's design, because of how I wrote the article the people involved are, you know, actual other people, so it was genuinely useful to have an immediately visible shorthand for who was talking and what I thought their sentiment was. Using IRL photos for that would be for one impractical; for another, it's easier to make sentiments stand out on cartoons. (Not that SD was very good at this here.)
  - lloydatkinson 3y ago
    It’s just really hard to read

layer8 3y ago

The mix isn’t particularly confusing, but I find this kind of socratic dialogue quite annoying in general. It just adds cognitive overhead, because besides the author’s train of ideas I now also have to deal with the presentation as different characters and their way of commenting and interjecting and asking questions, all of which are immaterial to the actual ideas and arguments. In the present case, it also makes an already lengthy discussion even more laborious.

dang 3y ago

"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lloydatkinson 3y ago
Sorry but it’s perfectly acceptable to point out how an article has its prose written in a purposefully confusing and hard to read format.
- dang 3y ago
  > purposefully confusing You can't know that, unless you have a mind reader and can scan someone else's purpose. > hard to read format Not everyone finds the same things hard to read, or equally hard. I'm not saying you're wrong!—I'm saying that this is not the basis for a good HN comment. If everyone who finds something hard-to-read rushes to the comments to complain, the thread will get bogged down in the weeds for sure. You should post when you have something interesting to say. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html