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Who are you? Why does it seem like you're angry all the time? I pointed out an observation. Your response used the word fuck and then called me lazy, which is

• unalone 17y ago
  I'm an art student who is very rarely angry and doesn't think swearing indicates emotion. I also believe that it's better to have to spend time thinking about what to read, how to spend your time, than it is to be offered an easy way out that risks devaluing what people are saying. (I further believe that being called lazy usually isn't an insult.) In person, I'd probably be doubly critical. Don't think of it as rude; I think criticizing what somebody's saying is a sign of respecting them. To quote a guy I'm in the middle of reading: "The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself." If I were being rude, I'd ignore your comment and not call out what I thought was stupid/wrong about it. As it is, I'm debating what you said because I think there's a discussion to be had. For instance: Why would you feel the same reading comments as you would buying things? There's no harm to reading a few extra comments. You lose nothing but your time, which you're already spending on Hacker News.
  • krschultz 17y ago
    That explains why you have so much time to read all the comments. I don't have time to read all the comments so I'll look at the greatest hits. You can find the conversation based on the kharma scores, both positive and negative. If someone says something -4, it might be worth reading because it got such a reaction out of people. But a bunch of 1s and 2s on an old thread are noise that aren't worth reading.
    • unalone 17y ago
      That explains why you have so much time to read all the comments. What, that I'm a student? Reading comments doesn't take that long. As I said above: Fifteen minutes at most? And that's if it's a seriously long thread. Most threads are five minutes' skimming at most. If someone says something -4, it might be worth reading because it got such a reaction out of people. But a bunch of 1s and 2s on an old thread are noise that aren't worth reading. Not necessarily. Perhaps somebody made a brilliant comment, but only after people were done reading. In any case, that hasn't changed now: Top-rated comments appear at the top of the thread, same as always. So if you want the most "valued" conversations, read at the top.
      • jacquesm 17y ago
        I take a lot longer to read a thread, but I think it is well worth it, even the downvoted comments sometimes contain really good stuff, and sometimes the downvotes are based on ambiguity or misunderstandings (or cultural gaps). So if I pick a thread I read all of it, sometimes again at a later point in time (or via the 'threads' page).
    • amalcon 17y ago
      I generally pick one or two most interesting topics from the front page, and read most of the comments on them. It seems better to read a few things in depth than reading sound bites on everything. This also frees me of any need to complain about offtopic stuff, as long as a few on-topic posts remain.
  • jrwoodruff 17y ago
    "Top-rated comments appear at the top of the thread" True, but often times the top comment will not be the highest rated, but the reply or subsequent replies below the comment will be rated higher than the orginal post, but the entire thread gets moved to the top because of that. Now I have no way of knowing that. [edit] I also have no way of knowing when the MAJORITY of readers are disagreeing with me. Up votes/down votes has always been a way to express yourself without commenting. If it's not visible, it's not as expressive, nor is it as rewarding to the commentor or the voter. I officially dislike this.
    • unalone 17y ago
      I officially dislike disagreeing with somebody without explaining why. That's not what upvotes and downvotes were meant for. They're meant to maintain commenting relevancy by downvoting irrelevant comments. It's a brilliant idea dashed by the fact that most people would much rather downvote things they dislike and call it "democracy".
      • jrwoodruff 17y ago
        Oh, I agree with that. I rarely downvote, and if/when I do I always leave a comment. It's more the opposite that I'm talking about here. Someone may not down vote my comment, which, say, has 7 points. But they may leave a reply that is argumentative to my comment. With this new system, I can only see that my comment has 7 points, but I can't see that the counter-point reply to it may have 34. The fact that many people are agreeing with the counter-point to my comment is significant, as is my inability to see that.
    • jacquesm 17y ago
      > I also have no way of knowing when the MAJORITY of readers are disagreeing with me. Why would that matter ? The majority isn't always right. HN is not a popularity contest, but when you look at the comments that way it certainly starts to look like it. Let's see what I can say that many people will agree with so I can be voted up ? As unalone already remarked, now you have to make up your own mind about what you are reading, which is a huge improvement over the groupthink mentality. It forces you to think for yourself before casting your vote, it takes care of the huge feedback loop that was in HN before this change. Even now, there is still some of that left, after all the sort order still tells you what the majority voted for, but that's subtle enough that it probably won't matter too much, and the new sorting algorithm seems to do a very good job of bringing the good stuff to the top.
  • scott_s 17y ago
    Most people use swearing to indicate emotion. If you go against this convention, then you will often be misunderstood.
    • unalone 17y ago
      That's why I try to be careful how I swear. I thought that "fuck that" was casual enough to come across as being neutrally dismissive. Guess not; apologies to all!
      • pyre 17y ago
        The problem is that in-person you can use body language and tone of voice to moderate the effects of using something like, "Fuck that!" but when you're expressing yourself completely in text you are at the whim of the reader's interpretation of your words.
• xenophanes 17y ago
  You got mad at him for making an impersonal remark, and now you say to him "Who are you? Why does it seem like you're angry all the time?" Which is an angry, personal remark. The word "fuck", not directed at anyone, is not important. Personal attacks are. If you don't like unalone's style, ignore him, don't psychologize him. Personally I appreciate the fact that he wrote substantive on-topic comments.
  • Confusion 17y ago
    You got mad at him for making an impersonal remark I think Are you saying that you're too lazy to read what people are saying and form your own opinions? is a rather personal remark. A psychologizing one at that. Pot, meet kettle.
    • unalone 17y ago
      If by "pot, meet kettle", you're mentioning how dcurtis responded to my remark with a personal psychologizing remark, then the expression makes sense; otherwise, I'm confused. I didn't get mad at what dcurtis said, so I don't know who's the pot and who's the kettle here. "Are you saying that" is an opener that means, "How is it that you're viewing this, because I see it like this". I wasn't trying to be snide and put him down. I was letting him know that's how I was viewing the situation, and asking him his interpretation. It was also a teeny bit tongue-in-cheek, considering, again, he's currently spending a month of his life flying in planes.
    • xenophanes 17y ago
      But he choose to highlight the profanity, not the remarks you point out. He told us which remark offended him, and it was an impersonal one.
  • moe 17y ago
    Sooo, when will we get pink, dancing polka dots to highlight conversations like this? :-)