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I think meanness in service to a larger cause, ie a site's quality, as opposed to just an arguing tactic, is a good thing. I used to hang out at K5 (when it had
by queensnake 18y ago
I think meanness in service to a larger cause, ie a site's quality, as opposed to just an arguing tactic, is a good thing. I used to hang out at K5 (when it had traffic) where one finds that meanness to dummies is quite effective at shutting them up. Shutting up dummies is the #1 thing to preserve a site's quality. High quality comments is a fragile thing, imo too rare to ruin with squeamishness about people's feelings. There's a threshold of tolerating bad comments past which you can't do anything anymore (eg, Reddit).
- russell 18y agoI disagree for the most part. HN is a pretty polite place and I prefer it remain so. There are very few trolls that need piling on. Some dummies just need elightenment. http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/ guides me.
- Xichekolas 18y agoI'm not against meanness in defense of people's feelings, I'm against it because the only outcome is starting a feud or feeding a troll. Being mean directly degrades a site's quality... in no way does it preserve it. When you say something mean, even to a troll, you become part of the problem.
- queensnake 18y agoIn the short term. In the long term, a witty or angry putdown is quicker, conveys more information and gets its point across more deeply than politeness and downmodding. imo.