4 ms·

Dude, no offense, but this thread is packed full of overheated hyperbole. This comment seems like a minor one to pick out of the herd.

dang 13y ago
Fair enough and no offense at all. I'll delete it.
- duaneb 13y ago
  I'm commenting on this thread because it's the only one I can comment on. Whether or not it's appropriate for the duplicates of a controversial thread to be deleted, you've effectively squashed all productive conversation on a massive, contemporary topic.
  - dang 13y ago
    You would have an excellent point if the conversation were productive, but it's the opposite of productive. Nor has it been "squashed". Such conversations predictably and egregiously violate all of Hacker News' values, especially those of intellectual substance and personal civility. Pinpoint interventions, like I've been making in less inflamed threads, have no hope of working on these, so we have to do something else. Doing nothing is not an option; neither is killing discussions outright on subjects that are, after all, on topic for HN. If the community were capable of discussing this kind of subject maturely, we wouldn't think of intervening. But it's been so painfully clear for so long that that isn't so, that in my view the thing we can perhaps be faulted for is taking so long to deal with it. That's a measure of how reluctant we are to intervene.
    - waterlesscloud 13y ago
      My opinion is that it should have been all contained to the first big thread, which should have been moderated such that it stayed on the front page. This is a major topic, with major ramifications for tech, and it's going to be discussed. True, most of the discussion isn't productive, but it's still better to let it happen, and to focus it all in one place instead of it being scattered around.
      - dang 13y ago
        My opinion is not all that far from your opinion. When that thread fell very low in rank, I lightened its penalty for that reason. There's no fine-grained control over rank, so it's a bit hard to calibrate. Nobody's going to stop discussion from happening, but discussion that repeatedly, predictably violates HN values can't be handled the same way as isolated comments. If I try to respond everywhere that the HN guidelines are violated in those threads... well, it's impossible. I actually tried in one place, and someone immediately asked "why here?"... which was such a good point that I just deleted it. (Edit: oh yeah, it was this very thread!)
        waterlesscloud 13y ago
        Yeah, it was me, the same person in both instances. :-) I agree it's it a tough call. There's a ton of inflammatory comments on both sides of the issue, and it's both predictable and impossible to moderate on a practical level. Often I get annoyed at the obvious flamebait political stories on the front page. They usually have a lot of back and forth that's just people talking their side, saying nothing that we haven't all heard before. Not much plus to offset the minus of the flamewar. This one felt different, though, since it's one of the biggest people in tech and one of the biggest companies. And I personally feel it will have ramifications for years to come in the tech business world. I don't know. What can you do when a topic really does merit discussion on HN, but most of it will be a flamewar? Maybe fencing it all in one place is the best of no perfect choices...
        dang 13y ago
        This one felt different, though, since it's one of the biggest people in tech and one of the biggest companies Yes. That's what I didn't get at first, and needed feedback in order to see. It seems obvious now, of course. But I'm not really reading the stories or threads for content—I'm thinking about the site, and don't have the time and/or the brain cells to do that as well as process the news itself the way I used to. This is a bummer—especially when the "news" involves kdb+ or a new paper on JIT compilation—but it's ok, as long as we can actually make HN better. In this case, though, it caused me to miss something that actually mattered for HN. Dang, as we say!
    - duaneb 13y ago
      Could you simply freeze it and allow the users to make their own decisions?
      - dang 13y ago
        I don't know what you mean by "freeze it". Could you explain?
        duaneb 13y ago
        Leave it on the front page but disable commenting.

dang 13y ago

Fair enough and no offense at all. I'll delete it.

duaneb 13y ago
I'm commenting on this thread because it's the only one I can comment on. Whether or not it's appropriate for the duplicates of a controversial thread to be deleted, you've effectively squashed all productive conversation on a massive, contemporary topic.
- dang 13y ago
  You would have an excellent point if the conversation were productive, but it's the opposite of productive. Nor has it been "squashed". Such conversations predictably and egregiously violate all of Hacker News' values, especially those of intellectual substance and personal civility. Pinpoint interventions, like I've been making in less inflamed threads, have no hope of working on these, so we have to do something else. Doing nothing is not an option; neither is killing discussions outright on subjects that are, after all, on topic for HN. If the community were capable of discussing this kind of subject maturely, we wouldn't think of intervening. But it's been so painfully clear for so long that that isn't so, that in my view the thing we can perhaps be faulted for is taking so long to deal with it. That's a measure of how reluctant we are to intervene.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    My opinion is that it should have been all contained to the first big thread, which should have been moderated such that it stayed on the front page. This is a major topic, with major ramifications for tech, and it's going to be discussed. True, most of the discussion isn't productive, but it's still better to let it happen, and to focus it all in one place instead of it being scattered around.
    - dang 13y ago
      My opinion is not all that far from your opinion. When that thread fell very low in rank, I lightened its penalty for that reason. There's no fine-grained control over rank, so it's a bit hard to calibrate. Nobody's going to stop discussion from happening, but discussion that repeatedly, predictably violates HN values can't be handled the same way as isolated comments. If I try to respond everywhere that the HN guidelines are violated in those threads... well, it's impossible. I actually tried in one place, and someone immediately asked "why here?"... which was such a good point that I just deleted it. (Edit: oh yeah, it was this very thread!)
      - waterlesscloud 13y ago
        Yeah, it was me, the same person in both instances. :-) I agree it's it a tough call. There's a ton of inflammatory comments on both sides of the issue, and it's both predictable and impossible to moderate on a practical level. Often I get annoyed at the obvious flamebait political stories on the front page. They usually have a lot of back and forth that's just people talking their side, saying nothing that we haven't all heard before. Not much plus to offset the minus of the flamewar. This one felt different, though, since it's one of the biggest people in tech and one of the biggest companies. And I personally feel it will have ramifications for years to come in the tech business world. I don't know. What can you do when a topic really does merit discussion on HN, but most of it will be a flamewar? Maybe fencing it all in one place is the best of no perfect choices...
        dang 13y ago
        This one felt different, though, since it's one of the biggest people in tech and one of the biggest companies Yes. That's what I didn't get at first, and needed feedback in order to see. It seems obvious now, of course. But I'm not really reading the stories or threads for content—I'm thinking about the site, and don't have the time and/or the brain cells to do that as well as process the news itself the way I used to. This is a bummer—especially when the "news" involves kdb+ or a new paper on JIT compilation—but it's ok, as long as we can actually make HN better. In this case, though, it caused me to miss something that actually mattered for HN. Dang, as we say!
  - duaneb 13y ago
    Could you simply freeze it and allow the users to make their own decisions?
    - dang 13y ago
      I don't know what you mean by "freeze it". Could you explain?
      - duaneb 13y ago
        Leave it on the front page but disable commenting.