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That's because finding out the mistakes in OP is one of the biggest benefits of the public comment section. Let's say I read a post about how NEW-TECH is so muc

by theamk 1y ago

That's because finding out the mistakes in OP is one of the biggest benefits of the public comment section. Let's say I read a post about how NEW-TECH is so much better that the current state of the art. I may now be convinced to try it, but how do I know what's written in OP is not omitting serious downsides? That's where the HN (and other fora) comes in: read the comments and see if there are any problems with it. And according to the golden rule, this means I should also focus on negative comments. If someone told me an important NEW-TECH-1 downside in the past, and I see NEW-TECH-2 and I know its downside (maybe because I had to try it at work, maybe because I am an expert in the area), then I better hop in and post that. Positive experiences are also useful, but they feel redundant: after all, if OP is positive about NEW-TECH, it likely already mentions all the good things already. (note that "OP" is original post, not original poster. Arguing against people on internet is almost always a bad idea. Arguing against specific posts is much better.)

Karrot_Kream 1y ago
The thing is, if I'm looking for how something is wrong, I'm looking for substantive criticism. If someone says something like "yeah okay great system design but only BILLIONAIRES are going to be using this so late stage capitalism <insert rant on inequality here>" then that's not really substantive it's more of a rant by the author disguised as criticism. When a culture of criticism and negativity sets in you get a lot more of these rant-forms of tangential criticism than substantive criticism because it's much easier to write unsubstantive criticism than substantive criticism. Couple this with a tendency for folks to comment on titles rather than articles and you can get a ton of negativity slop all written in less time than it takes to read the article. It's a fine line. A culture too positive and you get shills and "+1 that looks great" repeated endlessly. A culture too negative and you get tangential rants disguised as criticism.

by theamk 1y ago

Karrot_Kream 1y ago

The thing is, if I'm looking for how something is wrong, I'm looking for substantive criticism. If someone says something like "yeah okay great system design but only BILLIONAIRES are going to be using this so late stage capitalism <insert rant on inequality here>" then that's not really substantive it's more of a rant by the author disguised as criticism. When a culture of criticism and negativity sets in you get a lot more of these rant-forms of tangential criticism than substantive criticism because it's much easier to write unsubstantive criticism than substantive criticism. Couple this with a tendency for folks to comment on titles rather than articles and you can get a ton of negativity slop all written in less time than it takes to read the article. It's a fine line. A culture too positive and you get shills and "+1 that looks great" repeated endlessly. A culture too negative and you get tangential rants disguised as criticism.