8 ms·

Nerds, we need to have a talk (2011)

136 points by roguecoder 13y ago

jayflux 13y ago
You can't really compare skate-boarding critics to 'nerds' behind a screen. For 1, the reason we have so much of this is because of the anonymity of it all. It's quite easy to criticise others in an abusive manner when nobody/barely anybody knows who you are. In real life that wouldn't happen to such a degree.
- akoncius 13y ago
  but why this is happening? why people have that trait of behaving like this when they are confident about anonymity? probably it's consequence of problems in teenage-hood, or something. and adding to this topic, i'm also curious about reasons why people are 'trolling', especially when their 'trolling' is offensive, angry. and i have no clue what causes that behavior..
  - unlucky 13y ago
    Boredom is a huge source of trolling. Watching someone else's over-reaction is a very easy source of entertainment. Reality TV is a great example of this.
  - shocks 13y ago
    Perhaps, but give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.
  - Millennium 13y ago
    Actually, the bit about being a jerk behind anonymity isn't particular to nerds: studies show it cutting across pretty much all walks of life. That doesn't excuse the nerds, but it does mean that examining the problem in the context of nerds alone probably isn't very useful. Nobody is immune, and as it turns out, nerds are not especially susceptible. Whatever causes this, it speaks to something much more universal than nerddom.
  - digitalengineer 13y ago
    In a way I suppose because it's easy. A lot of people are unsure of themselves and feel better after they tell someone else just how dumb he is. The thought is: "Gee, I 'm not so dumb, just look at that guy!" Most designers I know tend to be unsure deep inside. Nerds? Could be just the same.
  - randomdata 13y ago
    Is it anonymity, or is it the venue? As I type this I do not particularly feel like I am talking directly to you, rather leaving a mark for future readers to stumble upon, so to speak, under the context you have set. I am thinking about what other people would want to read, not how you personally might feel about what I say. I expect that leads to things said that would not be said if I were speaking directly to you, such as in an email, for instance. I don't know if that fully explains offensive and angry posts, but that could simply be a matter of someone having a bad day and wanting the world to know it.
shinykitten 13y ago
Honestly I can't relate to this at all. Most of the people I work with (professionally and personally) are perpetually self-critical despite being very intelligent and more than capable. The humility comes from growth over time and being able to remember doing work they'd consider terribly flawed today. If you're working with arrogant people, they're probably not growing and it'll make it harder for you to as well.
- jradakov 13y ago
  I took it to be more about nerds online. I haven't met too many people face to face that are even a tenth as rude as 90% of the people I see online. Of course, I arbitrarily picked those numbers. I'm going to point that out before I get flamed.
  - mtowle 13y ago
    Damn, we were shooting for 20x as rude - algorithm must be on the fritz again. Have you been going online less frequently as of late? Your input matters to us! botbully.JoSh uses your grievances to better pinpoint and exploit your areas of weakness over time.
  - RougeFemme 13y ago
    Louis CK touched upon this in his "Oh MY God" show on HBO. Empirically speaking, people tend to act with less accountability when they're inside of cars, behind protective barriers, including the internet.
    - mtowle 13y ago
      "No Such Thing as Elevator Rage" NOSTER. Coined and minted - because nerds are overly acronym-shy, I think
daurnimator 13y ago
I like it to a degree, the 'geek' culture (how I hate typing that) cuts through bullshit faster than others. I don't mind being insulted if it comes with a helpful suggestion. I LOVE IRC channels where you get the answers: "You're shit for asking that question, but the answer is X".
- methehack 13y ago
  In general, I find that if the conversation stays civil, the topic retains the spotlight and is not overshadowed by personalities and hurt feelings. In other words, IME, you can 'cut through the bullshit' w/o being a dick and you'll achieve better outcomes. Plus, you won't be a dick.
  - asperous 13y ago
    Yeah, I don't mind some heavy criticism at all when it's deserved-- but not everyone can take critism as well. I don't know if this is true, but the stereotype of geeks is that they lack "emotional intelligence". I think it's important to recognize the people we talk to on irc, news lists, etc. are people too and it's important to be truthful & helpful, not just needlessly hurtful.
  - Millennium 13y ago
    That works sometimes, even many times. However, it assumes good-faith, rational, and informed discussion: three qualifications that do not always apply. When they don't, civil discourse breaks down into precisely the sort of thing that needs to be cut through. It can easily be argued that nerd culture takes this too far, reaching for the metaphorical cutting blade long before it is truly necessary. I'd agree with that statement, in fact. But nerd culture's refusal to treat it as a non-option is one of the major reasons we've proven so effective at getting things done and, in so doing, effecting change. Is this dickish? Sometimes, yes; even often. That doesn't mean it's never appropriate.
bzink 13y ago
"If there spelling or grammar is off, just let it go." On purpose? :)
- jcoder 13y ago
  You failed the test.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  their, not there.... Oh wait...
tenpoundhammer 13y ago
I totally agree, there is always room for constructive criticism, but it should be tempered with a soft hand and helpful suggestions. As a person who was picked on most of my life, it's pretty disheartening to endure the same thing inside a group I consider my community.
methehack 13y ago
I'm glad the OP brought this up and I think its an important topic for the HN 'community'. Innovation loves support. When innovation is supported, you get more innovation. On several occasions, I've seen a poor soul post a project on here that represents a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. There will be enthusiastic support, constructive criticism, and often too many haters. I'd love it if the haters left -- maybe all head off to hate picnic or something where they can spit pickles at each other. Perhaps a basic issue is that people say things in online commentary that they wouldn't say face to face. I think that's fundamentally wrong and mostly accidental -- a result of people's cognitive models not catching up to what's actually happening. Thanks for listening :)
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >Innovation loves support. When innovation is supported, you get more innovation. The same thing can be said for mediocrity and outright regressions. >people say things in online commentary that they wouldn't say face to face. This is definitely often true, but not usually. I'm nicer online than I am in person, because in person I can smile, apologize, and make goofy faces to blunt honest criticism. Online, all I have is smileys and exclamation points, which make you read like a wide-eyed idiot, but don't always make you read like a nice wide-eyed idiot:)
squozzer 13y ago
Nerds generally aren't any more mature than jocks. We just don't fight as well, so we (wisely) keep quiet in situations where the risk of eating a knuckle sammich is high.
tiredofcareer 13y ago
The appropriateness of this showing up on Hacker News, the Internet's favorite dream killer in Show HN threads and perpetual contest to see who can be most correct in comments, should be lost upon no one. If you participate here -- myself included -- this is a message to heed.
jsavimbi 13y ago
> be more like my [imaginary] friend Steve ftfy.
mylons 13y ago
my favorite example of this is asking a question that outs you as a total noob in #C++ on freenode.
stonn_y 13y ago
In my day, the internet was for porn. Now it's for porn AND self-righteous lectures about how many hugs everyone deserves because they're an 'innovator' or 'female' or 'lgbt' or 'autistic.'
- tiredofcareer 13y ago
  Welcome to HN. I'd rate that troll 2/10, as it was a pretty obvious troll for a community of smart people. Hopefully nobody here would bite on something so obvious; that might have worked better on Reddit. (You should go back.)
dsowers 13y ago
I agree. I think the worst of HN comes out whenever anyone submits a personal blog post. If you read the comments for ANY blog post submitted, you will see how it has become a giant game to discredit everything the author says. I think it's good to be skeptical, and as nerds we have plenty of skepticism to go around, but there are ways to be do it with a little more taste and respect. I've been looking at some of the profiles of the main cynics I see time and time again and they have like 6000 karma, but only 3 submissions in their entire lives. Crazy to think they just get all of that karma from tearing down other people's work while not creating anything themselves.
- dacilselig 13y ago
  So perhaps, the design of Hacker news itself (or point-based systems) reinforces the cynicism that exists in most of the posts you are referring to.
kstenerud 13y ago
In other news, nerds are human, and posture and bully and jockey for recognition like all humans do.
- bdowney 13y ago
  My sentiments exactly. I've met plenty of condescending assholes at Google but them being geeks was not the reason why they behaved like jerks.
minamea 13y ago
From reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, I think it boils down to self importance. We like to put others down because it makes us feel more important. If you recognize and let go of that desire as the book tells you to do, you can use the phenomenon to your advantage instead, and you learn that making others feel important makes you win them over.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
AznHisoka 13y ago
"(And yes, I realize that this post is super-critical. How meta)" Protip: just because you realize the irony of your post doesn't excuse you from being part of the problem as well.
mtp0101 13y ago
This post is extremely stupid. What is this, the first grade? If you can't take honest criticism, you suck. If you think computer technology is full of mean people, try working in finance. My peers don't hesitate to give me honest criticism and that's one of the things I like most about CS. Maybe you should start your own company called "we should be super nice to each other all the time" and have your product be an email subscription service where your clients receive affirmations like "you are a skilled person with value and you have a cute chin" along with some heart graphics and sound effects.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  If you think computer technology is full of mean people, try working in finance. Finance: saying "you fucked up" means "I respect you enough to offer honest criticism, and here's what you did that I don't like." Tech startup: saying "you're awesome" means "I'd slit your throat for a 0.05%[0] more in equity. You're awesome because I'll get promoted at your expense." [0] A nickel. As in, Shadow from FF6 and "He'd slit his mama's throat for..."
- LnxPrgr3 13y ago
  Can't we give honest feedback without going into an epic fit of nerd rage over it? Besides, the worst fights I see among programmers are over trivial matters of opinion anyway. Ever seen people fight over indentation styles, or the proper way to merge upstream changes into a local git repository, or whether functional or object-oriented programming is the One True Way? The anger in these debates isn't teaching anyone a damn thing, except that the color of someone else's bike shed is really, really important to some people.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Honest feedback: 1) "I really didn't like the way you did X. It broke Y on my browser, $Browser." 2) "Oh god, why did you chose to do this like this? It's broken and stupid" I hope that people don't nerd rage after (1). I guess they might, and if they do that's a problem.
rational_indian 13y ago
What do you think about stackoverflow.com?
- usr 13y ago
  As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. Though in all seriousness, I've seen closed questions provide a lot of good information on something in their answers despite people feeling the question wasn't a good fit. In some ways it's like closing a question is a form of what the article is talking about, though I do understand the need for those rules on there.
Udo 13y ago
The worst thing that can happen to a Show HN post is people totally ignoring it. When I post something of my own here, I expect a certain amount of honesty and criticism, as long as it is constructive. Being "constructive" does not mean being congratulatory, shoulder-patting, praising, or anything like that. It means that the feedback itself should provide some kind of value, preferably for the benefit of the project creator. "What's the points of this? I've been doing the same thing since the 80s by piping four shell commands together?!?" - is not really constructive. I think using the slightly formulaic "What I liked: X; What could be improved: Y" has a high chance of being constructive feedback. Meta discussions can also be OK. The infamous "does the world really need another X", almost invariably deserves the answer "yes, why not?". Letting people know you are unlikely to use the code/product/gizmo is also constructive, especially if you can manage to tell why. As the article stated, comments in the form of "Y U MD5 STOOPID" is never OK and generally don't do anything to raise the level of the discourse. As a general guideline, comments designed to make the commenter look good or smart or superior do not usually improve the quality of the discussion, even though mods sometimes tend to reward this behavior for some reason. They shouldn't.
- tene 13y ago
  > "What's the points of this? I've been doing the same thing since the 80s by piping four shell commands together?!?" - is not really constructive. > Letting people know you are unlikely to use the code/product/gizmo is also constructive, especially if you can manage to tell why. By my reading, these two statements contradict each other. The quote you claim is not constructive seems to me to be saying the author sees no value in the hypothetical contribution, as it offers no additional power and less convenience than what he already uses, and therefore he won't be using it. Isn't that exactly what say is constructive in the second statement I quoted? If I'm misunderstanding you here, can you explain what I'm missing?
  - Udo 13y ago
    That first example was from a specific thread that actually happened when someone made a command-line tool, and the whole discussion was incredibly unproductive and full of "look at me, I solved this eons ago, this developer sucks" messages. You're probably right there is a fine line between those two, but they are not identical. It's the difference between saying why you wouldn't necessarily use something on the one hand, and showing off while berating someone on the other. Asserting that a project's existence is unjustified is a bold and unfriendly claim. Saying that it's simly not for you is another matter entirely.
skrebbel 13y ago
Seriously, America is going to drown in shoulder-patting and hooray cheering. This taboo on negative opinions is ridiculous. We're teaching entire generations that we cannot fail as long as we try hard enough, and that it's the attempt that counts. Seriously, screw that. It is a vital skill to be able to filter through feedback, take the useful parts to heart, and shrug about low, nasty, useless comments. To learn from mistakes and do better next time. Why is that bad? Sure, we should attempt to stop the low/nasty/useless feedback, but that's not so clear cut as we'd like it to be. Until we figure out a clear line, I'd prefer honest (and sometimes nasty) feedback over a culture of non-stop shoulder patting.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Like when the housing bubble popped and the market crashed; the first response: "Ban shorting!"
- amykhar 13y ago
  I don't think the article was seeking shoulder patting. Just a helpful spirit and some manners.
- codegeek 13y ago
  "....it's the attempt that counts. Seriously, screw that." "To learn from mistakes and do better next time. Why is that bad?" You said both things. Attempting does not mean you will always succeed. You could still fail but it does matter that you tried. And sure, you learn from mistakes and do better. So I would say that don't screw the attempting part. Also, you are probably being a little hard on this post by saying "shoulder patting".
- jquery 13y ago
  I come to HN precisely because the comments are incisive and questioning. It's a breath of fresh air and trains me to analyze ideas more effectively. If that makes me an "anti-social curmudgeon" by society's capricious standards, then so be it.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > I'd prefer honest (and sometimes nasty) feedback over a culture of non-stop shoulder patting. No one is suggesting a never ending hug fest of positive comments. But criticism should be constructive. You might not care that all feedback is on the level of idiotic YouTube comments, but that's a toxic environment and it's causing harm to the Internet. A bunch of projects would have more volunteers if they weren't such hateful environments.
ktf 13y ago
It's interesting to me that the Hacker School "rules" post, that essentially boiled down to the same thing (Don't Be a Jerk), is filled with positive comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5639430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5639430 While this one is full of people attacking the guy, basically proving his point.
graeme 13y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322696 (I feel older now to realize I've been on here for two years, long enough to remember the previous submission)
- mtowle 13y ago
  Care to comment on whether internet nerds have gotten nicer or meaner since 2011?
  - graeme 13y ago
    Not a clue.
axelfreeman 13y ago
I have a german blog who totally pushes this attitude forwards. It's called 1337core.de. A self-irony netculture blog. It is much about hacking, script kiddies, anonymous, fail netpolitics. Kind of stupid but my stupid thing. But seriously i think this problem comes from the lag, that we don't see the people we are talking about in front of us. It's just a device. No feelings. We hate in this machine and get no direct feedback. We have to learn that the people we are flaming about are living in this world and can propably read it. I have made this mistake a couple of times but i learned and use it alone for joking. If you want to understand this problem you have to understand psychology, the interface-feedback-problem and group dynamic.
dasil003 13y ago
Honestly I think this is just the impression one gets because nerds do more of everything online combined with the fact that they tend to know a lot about specific things. Look, there are absolutely a lot of asshole nerds out there. A lot of guys who went through hell in high school and turned into comic book guy as a defense mechanism and just never grew up (a lot of people from all walks of life never grow up). Okay, but I don't think those people are representative of geek communities. I think by and large criticism is constructive and nerds are supportive of beginners. Maybe we don't sugarcoat things as much as would be to some people's taste, but that's not an asshole quality in and of itself. Rather I think the impression comes from the fact that it's hard to ignore assholes, and there are always going to be a number of them in any large community. People say HN is overly critical, but I think if you look carefully most of critical posts are actually fairly even-handed and not overtly mean; but if you have 20 of them all coming from different angles, and you sprinkle it with a few true asshole remarks, the resulting impression can be quite harsh.
relaxitup 13y ago
Ironically, I actually found his entire post to be a bit on the abrasive side.
michaelochurch 13y ago
First of all, I don't think constructive criticism and frank incivility belong in the same bucket. One is a good thing about us. The other is a negative. However, if we want to restore our tribal integrity, we can't let management play us against each other so easily. There are so many conflicts that look technical but are actually cases where management deliberately played tech people against each other (usually, to create a sense of competition on work hours, dedication, et al). Most engineers lack the social skills to perceive when this is happening. One thing about business people: they constantly talk each other up. Even if they don't like each other, they say good things about one another. It's game theory. They know the difference between luke-warm and real praise, but everyone else thinks The Manager is in good standing (and therefore stays in line). They get themselves to a state where not saying something positive about someone is a damnation. They can dog-whistle by criticizing a member of their tribe within it, but in a way that outsiders don't recognize, allowing them to keep a unified front. On our over-honesty, there's one case I know about where an engineer was leapfrog promoted to top management and had a lot of non-engineering reports. They had a performance review system where 5 (out of 9) was nominally average, but everyone came in between 7.5 and 9.0. He gave a lot of 6's and 7's thinking he was giving honest ratings (because no one looked at the perf numbers for IT, reviews he'd written in the past had no effect) but it ended up making a huge mess when HR wanted to put two-thirds of his team on PIPs. He reacted by changing everyone's rating to a 9.0 and giving honest feedback verbally, which is how it should be done. I feel like we need a similar "understanding" with each other. To other engineers and technologists, we give blunt and honest feedback. But we need to stop the cannibalism. To management and HR, we take a strict attitude of praising other engineers (whether we think they deserve it or not). We should never narc each other out.
- yuhong 13y ago
  I'd consider it only a workaround.
- kyllo 13y ago
  Yeah, this is really an extension of "praise in public, criticize in private," which is one of the golden rules of good management. Non-tech management understands this concept better than tech management, perhaps.
wrs 13y ago
I agree with the premise of not being gratuitously nasty. But I wish he hadn't made it sound like all programming is as consequence-free as skateboarding. If you're programming as a hobby, it doesn't affect anyone but yourself. I totally support your using Arduinos until you figure out you can build one yourself in 5 minutes on a breadboard. If you're programming professionally, the rules change. It's not all about supporting your personal learning experience. If you use simple hashing instead of bcrypt, and you have real users, you are potentially hurting people. It is literally true that if you don't know better than that, you should not programming a computer (well, programming an authentication system, anyway). So yeah, don't be nasty. But also don't think your self-esteem is more important than doing a good job.
- SoftwareMaven 13y ago
  Nobody is saying "don't do a good job" or even "accept sub-standard work". They're saying act more like a mentor than a critic. Mentors don't tear their pupils down, because you can't teach in that environment. Help people become better; don't stroke your ego at others' expense.
shaddyz 13y ago
I think the hacker community, just like any creative community, suffers from a bit too much evangelism and misdirected nerd rage. It's important that we understand our common goals and keep those in mind as we interact with each other. What are these goals? For me... - learning how to solve real-world problems using software - sharing ideas and reflecting my perspective in the conversation - understanding how others think about SW topics, more learning - criticizing decisions in order to improve my critical thinking skills and knowledge - getting feedback from my own ideas to see how well they stand up I realize that some of these are somewhat redundant, but I feel they differ in nuance. In general it is about _improvement_. Also, some people are just way too sensitive and need to realize that an attack on one's idea is not an attack on oneself. I have general respect for all people, but I might think your idea is stupid. The best thing we can do is make sure we do our best to absorb hostility and respond with objectivity.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
The first place I worked at had this same issue of developers discrediting other people's code. It was an incredible "alpha-male" syndrome to witness. Then this same group of developers would brag about all the stuff they were working on outside of work. The ongoing pissing contest almost made me quit my job as a developer. Don't kid yourself, Nerds and Geeks are just as competitive and nasty as jocks are.
pnathan 13y ago
There is a lot of stupid out there. It needs to be called out. On the other hand, things can appear stupid due to internal logic and constraints not obvious to the uninitiated. It's good to bear that in mind when reading things.
nickevans 13y ago
Totally agree. Makes me think of this blog post I read recently where the writer basically generalizes an entire culture of people into a whiny group of people that spend too much of their time complaining about and criticizing other members of that group.
mickeyr 13y ago
"...somebody has sed..." What an idiot! You should give up on blogging if you don't know the right word is "said"!
cwbrandsma 13y ago
This isn't a "nerd" issue. And it is a fallacy to believe nerds should act better because we are nerds and live in a vacuum of only dealing with other nerds. The idea should be that we are the only ones acting this way (and no one else does), or that we are better than everyone else. The negative behavior is actually TAUGHT, and taught early on. This is how everyone in the western world is taught to debate opinions. Look at any high school debate club, political debates, and any other televised debate. The behavior starts there. As a society, people are not taught to be civil when dealing with disagreements. There is just an inherent "You are completely with me and my friend, or we are enemies".

136 points by roguecoder 13y ago

You can't really compare skate-boarding critics to 'nerds' behind a screen. For 1, the reason we have so much of this is because of the anonymity of it all. It's quite easy to criticise others in an abusive manner when nobody/barely anybody knows who you are. In real life that wouldn't happen to such a degree.

akoncius 13y ago
but why this is happening? why people have that trait of behaving like this when they are confident about anonymity? probably it's consequence of problems in teenage-hood, or something. and adding to this topic, i'm also curious about reasons why people are 'trolling', especially when their 'trolling' is offensive, angry. and i have no clue what causes that behavior..
- unlucky 13y ago
  Boredom is a huge source of trolling. Watching someone else's over-reaction is a very easy source of entertainment. Reality TV is a great example of this.
- shocks 13y ago
  Perhaps, but give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.
- Millennium 13y ago
  Actually, the bit about being a jerk behind anonymity isn't particular to nerds: studies show it cutting across pretty much all walks of life. That doesn't excuse the nerds, but it does mean that examining the problem in the context of nerds alone probably isn't very useful. Nobody is immune, and as it turns out, nerds are not especially susceptible. Whatever causes this, it speaks to something much more universal than nerddom.
- digitalengineer 13y ago
  In a way I suppose because it's easy. A lot of people are unsure of themselves and feel better after they tell someone else just how dumb he is. The thought is: "Gee, I 'm not so dumb, just look at that guy!" Most designers I know tend to be unsure deep inside. Nerds? Could be just the same.
- randomdata 13y ago
  Is it anonymity, or is it the venue? As I type this I do not particularly feel like I am talking directly to you, rather leaving a mark for future readers to stumble upon, so to speak, under the context you have set. I am thinking about what other people would want to read, not how you personally might feel about what I say. I expect that leads to things said that would not be said if I were speaking directly to you, such as in an email, for instance. I don't know if that fully explains offensive and angry posts, but that could simply be a matter of someone having a bad day and wanting the world to know it.

shinykitten 13y ago

Honestly I can't relate to this at all. Most of the people I work with (professionally and personally) are perpetually self-critical despite being very intelligent and more than capable. The humility comes from growth over time and being able to remember doing work they'd consider terribly flawed today. If you're working with arrogant people, they're probably not growing and it'll make it harder for you to as well.

jradakov 13y ago
I took it to be more about nerds online. I haven't met too many people face to face that are even a tenth as rude as 90% of the people I see online. Of course, I arbitrarily picked those numbers. I'm going to point that out before I get flamed.
- mtowle 13y ago
  Damn, we were shooting for 20x as rude - algorithm must be on the fritz again. Have you been going online less frequently as of late? Your input matters to us! botbully.JoSh uses your grievances to better pinpoint and exploit your areas of weakness over time.
- RougeFemme 13y ago
  Louis CK touched upon this in his "Oh MY God" show on HBO. Empirically speaking, people tend to act with less accountability when they're inside of cars, behind protective barriers, including the internet.
  - mtowle 13y ago
    "No Such Thing as Elevator Rage" NOSTER. Coined and minted - because nerds are overly acronym-shy, I think

daurnimator 13y ago

I like it to a degree, the 'geek' culture (how I hate typing that) cuts through bullshit faster than others. I don't mind being insulted if it comes with a helpful suggestion. I LOVE IRC channels where you get the answers: "You're shit for asking that question, but the answer is X".

methehack 13y ago
In general, I find that if the conversation stays civil, the topic retains the spotlight and is not overshadowed by personalities and hurt feelings. In other words, IME, you can 'cut through the bullshit' w/o being a dick and you'll achieve better outcomes. Plus, you won't be a dick.
- asperous 13y ago
  Yeah, I don't mind some heavy criticism at all when it's deserved-- but not everyone can take critism as well. I don't know if this is true, but the stereotype of geeks is that they lack "emotional intelligence". I think it's important to recognize the people we talk to on irc, news lists, etc. are people too and it's important to be truthful & helpful, not just needlessly hurtful.
- Millennium 13y ago
  That works sometimes, even many times. However, it assumes good-faith, rational, and informed discussion: three qualifications that do not always apply. When they don't, civil discourse breaks down into precisely the sort of thing that needs to be cut through. It can easily be argued that nerd culture takes this too far, reaching for the metaphorical cutting blade long before it is truly necessary. I'd agree with that statement, in fact. But nerd culture's refusal to treat it as a non-option is one of the major reasons we've proven so effective at getting things done and, in so doing, effecting change. Is this dickish? Sometimes, yes; even often. That doesn't mean it's never appropriate.

bzink 13y ago

"If there spelling or grammar is off, just let it go." On purpose? :)

jcoder 13y ago
You failed the test.
chris_mahan 13y ago
their, not there.... Oh wait...

tenpoundhammer 13y ago

I totally agree, there is always room for constructive criticism, but it should be tempered with a soft hand and helpful suggestions. As a person who was picked on most of my life, it's pretty disheartening to endure the same thing inside a group I consider my community.

methehack 13y ago

I'm glad the OP brought this up and I think its an important topic for the HN 'community'. Innovation loves support. When innovation is supported, you get more innovation. On several occasions, I've seen a poor soul post a project on here that represents a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. There will be enthusiastic support, constructive criticism, and often too many haters. I'd love it if the haters left -- maybe all head off to hate picnic or something where they can spit pickles at each other. Perhaps a basic issue is that people say things in online commentary that they wouldn't say face to face. I think that's fundamentally wrong and mostly accidental -- a result of people's cognitive models not catching up to what's actually happening. Thanks for listening :)

pessimizer 13y ago
>Innovation loves support. When innovation is supported, you get more innovation. The same thing can be said for mediocrity and outright regressions. >people say things in online commentary that they wouldn't say face to face. This is definitely often true, but not usually. I'm nicer online than I am in person, because in person I can smile, apologize, and make goofy faces to blunt honest criticism. Online, all I have is smileys and exclamation points, which make you read like a wide-eyed idiot, but don't always make you read like a nice wide-eyed idiot:)

squozzer 13y ago

Nerds generally aren't any more mature than jocks. We just don't fight as well, so we (wisely) keep quiet in situations where the risk of eating a knuckle sammich is high.

tiredofcareer 13y ago

The appropriateness of this showing up on Hacker News, the Internet's favorite dream killer in Show HN threads and perpetual contest to see who can be most correct in comments, should be lost upon no one. If you participate here -- myself included -- this is a message to heed.

jsavimbi 13y ago

> be more like my [imaginary] friend Steve ftfy.

mylons 13y ago

my favorite example of this is asking a question that outs you as a total noob in #C++ on freenode.

stonn_y 13y ago

In my day, the internet was for porn. Now it's for porn AND self-righteous lectures about how many hugs everyone deserves because they're an 'innovator' or 'female' or 'lgbt' or 'autistic.'

tiredofcareer 13y ago
Welcome to HN. I'd rate that troll 2/10, as it was a pretty obvious troll for a community of smart people. Hopefully nobody here would bite on something so obvious; that might have worked better on Reddit. (You should go back.)

dsowers 13y ago

I agree. I think the worst of HN comes out whenever anyone submits a personal blog post. If you read the comments for ANY blog post submitted, you will see how it has become a giant game to discredit everything the author says. I think it's good to be skeptical, and as nerds we have plenty of skepticism to go around, but there are ways to be do it with a little more taste and respect. I've been looking at some of the profiles of the main cynics I see time and time again and they have like 6000 karma, but only 3 submissions in their entire lives. Crazy to think they just get all of that karma from tearing down other people's work while not creating anything themselves.

dacilselig 13y ago
So perhaps, the design of Hacker news itself (or point-based systems) reinforces the cynicism that exists in most of the posts you are referring to.

kstenerud 13y ago

In other news, nerds are human, and posture and bully and jockey for recognition like all humans do.

bdowney 13y ago
My sentiments exactly. I've met plenty of condescending assholes at Google but them being geeks was not the reason why they behaved like jerks.

minamea 13y ago

From reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, I think it boils down to self importance. We like to put others down because it makes us feel more important. If you recognize and let go of that desire as the book tells you to do, you can use the phenomenon to your advantage instead, and you learn that making others feel important makes you win them over.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

AznHisoka 13y ago

"(And yes, I realize that this post is super-critical. How meta)" Protip: just because you realize the irony of your post doesn't excuse you from being part of the problem as well.

mtp0101 13y ago

This post is extremely stupid. What is this, the first grade? If you can't take honest criticism, you suck. If you think computer technology is full of mean people, try working in finance. My peers don't hesitate to give me honest criticism and that's one of the things I like most about CS. Maybe you should start your own company called "we should be super nice to each other all the time" and have your product be an email subscription service where your clients receive affirmations like "you are a skilled person with value and you have a cute chin" along with some heart graphics and sound effects.

michaelochurch 13y ago
If you think computer technology is full of mean people, try working in finance. Finance: saying "you fucked up" means "I respect you enough to offer honest criticism, and here's what you did that I don't like." Tech startup: saying "you're awesome" means "I'd slit your throat for a 0.05%[0] more in equity. You're awesome because I'll get promoted at your expense." [0] A nickel. As in, Shadow from FF6 and "He'd slit his mama's throat for..."
LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Can't we give honest feedback without going into an epic fit of nerd rage over it? Besides, the worst fights I see among programmers are over trivial matters of opinion anyway. Ever seen people fight over indentation styles, or the proper way to merge upstream changes into a local git repository, or whether functional or object-oriented programming is the One True Way? The anger in these debates isn't teaching anyone a damn thing, except that the color of someone else's bike shed is really, really important to some people.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Honest feedback: 1) "I really didn't like the way you did X. It broke Y on my browser, $Browser." 2) "Oh god, why did you chose to do this like this? It's broken and stupid" I hope that people don't nerd rage after (1). I guess they might, and if they do that's a problem.

rational_indian 13y ago

What do you think about stackoverflow.com?

usr 13y ago
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. Though in all seriousness, I've seen closed questions provide a lot of good information on something in their answers despite people feeling the question wasn't a good fit. In some ways it's like closing a question is a form of what the article is talking about, though I do understand the need for those rules on there.

Udo 13y ago

The worst thing that can happen to a Show HN post is people totally ignoring it. When I post something of my own here, I expect a certain amount of honesty and criticism, as long as it is constructive. Being "constructive" does not mean being congratulatory, shoulder-patting, praising, or anything like that. It means that the feedback itself should provide some kind of value, preferably for the benefit of the project creator. "What's the points of this? I've been doing the same thing since the 80s by piping four shell commands together?!?" - is not really constructive. I think using the slightly formulaic "What I liked: X; What could be improved: Y" has a high chance of being constructive feedback. Meta discussions can also be OK. The infamous "does the world really need another X", almost invariably deserves the answer "yes, why not?". Letting people know you are unlikely to use the code/product/gizmo is also constructive, especially if you can manage to tell why. As the article stated, comments in the form of "Y U MD5 STOOPID" is never OK and generally don't do anything to raise the level of the discourse. As a general guideline, comments designed to make the commenter look good or smart or superior do not usually improve the quality of the discussion, even though mods sometimes tend to reward this behavior for some reason. They shouldn't.

tene 13y ago
> "What's the points of this? I've been doing the same thing since the 80s by piping four shell commands together?!?" - is not really constructive. > Letting people know you are unlikely to use the code/product/gizmo is also constructive, especially if you can manage to tell why. By my reading, these two statements contradict each other. The quote you claim is not constructive seems to me to be saying the author sees no value in the hypothetical contribution, as it offers no additional power and less convenience than what he already uses, and therefore he won't be using it. Isn't that exactly what say is constructive in the second statement I quoted? If I'm misunderstanding you here, can you explain what I'm missing?
- Udo 13y ago
  That first example was from a specific thread that actually happened when someone made a command-line tool, and the whole discussion was incredibly unproductive and full of "look at me, I solved this eons ago, this developer sucks" messages. You're probably right there is a fine line between those two, but they are not identical. It's the difference between saying why you wouldn't necessarily use something on the one hand, and showing off while berating someone on the other. Asserting that a project's existence is unjustified is a bold and unfriendly claim. Saying that it's simly not for you is another matter entirely.

skrebbel 13y ago

Seriously, America is going to drown in shoulder-patting and hooray cheering. This taboo on negative opinions is ridiculous. We're teaching entire generations that we cannot fail as long as we try hard enough, and that it's the attempt that counts. Seriously, screw that. It is a vital skill to be able to filter through feedback, take the useful parts to heart, and shrug about low, nasty, useless comments. To learn from mistakes and do better next time. Why is that bad? Sure, we should attempt to stop the low/nasty/useless feedback, but that's not so clear cut as we'd like it to be. Until we figure out a clear line, I'd prefer honest (and sometimes nasty) feedback over a culture of non-stop shoulder patting.

pessimizer 13y ago
Like when the housing bubble popped and the market crashed; the first response: "Ban shorting!"
amykhar 13y ago
I don't think the article was seeking shoulder patting. Just a helpful spirit and some manners.
codegeek 13y ago
"....it's the attempt that counts. Seriously, screw that." "To learn from mistakes and do better next time. Why is that bad?" You said both things. Attempting does not mean you will always succeed. You could still fail but it does matter that you tried. And sure, you learn from mistakes and do better. So I would say that don't screw the attempting part. Also, you are probably being a little hard on this post by saying "shoulder patting".
jquery 13y ago
I come to HN precisely because the comments are incisive and questioning. It's a breath of fresh air and trains me to analyze ideas more effectively. If that makes me an "anti-social curmudgeon" by society's capricious standards, then so be it.
DanBC 13y ago
> I'd prefer honest (and sometimes nasty) feedback over a culture of non-stop shoulder patting. No one is suggesting a never ending hug fest of positive comments. But criticism should be constructive. You might not care that all feedback is on the level of idiotic YouTube comments, but that's a toxic environment and it's causing harm to the Internet. A bunch of projects would have more volunteers if they weren't such hateful environments.

ktf 13y ago

It's interesting to me that the Hacker School "rules" post, that essentially boiled down to the same thing (Don't Be a Jerk), is filled with positive comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5639430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5639430 While this one is full of people attacking the guy, basically proving his point.

graeme 13y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322696 (I feel older now to realize I've been on here for two years, long enough to remember the previous submission)

mtowle 13y ago
Care to comment on whether internet nerds have gotten nicer or meaner since 2011?
- graeme 13y ago
  Not a clue.

axelfreeman 13y ago

I have a german blog who totally pushes this attitude forwards. It's called 1337core.de. A self-irony netculture blog. It is much about hacking, script kiddies, anonymous, fail netpolitics. Kind of stupid but my stupid thing. But seriously i think this problem comes from the lag, that we don't see the people we are talking about in front of us. It's just a device. No feelings. We hate in this machine and get no direct feedback. We have to learn that the people we are flaming about are living in this world and can propably read it. I have made this mistake a couple of times but i learned and use it alone for joking. If you want to understand this problem you have to understand psychology, the interface-feedback-problem and group dynamic.

dasil003 13y ago

Honestly I think this is just the impression one gets because nerds do more of everything online combined with the fact that they tend to know a lot about specific things. Look, there are absolutely a lot of asshole nerds out there. A lot of guys who went through hell in high school and turned into comic book guy as a defense mechanism and just never grew up (a lot of people from all walks of life never grow up). Okay, but I don't think those people are representative of geek communities. I think by and large criticism is constructive and nerds are supportive of beginners. Maybe we don't sugarcoat things as much as would be to some people's taste, but that's not an asshole quality in and of itself. Rather I think the impression comes from the fact that it's hard to ignore assholes, and there are always going to be a number of them in any large community. People say HN is overly critical, but I think if you look carefully most of critical posts are actually fairly even-handed and not overtly mean; but if you have 20 of them all coming from different angles, and you sprinkle it with a few true asshole remarks, the resulting impression can be quite harsh.

relaxitup 13y ago

Ironically, I actually found his entire post to be a bit on the abrasive side.

michaelochurch 13y ago

First of all, I don't think constructive criticism and frank incivility belong in the same bucket. One is a good thing about us. The other is a negative. However, if we want to restore our tribal integrity, we can't let management play us against each other so easily. There are so many conflicts that look technical but are actually cases where management deliberately played tech people against each other (usually, to create a sense of competition on work hours, dedication, et al). Most engineers lack the social skills to perceive when this is happening. One thing about business people: they constantly talk each other up. Even if they don't like each other, they say good things about one another. It's game theory. They know the difference between luke-warm and real praise, but everyone else thinks The Manager is in good standing (and therefore stays in line). They get themselves to a state where not saying something positive about someone is a damnation. They can dog-whistle by criticizing a member of their tribe within it, but in a way that outsiders don't recognize, allowing them to keep a unified front. On our over-honesty, there's one case I know about where an engineer was leapfrog promoted to top management and had a lot of non-engineering reports. They had a performance review system where 5 (out of 9) was nominally average, but everyone came in between 7.5 and 9.0. He gave a lot of 6's and 7's thinking he was giving honest ratings (because no one looked at the perf numbers for IT, reviews he'd written in the past had no effect) but it ended up making a huge mess when HR wanted to put two-thirds of his team on PIPs. He reacted by changing everyone's rating to a 9.0 and giving honest feedback verbally, which is how it should be done. I feel like we need a similar "understanding" with each other. To other engineers and technologists, we give blunt and honest feedback. But we need to stop the cannibalism. To management and HR, we take a strict attitude of praising other engineers (whether we think they deserve it or not). We should never narc each other out.

yuhong 13y ago
I'd consider it only a workaround.
kyllo 13y ago
Yeah, this is really an extension of "praise in public, criticize in private," which is one of the golden rules of good management. Non-tech management understands this concept better than tech management, perhaps.

wrs 13y ago

I agree with the premise of not being gratuitously nasty. But I wish he hadn't made it sound like all programming is as consequence-free as skateboarding. If you're programming as a hobby, it doesn't affect anyone but yourself. I totally support your using Arduinos until you figure out you can build one yourself in 5 minutes on a breadboard. If you're programming professionally, the rules change. It's not all about supporting your personal learning experience. If you use simple hashing instead of bcrypt, and you have real users, you are potentially hurting people. It is literally true that if you don't know better than that, you should not programming a computer (well, programming an authentication system, anyway). So yeah, don't be nasty. But also don't think your self-esteem is more important than doing a good job.

SoftwareMaven 13y ago
Nobody is saying "don't do a good job" or even "accept sub-standard work". They're saying act more like a mentor than a critic. Mentors don't tear their pupils down, because you can't teach in that environment. Help people become better; don't stroke your ego at others' expense.

shaddyz 13y ago

I think the hacker community, just like any creative community, suffers from a bit too much evangelism and misdirected nerd rage. It's important that we understand our common goals and keep those in mind as we interact with each other. What are these goals? For me... - learning how to solve real-world problems using software - sharing ideas and reflecting my perspective in the conversation - understanding how others think about SW topics, more learning - criticizing decisions in order to improve my critical thinking skills and knowledge - getting feedback from my own ideas to see how well they stand up I realize that some of these are somewhat redundant, but I feel they differ in nuance. In general it is about _improvement_. Also, some people are just way too sensitive and need to realize that an attack on one's idea is not an attack on oneself. I have general respect for all people, but I might think your idea is stupid. The best thing we can do is make sure we do our best to absorb hostility and respond with objectivity.

at-fates-hands 13y ago

The first place I worked at had this same issue of developers discrediting other people's code. It was an incredible "alpha-male" syndrome to witness. Then this same group of developers would brag about all the stuff they were working on outside of work. The ongoing pissing contest almost made me quit my job as a developer. Don't kid yourself, Nerds and Geeks are just as competitive and nasty as jocks are.

pnathan 13y ago

There is a lot of stupid out there. It needs to be called out. On the other hand, things can appear stupid due to internal logic and constraints not obvious to the uninitiated. It's good to bear that in mind when reading things.

nickevans 13y ago

Totally agree. Makes me think of this blog post I read recently where the writer basically generalizes an entire culture of people into a whiny group of people that spend too much of their time complaining about and criticizing other members of that group.

mickeyr 13y ago

"...somebody has sed..." What an idiot! You should give up on blogging if you don't know the right word is "said"!

cwbrandsma 13y ago

This isn't a "nerd" issue. And it is a fallacy to believe nerds should act better because we are nerds and live in a vacuum of only dealing with other nerds. The idea should be that we are the only ones acting this way (and no one else does), or that we are better than everyone else. The negative behavior is actually TAUGHT, and taught early on. This is how everyone in the western world is taught to debate opinions. Look at any high school debate club, political debates, and any other televised debate. The behavior starts there. As a society, people are not taught to be civil when dealing with disagreements. There is just an inherent "You are completely with me and my friend, or we are enemies".