4 ms·

Driving content off the front page may well make the discussion worse. It takes time and effort to write a thought-out comment on contentious issues and if I i

by ig1 13y ago

Driving content off the front page may well make the discussion worse. It takes time and effort to write a thought-out comment on contentious issues and if I invest that time only to find that the post has been flagged off the front-page then I'm much less likely to invest the effort next time. It'll essentially mean good comments are driven away from contentious posts resulting in a downward solution. Flagging should be focused on bad comments and not on the contentious stories themselves.

brudgers 13y ago
When I find myself entering into discussions like those surrounding the Eich story, I often get to the end of a long and thoughtful post and realize that it was just catharsis and my view doesn't add anything but my reaction to the thread. I think part of being a good HN commenter is avoiding contentious discussions. That's not the same as avoiding contentious topics, but recognizing that the tone and tenor and volume of a comment thread is hopelessly bad. Stories are bigger than a particular submission. Objectively, the submissions for the Eich story are low quality by HN standards, and the submission for something like Eich isn't the story. The story is a hydra and over time the heads which grow back look more like this than a retweeted press release and the discussion is becomes more that the reactive tweets. What is unique about HN are headlines like "The Inside Story of Eich's Resignation [2014]" that will make the front page in 2018. To me, there's nothing wrong if people are forced to go elsewhere to passionately opine on breaking news as it breaks. Threads with 100 comments in the first hour are mostly noise and noise attracts mostly more noise. None of this is to say that the Eich story doesn't touch on deep important issues, or that I would not prefer that HN could handle such stories. But the problem with the comment threads were not caused by individual behavior but by group behavior. It's not a few bad actors but the collective result of group interaction.
- dang 13y ago
  I often get to the end of a long and thoughtful post and realize that it was just catharsis "Just catharsis" is an excellent phrase for that. Precisely so.
dang 13y ago
Driving content off the front page may well make the discussion worse. I doubt that, because some attention-getters only seek high-value targets. But even if you're right, the disadvantage is more than offset by the benefit of marginalizing lunacy. We're not talking careful pursuit of the truth across honest differences of opinion here; we're talking ragefests. Nor is it story content we're seeking to drive off the front page. The stories in question are all on-topic (or they would already be buried), so the stories aren't the problem. The problem is that, like evil catnip, they drive HN mad. Newcomers treat the front page—stories and threads—as representative of HN. I don't think they're wrong to do so. But if what's de facto representative routinely flouts HN's values, then our values—intellectual substance and personal civility—are a joke. Our values are not a joke.
- ig1 13y ago
  It just feels like throwing the baby out with the bath water; I can understand where you're coming from but I think the focus should be on penalising fluff and incivility (maybe some kind of sinbin to encourage positive behaviour ?). Often major issues are contentious; the interplay between personal and professional life is a major issue and one that many HN contributors deal with on a daily basis (for that matter many personal comments on HN result in professional relationships). If we can't discuss contentious topics in a reasonable manner then we're already in trouble. If you look at Usenet or Digg historically even minor issues often burst into flamewars (remember Emacs vs Vim wars?) - it's not the issues that cause incivility. It's the people.
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    Most Usenet readers at least supported comment tree folding. In a contentious HN thread, I have to hold page down for a few minutes to reach the second top level comment. My experience with Reddit tells me the substantive discussion happens a few trees down from the top, and that part of these threads is effectively inaccessible.
    - dang 13y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494756

by ig1 13y ago

brudgers 13y ago

When I find myself entering into discussions like those surrounding the Eich story, I often get to the end of a long and thoughtful post and realize that it was just catharsis and my view doesn't add anything but my reaction to the thread. I think part of being a good HN commenter is avoiding contentious discussions. That's not the same as avoiding contentious topics, but recognizing that the tone and tenor and volume of a comment thread is hopelessly bad. Stories are bigger than a particular submission. Objectively, the submissions for the Eich story are low quality by HN standards, and the submission for something like Eich isn't the story. The story is a hydra and over time the heads which grow back look more like this than a retweeted press release and the discussion is becomes more that the reactive tweets. What is unique about HN are headlines like "The Inside Story of Eich's Resignation [2014]" that will make the front page in 2018. To me, there's nothing wrong if people are forced to go elsewhere to passionately opine on breaking news as it breaks. Threads with 100 comments in the first hour are mostly noise and noise attracts mostly more noise. None of this is to say that the Eich story doesn't touch on deep important issues, or that I would not prefer that HN could handle such stories. But the problem with the comment threads were not caused by individual behavior but by group behavior. It's not a few bad actors but the collective result of group interaction.

dang 13y ago
I often get to the end of a long and thoughtful post and realize that it was just catharsis "Just catharsis" is an excellent phrase for that. Precisely so.

dang 13y ago

Driving content off the front page may well make the discussion worse. I doubt that, because some attention-getters only seek high-value targets. But even if you're right, the disadvantage is more than offset by the benefit of marginalizing lunacy. We're not talking careful pursuit of the truth across honest differences of opinion here; we're talking ragefests. Nor is it story content we're seeking to drive off the front page. The stories in question are all on-topic (or they would already be buried), so the stories aren't the problem. The problem is that, like evil catnip, they drive HN mad. Newcomers treat the front page—stories and threads—as representative of HN. I don't think they're wrong to do so. But if what's de facto representative routinely flouts HN's values, then our values—intellectual substance and personal civility—are a joke. Our values are not a joke.

ig1 13y ago
It just feels like throwing the baby out with the bath water; I can understand where you're coming from but I think the focus should be on penalising fluff and incivility (maybe some kind of sinbin to encourage positive behaviour ?). Often major issues are contentious; the interplay between personal and professional life is a major issue and one that many HN contributors deal with on a daily basis (for that matter many personal comments on HN result in professional relationships). If we can't discuss contentious topics in a reasonable manner then we're already in trouble. If you look at Usenet or Digg historically even minor issues often burst into flamewars (remember Emacs vs Vim wars?) - it's not the issues that cause incivility. It's the people.
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  Most Usenet readers at least supported comment tree folding. In a contentious HN thread, I have to hold page down for a few minutes to reach the second top level comment. My experience with Reddit tells me the substantive discussion happens a few trees down from the top, and that part of these threads is effectively inaccessible.
  - dang 13y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494756