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Ask HN: Where is the Hostility on HN Coming From?
Jut take a look at this thread that is proposing NOT implementing a new design for Wikipedia. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4352290 The presentation is very polite but the HN'feedback'? Woah!
The responses even from veteran HNers is nothing short of shocking. I can mildly 'understand' harsh responses from people whose present jobs are to design Wikipedia however, the extremely harsh responses from others is not constructive and leads to no learning whatsoever both for the designers and others.
This post is just an example of the latest trend of a new and unusually hostile HN.
Not cool.
- petercooper 14y agoNatural part of a community's lifecycle.
- pbhjpbhj 14y agoBefore the meme invasion and death of quality?
- petercooper 14y agoI think many have said that's already happened! :-) I'm not so pessimistic, but I've been a long term user of Slashdot, MetaFilter, Reddit, and HN, and you do tend to see these cycles occurring and it's interesting to see the differing ways they deal with them.
- unimpressive 14y ago>I'm not so pessimistic, but I've been a long term user of Slashdot, MetaFilter, Reddit, and HN, and you do tend to see these cycles occurring and it's interesting to see the differing ways they deal with them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return All of this has happened before, and will happen again.
- rizla 14y agoI think HN has got to the stage were members are assuming to be knowledgeable on all, rather than trying to learn, experiment and educate. Added to that a certain attitude of 'just because I'm right, I can be mean' All just leads to an environment where trying new things is discouraged. The guy didn't follow the status quo, he tried something different. What happened wasn't quite a pitch fork smack down, but it felt pretty mean spirited. I certainly didn't see anything constructive in the comments.
- jarek 14y agoAs an interested party, may I ask why you feel citricsquid's and my comments in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4352446 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4352446 are not constructive?
- rizla 14y agoIm not attempting to single anyone out, your comments are 3 amongst 200+ (the link u send is actually a useful opinion which could be acted upon and something I'd agree with). So I and you shouldn't take yourself representive of the entire HN community right? That said... I responded to the OP who seemed to be making a general observation, based on a particular post. My reply was to be in generalisation too, so it may not be a correct view of the state of HN
- shrughes 14y agoPeople are hostile to that posting because it talks down to its readers by being a gigantic infographic, as if the reader was retarded, instead of being a few paragraphs of text. Also, the idea is without merit, and you don't need to read past the first character to realize that it's made by people with a preference for form over function. It is a truly revolting submission.
- jongold 14y ago(for all its flaws) that's just how you structure a design presentation.
- xqyz 14y agoI kind of disagree. I think there would have been better ways to present a design. For startes it would have been nice to know why specific decisions were made instead of just "we thought it was prettier". Maybe usability studies, A/B test results and if at all possible some form of prototype, even if it is just static. Plus the article lacks consideration for mobile and small screen platform (i.e. considering edge cases). In fact I'd go as far as to say it actively disregards them by choosing gigantic fonts and lots of useless whitespace in favor of useful content.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- shrughes 14y agoThe fact that this got voted up kind of disturbs me.
- akirk 14y agoIt might be due to the fact that it is about Wikipedia. Most people have strong feelings about Wikipedia because it has become a big part of many people's internet experience. And people usually don't like change and can become offended when people propose to do so.
- slurgfest 14y agoYou are onto something. I wasn't a huge fan of the redesign but I couldn't understand the high emotional tone. A lot of the feedback runs along the lines of 'how dare you change Wikipedia without going through the Wikipedia process', etc.
- andrewfelix 14y agoGenerally I feel Karma does a good job of keeping the comments in check. I think the Wikipedia article was an emotive exception. EDIT: Thought I'd add that there were a lot of positive and friendly comments surrounding the Curiosity landing. So I don't feel like the tone of comments is leaning in one particular direction.
- alan_cx 14y agoThe problem with Karma is that too often people are voted down for simply posting views others disagree with, and I didn't think it was for that. That that leads to is people not sticking their necks out and only posting if they agree with the community vibe. Cards on table: I have often avoided replying through fear of people not liking my opinion, regardless of how well thought out it might be. Often only replied if I already know my views are acceptable here. In fact, to get Karma up, I have merely posted agreeable posts. For example, I have noticed that having a go at the MPAA gets lots of up votes. See what happens if you dare argue for the MPAA, you enter down vote hell!!! That has to be badly wrong, right? Surely its is the worst sort of mob rule and utterly stifles diverse opinion. Is that what HN is all about? However, I don't know of a better way to do it, so it is better than nothing.
- dclaysmith 14y agoAgreed. It's a shame too because many of the harsh comments have good points but the tone of the comments is vitriolic. Slow down people. These people put a ton of work into a project which is really cool. They deserve constructive criticism.
- beeneto 14y agoI theorise that the post gave the hackers of the community an opportunity to vent their latent dislike of superficial or even detrimental UI changes. Note though that the 'vitriol' was mostly sarcasm and scoffing. If we use 1 torvalds as a unit of hacker irascibility, then the comments never rose above about 300-400 millitorvalds.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- ColinWright 14y agoClickable: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4352290 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4352290
- jschuur 14y agoThis applies to more than just the tech space, but I get the sense that people feel under siege from a lot of different directions these days that are out of their control. This encourages knee jerk reactions to anything where they think they have an area of expertise in (or just an opinion) and they use any forum possible to air how they think things should be done, or just what other people are doing wrong and why something will never work. If you're frustrated about the general status quo, some people will become extremely vocal, and use language to stand out in the crowd and have their opinion be heard. Venting alone becomes therapeutic to them, because it's their way to contribute to the process. ...until they need to do it again in the next thread.
- lovskogen 14y agoI work as a designer. And seeing fellow designers doing things without research on the domain they're designing in is shocking. This is basic stuff, and people need a heads up. The designers should take this as valuable input, ignore the subjective comments, and move on to create greater things.
- iamben 14y agoYeah, but I sort of took it in the same way you take it when you see a design for transparent phone that you can roll up and put in your pocket. The technology isn't there to do that, it just is what it is.
- lovskogen 14y agoWhat great technology or... thing, isn't there to do the wiki-redesign?
- iamben 14y agoMy point is that I don't think their design had the existing technology / current Wiki infrastructure in mind (and never meant to). It was just design for the sake of design - it didn't need to be based on a MediaWiki theme or anything like that. It's just a visual representation of what 'could be'.
- lovskogen 14y agoYou are right, and that's why this is not good design.
- PaulHoule 14y agoI thought it was a pretty crappy article although I never said that in the comments.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- shokwave 14y agoWithout the hostility, the designers might get the idea that their suggestions were good. Without the hostility, the submitter might get the idea that hackernews liked the article. You say the response "is not constructive and leads to no learning whatsoever". I'd like to substantively address the second claim. "A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others." The designers learned that their changes were bad. They learned WHY their changes were bad: many responses gave detailed reasons. The submitter learned that their model of what HN likes was wrong. And if the submitter thought this was a good design, they learned their understanding of design is wrong. All the others who read the submission and responses learned a few design pitfalls to avoid. There are whole chapters in books on design that teach less than this. And this is learning from the event itself! What learning could this event LEAD to? I don't know, someone might pick up a book on design? (As an aside, I didn't address "not constructive". I have a truly marvellous rant on the emptiness of this concept that this comment field is too small to contain.)
- jorangreef 14y agoYou presuppose that hostility is necessary to conveying a point. There are many ways to get a point across.
- dgalling 14y agoWhat, in your eyes, is a better indicator of hacker news liking or not liking something? Is it the over 400 points or the stream of hate coming at them in the comments? Sometimes these redesigns reek of audacity, sometimes they're just not done very well. In any case, hostility is not necessary to make that point. The situation is not so dire that we need to be mean to someone to tell them we don't like something. It's hard to share what you've done with the world, and it's even harder when many people from a community you respect will shit on you in the case you overlook something. I don't mean to be impolite, but don't try and pass your anger that something has 400 points on hacker news for some sort of tough-love criticism.
- hetman 14y agoIf hostility is the only way for someone to get their point across then I suggest they may need to work on their vocabulary.
- Paul_S 14y agoI don't see people in that thread being hostile - only honest. And honestly, that redesign is really bad. There's really nothing positive to say about it and although the old adage goes "don't say anything if you have nothing positive to say" I'm glad people here don't bide by it and provide useful critique instead.
- xqyz 14y agoI agree, even as a submitter I'd rather people would comment -- even if it's just to criticise -- than if everybody is too polite to say anything. This way, I think everybody can profit from it.
- sp332 14y agoCriticism is not the same as hostility. We should be polite even if the criticism is harsh.
- minikomi 14y agoJ don't think that the response was that out of order. Edit: I feel bad getting upvotes for a snarky off-handed comment. So here's what I think: Contrast and compare the comments to thread regarding the hn statistics page. I don't get the feeling the community is critical for being critical's sake at all.
- jongold 14y agoI'm a designer - it's not hostility, it's feedback :) There's no point being nice to people when they present flawed work - that just propagates bad work. (and my CTO is way harsher on my Pull Requests than anyone has been on the Wiki redesign anyway)
- urbanjunkie 14y agoThe fact that you use the abuse you receive to justify dishing out abuse is concerning. Perhaps you should get yourself out of that situation?
- rizla 14y agoYour profession doesn't make your opinion any more valid than anyone else's, or less valid. There is a point in being nice, it's part of being sociable. We could have all the best solutions in the world, but if we can't share them in an agreeable way then they are going to be useless Think of a world where parents mocked their toddlers for presenting them with a anotomically and structurally defective picture of their family and home. Would the child continue to create with happiness or just associate experimentation with negative response?
- mhluongo 14y agoNot sure we should compare a design firm to a toddler... are you joking?
- rizla 14y agoI'm not comparing a design firm to a toddler, I'm comparing the act of creating and reviewing. More explicitly I wanted you to think about how a new designer would respond to overly harsh and non-constructive critisim in the early stages of developing their skillset.
- damoncali 14y ago"I don't like this design because of x, y, and z. Let's go back and fix it." Bad work stopped. Niceness maintained.
- vivekjishtu 14y agoJust saw a video about something similar about how we normally talk to a real person compared to someone online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfwwHa-7Ux8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfwwHa-7Ux8
- olalonde 14y agoRead the top comment and first thing that went through my mind: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4328399 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4328399 On another note, I think the lack of a down vote button on submissions might explain this behavior. If a topic is highly polarized/controversial, it might end up on the front page with a lot of up votes even if most HNers would have down voted it. This results in a lot of people venting off in the comments who would have otherwise simply down voted.
- angersock 14y agoHaving argued with tptacek about wiki policies a while ago here, I'm inclined to agree. I've contributed my share of venom to what I've perceived as silly/stupid submissions though as well so I don't believe I've got much of a highground.
- paulsutter 14y agoI thought the top comment by tptacek was perfectly reasonable and constructive, and didn't find it offensive at all. On the other hand I found the original article to be naive and remarkably arrogant, despite its saccharin use of language. Be curious to hear pg's thinking on the absence of downvotes for stories. This particular story was of such low quality, that I wonder if people were really upvoting the discussion as opposed to the original story.
- OoTheNigerian 14y agoPeople in the comments are claiming it is "Feedback". How many of you would critique that presentation that way (like in the comments) to the designers in person? There is a whole world of difference between: "Hey, did you consider this and that." and "What you have done is rubbish. You did not think" For heavens sake the presentation ended with "And here we stop. But, hopefully, the discussion begins." http://www.wikipediaredefined.com/ http://www.wikipediaredefined.com/ If it was that bad, then you do not upvote it. if it was good enough for a discussion (upvote), then discuss politely. Not once in the comments did I see an alternative suggestion. even it it was entirely different from what was proposed. It was all condemnation. At least we can agree Wikipedia can be improved, they made a suggestion. If you cannot constructively improve on what was proposed, then you can avoid polluting it. Or better still propose your own suggestion.
- simias 14y ago"How many of you would critique that presentation that way (like in the comments) to the designers in person?" All other things equal I think internet interactions are "weaker" and carry less weight that regular in-person interactions. If I come to your desk and say "good job" or "I think what you did is terribly lame", I'm sure it won't have the same impact that if I wrote it as a comment in some website. I think that's why internet interactions tend to be more polarizing. So I don't think your question is appropriate. Besides, for many articles linked on HN we don't know whether the creators are ever going to read our comments. I might be a little more gentle and diplomat in a "Show HN" post than in a regular "look what I found in the internet" post.
- mhluongo 14y agoBut all other things aren't equal- this is HN, not the rest of the internet. I think one of the draws of the HN community is that interactions often carry more weight than your typical comment section on a blog.
- samdk 14y agoIf I am working with someone on a design and they bring me something as bad as that redesign, I'm going to tell them it's awful. That redesign is rubbish and it very clearly was done without thinking about what was important, and nobody benefits by pretending that's not true. As a designer, you should not be offended by people telling you things you've made don't work, so long as they're providing reasons. Those people are doing you a favor. You cannot remain emotionally attached to your own work and be a good designer. It is far easier to work with people who are direct and harsh than the people who dance around the matter. You can never trust anything the latter group of people tell you, and so you end up wasting a tremendous amount of time because you have no idea what they actually want because they refuse to actually tell you. (That said, there is a world of difference between "that is rubbish, you did not think" and "that is rubbish because you did not think about things X, Y and Z". The first is useless, the second is helpful.) -- Your idea that people must offer alternate suggestions before criticism is ridiculous. If you present your redesign idea to the public and it's terrible, the correct response is "that's not very good, go back and try again", not "that's not very good, therefore I will spend the months required to come up with a non-awful alternative before commenting".
- ObnoxiousJul 14y agobecause if you are really a coder you prefer negative feedbacks than a false confidence. Even though it is yet socially unacceptable, social rules are stupids. You cannot earn any glory in publishing your code if people don't tell the truth. To be pleased by one «I love what you do», you should ready yourself to get a couple of «you are doing crap». Coders are not expected to publish good code at first, they are expected to improve their work through sincere feedbacks. That is our culture. Social norms are unproductive when it comes to work in cooperation. The fact that Asperger (sociopaths) are 10 times more prevalent in coding expertise might not help. Excellency in coding is an aristocracy that needs no excuses and don't fear critics. You shall not fear the fight if you believe in your creation, because good design can stand the assault of the best criticisms. Social norms are only their to protect a hierarchy of status. Truth protect the hierarchy of competence. If you are just a hipster searching for a social status based on consensus then flee for this is war against you. THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!
- Zak 14y agoThe fact that Asperger (sociopaths) are 10 times more prevalent in coding expertise might not help. This is not an accurate characterization of Asperger syndrome or the hacker community. Wikipedia offers the following definition: Sociopathy is the result of social conditioning which leads to a lack of natural human values. It refers strictly to a social condition where a person knows, yet has been socially conditioned to disregard, the intrinsic human values which are believed to be universal. The somewhat similar characteristic of Asperger syndrome is a lack of demonstrated empathy. In the case of a harsh review of someone's project, this could manifest as statements that are accurate from the author's perspective but do not take in to consideration how they might make the reader feel. I don't think being blunt in a review is a sign of disregarding universal intrinsic human values.
- ObnoxiousJul 14y agoWell, I like to exaggerate a little bit. Especially since sociopathy/asperger are rather ill defined. So discard all my remarks as pure troll (don't feed the troll :). The real point is there are no truly acceptable positive feedbacks if one does not equally express negative feedbacks. So ... one should not whine for getting flamed even if it is socially unacceptable to discard all this work because that's the path for improving...and later maybe getting praised.
- pud 14y agoI didn't post in that thread, but I did find myself cringing at the author's suggestions.
- ObnoxiousJul 14y agobecause if you are really a coder you prefer negative feedbacks than a false confidence. Even though it is yet socially unacceptable, social rules are stupids. You cannot earn any glory in publishing your code if people don't tell the truth. To be pleased by one «I love what you do», you should ready yourself to get a couple of «you are doing crap». Coders are not expected to publish good code at first, they are expected to improve their work through sincere feedbacks. That is our culture. Social norms are unproductive when it comes to work in cooperation. The fact that Asperger (sociopaths) are 10 times more prevalent in coding expertise might not help. Excellency in coding is an aristocracy that needs no excuses and don't fear critics. You shall not fear the fight if you believe in your creation, because good design can stand the assault of the best criticisms. Social norms are only their to protect a hierarchy of status. Truth protect the hierarchy of competence. If you are just a hipster searching for a social status based on consensus then flee for this is war against you. THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!
- orangethirty 14y agoWe are, after all, humans. Not machines. Our goal may be to remain civilized, yet we sometimes succumb to our raw emotions. Hackers are a weird bunch (I know, because I am one). We see ourselves as logical, prudent, and fact based. In reality, we are as emotion led as any other individual. Biggest difference is that we work with machines. A machine cannot (yet) get angry or offended. And when the day they are able to do so, I will no longer will be able to write code without being sued by the computer I'm programming. Alas, I'm not defending any behaviour. Just stating something we forget. Hackers are people. People are irrational. We are just a bit more logical than other professions, but not less rowdy. Though losing our shit is sometimes the right course of action. :)
- slurgfest 14y agoGranted that people can be emotional, but the aggregate tone of HN itself isn't completely stable, which it would be if it were entirely determined by generic facts about people.
- orangethirty 14y agoGood point. Though sometimes I feel that HN is hosted on planet Vulcan, rather than on planet Earth.
- angersock 14y agoHonestly, I didn't find the feedback that terrible--I'm somewhat new here, but if you want carebears you should be over at reddit. I appreciate having a community honest enough to say what it thinks. I'm not sure what your other datapoints are, though? For what it's worth, I thought it was an interesting and refreshing design proposal, though I did have issues with the way they chose to render logos and use screenspace--it was a bit too kitschy in its minimalism.
- simias 14y agoI agree. The main factor should be whether it's constructive criticism or not. In the case of the Wikipedia redesign thing, the tone of some of the comments might be a bit harsh but they were mostly insightful. This is the internet, it's how it works, it's how it worked since at least Usenet (and probably before, but I can't testify of that). The social norm is different than regular "face to face" conversation. It's harsher, but it's also often more honest I think.
- richardw 14y agoThis is the internet, it's how it works, it's how it worked since at least Usenet (and probably before, but I can't testify of that). The social norm is different than regular "face to face" conversation. It's harsher, but it's also often more honest I think. That's exactly what PG intended HN not to be. It's meant to be different, nicer, better thought out. If it devolves to a common web message board, we lose what makes it special. Read this, if you haven't before. Especially the last paragraph: http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html In any case, if there's a secret HN where everyone is nicer, sign me up.
- slurgfest 14y agoReddit is a pretty angry community if you don't conform in a thousand unwritten ways, I wouldn't at all say that it is "carebears".
- zevyoura 14y agoMy impression is that HN is generally friendlier and more professional than Reddit, not harsher. You may want to dig a little deeper into Reddit; there's a lot of behavior on there that wouldn't fly here.
- ilaksh 14y agoTo be honest, I am a pretty negative person sometimes. I hope my cynicism isn't ruining the mood or setting a bad example or anything. As far as that particular Wikipedia thing: I think a lot of people really liked the design, and most of them clicked the upvote. On the other hand, most of the people who didn't like it couldn't downvote so they left comments instead. So part of the hostility you notice might just be the fact that they took on Wikipedia and really put themselves out there, so it was a controversial post. And HN needs to fix the downvote thing (there I go being negative again). One other thing is that you have people with really different backgrounds coming to Hacker News. Some people are like me and have a lot of coding experience including, for example, enterprise(y) application programming. Other people have much more experience in marketing and/or graphic design and/or UX/UI. This might just be another example of me having a bad life, but there also might actually be a bit of pent up resentment between UX/UI designer people and coders in general. I will be too honest as usual and elaborate. Basically, what it seems like from my own programmer perspective is that the people doing the software UI design in Photoshop or whatever think that they know better how to build software than me and therefore are placing themselves over me in the project decision making, even though they have written very little (or zero) code. That sort of misplaced disrespect could possibly sometimes make a person feel righteously hostile. Of course, I do realize that UX is its own field with knowledge that isn't automatically absorbed in the process of coding, but that doesn't really change the situation between coders and UX designers.
- goldenchrome 14y ago"I will be too honest as usual" I think you might be conflating honesty and hostility.
- slurgfest 14y agoNo need to get snarky and twist words. He was being honest about a bad feeling or bad interaction he has with designers. edit: or she was, whatever.
- fendmark 14y agoI think the most obnoxious thing about this post (and I saw a Wikimedia employee point this out in the comments as well) is that it completely ignores the fact that Wikipedia is built on the MediaWiki platform and doesn't even attempt to address how their proposal could be realistically implemented from a development standpoint in coordination with the Wikimedia Engineering team and the community's ongoing product roadmap. Maybe this is being a tad catty, and standing in the way of innovation in some respects but design led initiatives that don't take a close look at the world from other discipline's perspectives are usually doomed.
- insertnickname 14y agoPeople are hostile because it's an awful design.
- alan_cx 14y agoAn awful design is no excuse for hostility. If it is, what is the emotional response if you are personally insulted?
- javert 14y agoI think that article was treated so harshly, because it was a genuinely bad fit for the tastes of the HN community. Given this community's preferences, I don't really understand how it got so many upvotes and stayed up on the front page for a while. I thought it was bizarre.
- ed209 14y ago>genuinely bad fit for the tastes of the HN community Suited me just fine. Whether or not I agreed with the design conclusions they came to is not the point. They gave something a try - good on them. Maybe it sparks ideas for someone else. Failing or succeeding aside, surely the spirit of this whole community is about trying ideas and getting constructive feedback.
- alexkearns 14y agoI agree with you. Not cool at all. Unfortunately, there is an unpleasant trait that hackers seem to suffer from more than most other people. I call it the 'know it all' complex. Know-it-alls are intolerant of views that are contrary to their own, usually very narrow opinion on how things should be done. Woe betide anyone who does not do it their way.
- mediacrisis 14y agoAh yes, the alpha nerd syndrome. Symptoms include not commenting code because "it should be obvious!"
- Androsynth 14y agoI felt it was the complete opposite. The wiki redesigners were showing an incredible amount of arrogance and know-it-allism with their redesign. I was just dripping out of their poorly thought out, americentric, hover-over design. Just look at the way they designed for I's.
- rickmb 14y agoI think it's slightly ironic that you present the "know it all" complex as trait that hackers suffer from, given that the OP refers to a post made by a designer that is a prime example of such behavior. This trait is far from unique amongst hackers, and neither are the negative reactions to it.
- gyardley 14y agoI'm probably as guilty of this as anyone else. Perhaps we should all watch Derek Siver's "A Real Person, A Lot Like You" on a regular basis. https://vimeo.com/26110865 https://vimeo.com/26110865
- crgt 14y agoThanks for this. We get the occasional vitriol-lined customer feedback. Intellectually, you have to let it roll off. Emotionally, it's obviously more challenging...
- slurgfest 14y agoWithout knowing the details, it's entirely possible that some of that vitriol from customers has real signal value for your business and is ignored at your peril.
- debacle 14y agoIt was a poor design, that altered the UX in a significantly negative fashion due to a lack of understanding of what Wikipedia is. I'd be like someone doing a very swooshy automobile design, and then moving the clutch to the passenger's side, just for kicks. Also, in general I believe that hacker culture should tend towards cutting through the bullshit. You have no expectation of courtesy except for the courtesy of honesty on the Internet. Harsh criticism is the quickest way to let someone know they're doing the wrong thing, and the fastest way to get your point across.
- sime 14y agoWhile you would probably be naive to expect courtesy on the Internet, there is no reason not to offer it. It's no harder to write a courteous and constructive criticism than it is to write a harsh and mildly condescending one. The former can serve to foster creative discussion while the latter often kills it.
- debacle 14y agoThere's no point in creatively discussing a mound of shit.
- damoncali 14y agoIn that case, silence is a good option.
- unimpressive 14y agoNo it's not. If you're silent only the praise is represented in the discussion. If five people like it and a hundred more hate it, I'd like to hear from the latter crowd as much as or more than the former.
- antidaily 14y agoOk, I get it. You're just a dick.
- 14y ago
- wilfra 14y agoAnother disturbing trend I've noticed is upvoting and downvoting based simply upon whether or not you agree. A well-reasoned, polite and civil viewpoint that doesn't match your own should not be downvoted. The result of this is that people will not post viewpoints that differ from what they think the community will agree with. That doesn't help anybody. It causes groupthink and a hivemind mentality. Downvotes should be handed out to posts that do not contribute positively to the discussion, that are spam or trolling etc. Not to good faith comments you don't agree with.
- morisy 14y agoA lot of the strong feedback appeared to be a backlash to the perception that this was a marketing scheme dressed up as a public service suggestion. Offering an open letter of advice coupled with biting critique, rather than making a private offer, does strike a certain self-serving tone. While I generally love seeing how designers would, free of real-world constraints, re-imagine popular sites, maybe the authors didn't choose the best tone or format for their submission. That said, when I find myself typing something venomous (more often than warranted), I try to take a breath and delete. Worked for Lincoln: http://www.examiner.com/article/an-unsent-letter http://www.examiner.com/article/an-unsent-letter
- oinksoft 14y agoYes, there's been a trend recently of "I'm redesigning X, completely from scratch, because it needs it" with the implication that X's current design is badly in need of improvement. This is going to bring the designer both positive and negative attention, and deservedly so. Typically the redesign is radical and makes bold, often false assumptions about the product, which makes these posts seem particularly self-serving. I think that these designers could do just as good a job of demonstrating their creativity by using a fictitious brand (and possibly even drawing comparisons to known brands in the article). It is not classy to drag someone else's brand through the dirt.
- morisy 14y agoInteresting suggestion. I do really enjoy seeing creative individuals do unrequested design comps, but I think you hit the nail on the head: Don't drag someone else down to do it.
- rm999 14y ago>It is not classy to drag someone else's brand through the dirt Wikipedia is fairly democratic, they're open to redesign decisions if they work for the site and are free. See this response to the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2012_main_page_redesign_proposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2012_main_page_redes... Of all brands the designers could have chosen, Wikipedia may be one of the most appropriate.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- res0nat0r 14y agoI think it is because lately there are just more postings which are posted and voted up because they are emotional more than the fact that they have anything to do with the core topic(s) normally found on HN. As I mentioned in the other post yesterday about the NYTimes reporter being beaten there are more emotional posts now which are on the site just related to how bad big companies, government, the music industry, Google, Facebook, Craiglist and Hollywood is (this due to the PG Destory Hollywood post I'm sure). It seems there is more bandwagon jumping lately on hating anything which is big and makes a lot of money, so it is inherently bad (see every post about Craiglist this month). HN talk is usually about startups and small business, it seems to go against the ethos here about building businesses that somehow when you make a lot of money you are now 'the man' and must be destroyed, or at least give your hard earned work to new HN'ers startups to help them profit (information wants to be free and all), since that must the right thing to do. Is Square set to become the enemy soon due to their big deal they just signed with Starbucks?
- brudgers 14y agoHaving gone through design critiques in architecture school and presented designs to clients in practice, I would say that taken individually the specific comments were largely constructive criticism when I last read through the thread (yesterday evening) and that the discussions of the problems with designers were largely consistent with my experience in a design discipline. The project in general looked to me like the response to an academic design brief, and taken individually, the comments were largely consistent with the sorts of comments which might be made during a juried crit in a US architecture school. However and although piling on can occur in a juried crit, the pack mentality is constrained by time - unlike typing on the internet. On the other hand, nothing in the comments when I looked at them stood out as even close to the limit of what a paying client or one's boss might say during a design presentation or review. Tptacek's top comment might have been conveyed as a Jobsian "This is shit," and perhaps accompanied by a discussion of whether or not the designer should seriously consider ever reproducing. One factor I think led to the volume of comments is that unlike most "Show HN" threads, this one was not couched as an MVP (or in this case a minimum viable design), but as finished project. In other words, it wasn't "Here is the landing page with a new logo and a drop down menu for choosing the language," with changes to the editor left for version two. What I think contributed to a more visceral reaction among HN'ers is that the designer as hero approach feels at odds with the particular ethos of Wikipedia which is iterative and collaborative - particularly telling considering that audacity and heroism are among the common fetishes of HN. In my opinion, the level of criticism was not unusual for HN. I've read plenty of blunt responses (closer to "This is shit") on "Show HN:" threads. It was really the volume which was unusual, and that I attribute to the subject matter.
- throwaway-0 14y ago>This post is just an example of the latest trend of a new and unusually hostile HN. It's not a new trend, you're just starting to notice it. I've been coming to HN off and on for years. It has always been unpleasant. I get physically uncomfortable whenever I come back here. The community here is toxic. It's dressed up in the veneer of thoughtfulness, but it doesn't take a genius to identify the cultural attitudes, group-think and see how the detractors are treated. I got burned by my wrongheaded assumption that it actually was a place for reasoned discussion. Not gonna make that mistake again.
- autophil 14y agoActually, I lavished on praise for their brilliant redesign, but it turned out I was hellbanned and slowbanned for an earlier comment. My comment of praise never showed up. And that gets to the point of why people are hostile on HN: because the site administrators and moderators are hostile and hellban users for the most benign comments. Leaders and administrators set the tone. It all rolls downhill, as the saying goes. Oh, and my account will be hellbanned and my connection slowbanned yet again for speaking out. As per usual. TLDR: Look to the admins of the site. They have been setting the tone all along. That's where the hostility is originating from.
- tsahyt 14y agoI think this is largely a communication issue. I don't think people on here are inherently hostile, except for a few. Personally, I tend to chose rather strong words to get my point across. People who know me realize that I don't mean to insult anybody with this. It's just that I have strong opinions and try to emphasize them in discussions. You could call my discussion style harsh, but I'm really just trying to be as honest as I can and I don't care whether my wording is polite or politically correct or whatever, as long as it serves it's purpose. And there are quite a few people like myself. There's also an exact opposite of that: People who choose their words carefully in order to be polite and constructive. That's what you describe, if I understood you correctly. I personally think that most people here are constructive, no matter whether they're giving harsh responses or polite ones, because it's all feedback. It's part of the discussion. I think we (not just here on HN) shouldn't get caught up in social norms too much, as it only hinders the actual discussion. Words are just words and the way somebody tries to get a point across is a part of his character and others just have to accept that. But still, there's a line in the sand and that's ad hominem attacks. This is what can truly kill constructive communication and should be avoided in any community. However, just my 2 cents.
- mechanical_fish 14y agoThe designers took a big, unsolicited, passive-aggressive public dump on the design of Wikipedia – which is, for all its faults, undeniably a project that has attracted a million people to lavish love on it without pay – and now you profess astonishment that they got some harsh feedback? Perhaps tomorrow you'll profess astonishment when someone walks into Yankee Stadium wearing a Red Sox shirt and uses the PA system to "objectively" redesign the Yankee pinstripes to "be more functional, more useful, more pleasing to the eye"? Oh, lordy, lordy, who could have predicted the harsh language in response? I thought New York was a civilized town! If the designers had actually wanted to improve Wikipedia, the correct strategy is to start small and modestly, and aim the pitch at the decision makers - presumably Wikipedia has a design committee? - not the entire Internet. You suggest ideas one or two at a time and collect feedback as you go, not merely because you care what the customer thinks - you do, right? - but because you're trying to get them to feel invested in the new product instead of clinging reflexively to the old. People don't see designs objectively; that's an artist's special power. The see designs like they see puppies. If a strange puppy walks in and starts fighting with my puppy I'll call Animal Control and have it dragged away in a cage. But if my new puppy chews the furniture, I might scold him, but I probably won't disown the little rascal. The secret is to introduce the small, cute, innocent little puppy to the customer and have it be petted for a while before you let it soil the old rug, drive the customer's other pets insane, and run up vet bills.
- dalore 14y agoTo use your metaphor, walking into the Yankee Stadium and using their PA would be akin to this person putting the new design up on Wikipedia, like on a talk page or linking to it from Wikipedia's entry on Wikipedia. No, the person put their new design up on a totally separate website. He didn't say that Wikipedia has to change, it was merely just his design idea that he wanted to share with the world. Yes, if he actually wanted Wikipedia to change there is a process of contacting Wikipedia and going through the whole bureaucratic process but I think it was more of a show what's possible. Kind of like that design project that was on HN a while back showing a possible rebranding of Microsoft. I may be in the minority here but I don't believe it warranted such harsh criticism.
- bookworm97 14y agoHere's why the comments from any post are almost always negative. People generally read posts with a judgmental/critical eye, like they are better than the poster/author, which they are not. (will someone from the comments come up with a design that's better than the original post? NO, NOBODY WILL because the people critiquing aren't better, they are just pontificating for ego boosts) They are looking for flaws purposely to devalue the post. This boosts their ego and convinces them that they actually have some design skill. It feeds their insecurity. There is no humility here. Everyone comes from a place of either jealousy or egotism. But this is american culture. In Asian cultures, people are much more humble. Here people are insecure so when they see something that threatens them to evaluate their skills, they attack.
- rickmb 14y agoI hope you can think of better examples. I hadn't seen the post you mentioned, but the whole thing was so dripping in arrogance and a complete disdain for Wikipedia and its international users and contributors it is begging to get panned. Basically, it is the original post that is not constructive to the point of being hostile. There is very little "polite" about it. Maybe it should have been ignored rather than reacted to, but this kind of thing would provoke a negative response anywhere. Also, I suspect the whole scenario of arrogant designers presenting a design that completely ignores the needs and identity of the client and the audience, interspersed with arrogant statement declaring their own superiority is not entirely unfamiliar to many here. At least my first reaction was "oh great, that again". This is not a way to start an friendly open discussion or get constructive criticism. It's a provocation, which is also a perfectly valid way to start a debate, but it does set the tone.
- armored_mammal 14y agoI think the wikipedia post is a great example. I love wikipedia, but it is poorly designed. In fact, there has recently been speculation that the decline in new editors is due to wikipedia being too arcane, particularly on the edit side. Despite its popularity, I can't see how that basic notion is even controversial. Meanwhile, somebody comes up with a redesign mockup and it's the end of the world because 1 page (out of ~ a dozen) doesn't make it easy enough for people to switch to the right language version? Anyway, I'm not sure about 'all the hostility,' but I agree that thread was a little weird. I expected HN types to maybe not be thrilled with that redesign, but at least agree that wikipedia needs one.
- chc 14y agoNone of the criticism was of the flavor "Wikipedia must not be redesigned." The hate was directed toward the actual redesign presented there, not the general idea of a different design.
- yequalsx 14y agoI too was surprised by the comments. I thought the post was nice. It demonstrated their process for coming up with a new logo. It showed their thought process. It gave me an insight into how such things are done. An insight I didn't previously possess. A number of the comments to the redesign rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't down vote any of the comments but I didn't like tenor of them. I did like their redesign though so this may skew my perception. I don't like Wikipedia's landing page. It's quite frustrating to me.
- nekopa 14y agoHN seems to focus a lot on execution. I want to say that I think it would have been better received if they had just taken the wikipedia full content download, taken a small subset of the data and actually just built the redesign as a live site with all of their proposed features. Then we could have just tried the original, the new, and see what really did or didn't work. As a side benefit, the designers themselves while doing this would also have made lots of adjustments going through this process and probably would have fended off a lot of the caustic comments. Plus, if they actually had access to coders who could take a full image of wikipedia, div it up and refactor it to a db, then wpredesigned.com could actually run as a real site, with hourly updates from wikipedia merged in automatically.
- cutie 14y ago> "rubbish; passive-aggressive dump" Many here were jealous someone had the nerve to redesign their precious wikipedia and lashed out at the poor sap who dared stuck his neck out. It may not have been perfect, but what project of that size could be? A few things on the page looked like an upgrade to me. The appropriate reaction should have been, "interesting, meh," rather than ugly comments. "...no one ever kicks a dead dog." --Dale Carnegie http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/stop-worry.html#six http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/stop-worry.html...
- jessedhillon 14y agoRecurring rationale I've noticed in this conversation: If nobody harshly slams this, they might think they're good designers. The designers are so arrogant, thinking they could redesign such an important website. Harsh feedback makes you better. -- First, I have never encountered anyone important (to me) who cared what HN thought, or even rethought their opinions after reading HN slam something. I've only heard people talking about HN as a source of news, not as a relevant gauge of anything, and certainly not to reconsider if one is right or wrong. Frankly, nobody ever should pause and reconsider what they are doing because of HN's sentiment; at this point it's still better than some random forum, you get a lot of useful links and facts, but the critiques are totally worthless. People rarely try to be helpful here, it's just a positive feedback loop of nerds trying to show that they have more refined taste, more nuanced discernment, or a bigger mouth than the nerd before him.