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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity

• daliwali 12y ago
  I was thinking that the only possible effect that this policy could have is the complete removal of outsiders (I consider myself one, rarely chiming in on HN), and eventually even insiders will simply migrate elsewhere for meaningful discussion that is not happening on this website.
  • dang 12y ago
    Why would you think that? We're very concerned with not excluding outsiders. One of the great strengths of the internet is the potential for anyone to make a substantive contribution. Indeed, making substantive contributions should be the way to become an insider (or the healthy equivalent of that concept) on Hacker News. There are some fair criticisms to be made of HN being a little insular and exclusive. (The leader board, for example—not that we emphasize it or even like it—moves in geological time.) We plan eventually to work on that to encourage more up-and-comers. But how a guideline against gratuitous negativity could discourage any outsiders except trolls is beyond me. It's dismaying that anyone would think so, so please let us know your concerns.
• lackbeard 12y ago
  "Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb." This is melodrama. Ignoring the negativity in comments on an internet message board has got to rank as one of the smallest possible challenges a startup can face.
• ams6110 12y ago
  I think some examples might be helpful. I would consider a gratuitously negative comment to be some variation of "That's a dumb idea" with no elaboration, or an ad hominem, and such comments are pretty much always downvoted already.
  • crypt1d 12y ago
    Exactly. I would help me a lot to understand what they are aiming for, especially because I'm not a native English speaker.
  • Alupis 12y ago
    Here's a few examples I know of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8938409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8938409
    • AhrowTway 12y ago
      How?
    • minimaxir 12y ago
      The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is off-topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules.
      • dang 12y ago
        That's true. (See "Sharp readers may point out" in the OP!) But the guidelines are not a technical spec, and some redundancy is helpful.
      • scott_s 12y ago
        Indeed. Sam pointed that out in his post: Sharp readers may point out that the HN guidelines have always excluded those things. That's true. But it's still enough of a problem in HN threads that this is a clarification worth making. We tried it out last year when we released special guidelines for Show HNs. It worked well there, so we're extending it to the whole site.
      • jfarmer 12y ago
        You'll have to trust me when I say that what I'm about to write isn't personal. I have no idea what was going on in your head or heart when you wrote it and don't want to invent a story about your motivations. :) > The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is off-topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules. Although I wouldn't call this comment "gratuitously negative" or even "negative," I do believe it exemplifies one of the major root behaviors that lead to negativity (gratuitous or otherwise): failure to fully digest the conversation plus a reflexive desire to make a point. First, as @dang pointed out elsewhere, this comment's point was anticipated and addressed directly in the original post: > Sharp readers may point out that the HN guidelines have always excluded those things. That's true. But it's still enough of a problem in HN threads that this is a clarification worth making. We tried it out last year when we released special guidelines for Show HNs. It worked well there, so we're extending it to the whole site. Even if the point were worth making, it was already made by @sama. Why assume the grandparent comment wasn't written with that very paragraph in mind? If you didn't read all of the original essay, why jump in to comment on whether the examples were appropriate or not? Second, even if that paragraph weren't there, comments like this add absolutely nothing constructive to the conversation and risk starting an irrelevant debate over the semantics of "gratuitously negative" vs. "ad hominem" vs. "off-topic". Much more constructive would be, "When @sama said 'gratuitously negative' I was thinking more of comments like: <links to some comments>. To me these are different from the examples you listed because <reasons>." Don't have any examples in mind? Don't have time to go look for them? That's fine — don't comment! Honestly, I'd bet money that @sama added that paragraph specifically in an attempt to head off pointless top-level comments like, "Isn't this already against the rules? Look, here they are: Rule 3, Rule 14, and Rule 78(b)! Does @sama even read the rules of his own site? UGH." All of these things pile up, leading to people responding reflexively to other people, who respond reflexively in turn, leading to...etc. etc.
• res0nat0r 12y ago
  This is a good step, but I think just the increase in overly political postings vs. tech oriented content has been a major contributor to the negativity.
  • briandear 12y ago
    For sure. I am guilty of it too. It's rather counterproductive (myself included) to get sucked into various "America starts wars" or global warming discussions. Healthy political debate is great but unless it's extremely relevant to tech/startups, this isn't the place. Plenty of space on Reddit for heated religion or politics debates. I am not so egotistical as to think this policy change was because of me, but I certainly, at times contributed to the fray, especially in political oriented threads. In terms of Show HN, I really think that constructive criticism is helpful, but also encouragement and praise is equally important. We should be rooting for our HN community, not trying to snipe or tear people down. The rest of the world is already really good at that! I welcome the reminder to seek the best from each other and build each other up as a good mentor would do. No smoke-up-ass platitudes, but certainly we should think of ourselves as part of a huge team out to change the world and do something amazing.
  • pdkl95 12y ago
    For better or worse, many "tech oriented" topics these days are politics. Many people in the engineering and related fields often wish to ignore the political discussions and stay focused on the technology. This is an understandable desire. Technology is is often complicated leading to a general hatred of having to context switch into other topics. Experience teaches that it is a usually easier to achieve reliable results with technology you can logically prove or verify that with emotional, capricious, untrustworthy humans. Unfortunately, technology brought us products such as "smart TV" that bring up serious questions about surveillance and evidence, cheap network clients that allow ubiquitous access to incredible amounts of knowledge that is certain to affect education and testing/grading, and self-driving cars that will require a serious refactoring of many aspects of society. More importantly, I think it is important to remember that escaping the political side of anything simply cedes any disagreement to those that are addressing politics. I think JMS said it best in the closing lines of Babylon 5: "we had to create the future, or others will do it for us". Technology experts need to address these things, or important decisions will be left to those that are not qualified. Now, that said, neither technology nor political discussions excuse rudeness, personal attacks, or generally disruptive behavior.
• scottyli 12y ago
  pg's essay on "How to disagree" (http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html) also serves as a useful guideline. grep 'u r a fag' | rm;
• AhrowTway 12y ago
  Isn't downvoting gratuitous negativity? And who determines what is and isn't negative? And isn't this question shallow cynicism? And isn't that policy shallow cynicism for thinking people can't control their own negativity?
• firstOrder 12y ago
  This is a horrible idea. The Panglossianism that will result from this is indicative of the bubble hype which will destroy Silicon Valley, Y-Combinator and Hacker News. In fact, this is the worst idea I ever heard in my life. So continues the descent of HN...
  • itg 12y ago
    The guidelines aren't asking you to behave like Pangloss and think everything is perfect. It asks if you do have criticism then address it respectfully and constructively.
    • woooooop 12y ago
      According to what moral framework are you precisely defining "respectfully" and "constructively"? There are plenty of examples in the world where bringing up logical, concise, and polite criticism invokes the wrath of a cabal of power-holders and social media demagogues, especially in a world that promotes the postmodern idea of "interpretation, not intent, is reality"
      • edmack 12y ago
        If it helps you can take respectfully to mean "the recipient will not feel angry or attacked due to the message tone" and constructively to mean "the recipient will finish reading the message feeling positive with ways to improve their work or actions".
    • throwawaymaroon 12y ago
      And who gets to decide who's being respectful and constructive? Hence Pangloss.
  • rspeer 12y ago
    Good example, thanks.
    • cperciva 12y ago
• ribs 12y ago
  This just totally completely sucks!!
• Udo 12y ago
  One of the most negative habits is in my opinion the failure to read a comment charitably (to make an effort to interpret it in the best possible light). Instead, people often tend to misread or miserunderstand what's being said, only to use the opportunity to write a "correction" based on that false impression. A worse flavor of the same problem is a misunderstanding that is then used to justify outrage or personal annoyance. That's what I find worthy of being changed, and I will certainly make an effort to read comments more charitably as well. Overall though, and I realize this is quite anecdotal, rampant negativity - especially about things other members of the community have created - seems to have gotten less common recently.
  • webwanderings 12y ago
    You are right. I read this somewhere, something along the lines ... that when you disagree with someone, you should first make sure to repeat and restate the arguments of the opponent you disagreeing with, in your own words, before making any of your own arguments.
    • mwfunk 12y ago
      I've never heard that before, but it's excellent advice. Sometimes I like to come up with the best argument I possibly can against my own beliefs (basically playing devil's advocate with myself) to better understand opposing viewpoints, but this is even better.
    • jessriedel 12y ago
      Here's one version, from Daniel Dennett: > How to compose a successful critical commentary: > 1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way. > 2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement). > 3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target. > 4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism. http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/28/daniel-den... I add thoughts here: http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/01/28/links-for-january-2015/ http://blog.jessriedel.com/2015/01/28/links-for-january-2015...
• vikp 12y ago
  Great change. I second the request for examples -- "gratuitous" is subjective, and until better moderation tools exist, it would be nice if the community has some standards around who to issue "gentle reminders" to. It would also be nice to have the guidelines be in a more prominent spot than the bottom of the page -- it's hard to notice them as is.
• mhurron 12y ago
  This sucks, just trying to pretend everything is wine and roses and everyone is happy, happy, happy all the time. Couldn't help it.
• hayksaakian 12y ago
  I don't think negativity is intrinsicly bad or harmful. Obviously there's a line where a comment becomes predominantly mean. The only concern I have is that one day it takes too much cognitive overhead to post an insightful comment that happens to be negative.
• itg 12y ago
  Great to see this. Fortunately those sorts of comments usually get downvoted here. Also this is one reason I stopped following so much of the developer community on Twitter. So much of it is full of snark and piling on others mistakes for a quick retweet.
• dreamweapon 12y ago
  It's not just a good idea for HN. It's a good practice to apply in one's everyday life, generally.
  • zk00006 12y ago
    There is a good reason to be negative a priory in real live. Consider you start a thorough discussion on any problem that you encounter during the day. You wouldn't be doing anything else and die of hunger. In my opinion, people must be negative and quickly reject stuff that does not make sense to them. Forcing them to discuss about stuff that don't make sense to them is waste of time for both sites. For this reasons I would simply ignore negative comments and not ban them.
    • bitcrusher 12y ago
      Dismissing things that don't make sense probably isn't a good idea. Some of the most interesting things I've learned have been from working hard to discuss and understand something that didn't make sense to me at the time. Also, there are often cases when someone has an idea or thought that isn't necessarily framed with the right wording. That doesn't make the idea invalid and it is often worth exploring to understand what they were trying to express. These things is a 'waste of time', in my opinion. In fact, it is often the direct opposite: A wonderful use of time.
• dsugarman 12y ago
  I think the downvote functionality is holding back the utility of HN more than anything else. It is grossly overused and very rarely for guidelines violations like it was designed for. Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. It's an awful experience and is the main fuel in a negative feedback loop that travels with users from thread to thread.
  • dman 12y ago
    I agree with this. Conflating disagreement with downvoting seems to be mixing unrelated concerns. It is currently inconvenient (in karma terms) to hold dissenting opinions.
    • cheald 12y ago
      My experience tends to be that if you can hold a dissenting opinion respectfully, and back up your assertions, HN treats it favorably in the long run. Holding a dissenting opinion without being willing to defend it with awareness of your audience's hostility to your ideas rarely goes over well in any forum, though.
      • dman 12y ago
        Try saying anything critical about Apple and see if this strategy works out in practice.
        • reitanqild 12y ago
          I've been pointing out problems with Apple and seen little punishment. Then again I am kind of thoughtful when I do and often make sure to point out that I like Apple, and recommend it to others, -I just personally find their products annoying to use for specific reasons
        • bdcravens 12y ago
          I think true criticism is treated well (for example, discussing validity of walled garden in app store). It's the trollish comments, like calling Apple users sheep or ignorant hipsters that thrown money away, that are problematic.
• freeasinfree 12y ago
  That's OK, disagreeing with the hivemind (critiques of Google come to mind) gets you downvoted into oblivion anyways.
  • jseliger 12y ago
    disagreeing with the hivemind Using terms like "the hivemind" (which doesn't exist) is actually a good example of the thing the new guideline covers!
    • throwawaymaroon 12y ago
      ...What are you doing? Talking about 'the hivemind' isn't under some sort of blanket ban, and you're shutting down a right to a viewpoint simply because you think it's 'too negative'? This is exactly the kind of thinking that becomes prevalent in the atmosphere towards negativity engendered by HN.
      • Karunamon 12y ago
        The parent poster is perfectly entitled to their viewpoint, but calling a community "the hivemind" is terribly insulting and needlessly inflammatory.
        • throwawaymaroon 12y ago
          I see. So any time a community displays well-known herding behaviors in a destructive manner, we can not discuss this behavior because that would be insulting and inflammatory. (No shit it'd be insulting and inflammatory. Sometimes that's what the community deserves, and to believe otherwise is to believe in human perfection!)
          • Karunamon 12y ago
            Discussing it is one thing, dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as "the hivemind" is at the very least not constructive, at most actively harmful. Where's the proof of this "destructive behavior"? How are we supposed constructively discuss a problem that hasn't even been proven to exist? Put another way, it's an extraordinary accusation (HN has a pro-Google bias) that demands extraordinary evidence. We disagree that insults are ever necessary.
• guelo 12y ago
  Feels like the conflict of interest of a general news forum being run by an investment firm with PR interests is beginning to rear its ugly head.
  • briandear 12y ago
    This isn't a general news forum. The history of this board is not one of general news but items of specific interest and relevance to startups.
    • guelo 12y ago
      "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • nathanaldensr 12y ago
      You may be describing what the board /should/ be, or what it set out to be, but judging by the threads actually being upvoted by users, you are incorrect. We've seen everything from tech pieces to startup culture threads to general interesting news being upvoted to the main page.
      • dang 12y ago
        One needn't look far to find out exactly what HN set out to be: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. It's interesting how much of that language was copied into the current guidelines wholesale, and has stayed there.
  • nostrademons 12y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9318001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9318001
    • guelo 12y ago
• baddox 12y ago
  I suppose adding the guideline can't hurt, because it might at least make people more strongly consider their comments before posting them. Unfortunately, reasonable people can disagree about where the threshold is between appropriate skepticism/criticism and gratuitous negativity. Since "gratuitous" means unjustified or inappropriate, it by definition should be avoided. The trick is figuring out which things are inappropriate. Hopefully most of you judge this comment to be on the good side of the fence. :)
  • krapp 12y ago
    Right. Trolls aside, everyone thinks their negativity is completely appropriate...
    • dang 12y ago
      You're right. A corollary is that gratuitous negativity is largely unintentional. That's why we're asking community members to be more active in gently reminding each other when the line is being crossed. Gently!
      • kimdouglasmason 12y ago
        What line? It's so bloody arbitrary as to be a useless guideline. It's about as meaningful as 'be nice'.
        • ZenoArrow 12y ago
          Virtually all communication is open to interpretation. Focus on what you know. Can you tell the difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism? Can you appreciate the difference in motives? If you can, then you'll basically know everything you need to know in order to understand what's being asked for.
        • edmack 12y ago
          Be nice is a good guideline. I try to be nice.
• minimaxir 12y ago
  This appears to be prompted (EDIT: related to) by my discussion in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317028 . As I mentioned there, it may be helpful to explicitly differatiate negativity vs. gratuitous negativity in that case. (Most examples of gratuitous negativity I've seen are low effort "this site sucks" comments, which are downvoted for reasons unrelated to negativity, and ad hominem attacks are already covered in the guidelines.)
  • dang 12y ago
    This wasn't prompted by any recent discussion. It has been a long, long time coming.
    • ryanx435 12y ago
      so says the censor, so it must be true.
      • OmarIsmail 12y ago
        I was struggling to define exactly what is meant by "gratuitous negativity", so thank you for giving what I think is a perfect example. It'd be great if you could answer the following questions about your comment to I think really get to the heart of the matter: What were you trying to accomplish with your comment? In what way does your comment move the conversation forward? What are possible useful responses to your comment?
        • ryanx435 12y ago
          Interesting that you perceive this as "gratuitous negativity" as that was not my intention. answers to your questions: 1) pointing out that you shouldn't always believe those in positions of power, especially when they are attempting to control the narrative. you may not know this, but dang works for HN and his job is literally to censor comments and articles to ensure they follow the guidelines. 2) by reminding everyone who reads it that they should think critically, not only about the words being said, but also the context in which they are said and who is saying the words. 3) there probably aren't many as it isnt meant to be responded to, so much as to be a reminder to consider who is speaking, and to take all things with a grain of salt. although your response certainly engendered me to reply. but just because it is difficult to respond doesn't mean it isn't a useful contribution.
• diminish 12y ago
  Could anyone develop some arguments for "gratuitous negativity". An attempt would focus on the adjective "gratuitous" which contains a lot of subjective bias and could be interpreted this way or that way depending who rules the domain. Moreover one can claim "gratuitous positivity" is the bigger danger.
• ignostic 12y ago
  I'm very glad to see this idea turning into a community mechanism. HN has some great minds, and I love seeing the solutions they come up with to problems. It's a very technical, analytical, and rational community. Unfortunately, some of the qualities that make a good technical problem solver can also lead to nitpikcing. It feels like trying to find the bugs in an argument. That can be useful, but only when it ties to the core idea rather than some tangential point. Top comments often sound like, "Well, technically, you're wrong on this one unimportant fact you mentioned briefly." I'm glad HN is taking steps to ensure that feedback is constructive.
  • Kalium 12y ago
    Bear in mind that what is and isn't constructive is not an objective measurement. It's a subjective value judgment. To some, finding bugs in someone's argument is a constructive thing - you are helping them by fixing their argument and showing them how to argue better in the future. Being better able to argue means an increased ability to communicate effectively with others. So my question becomes thus: how do you define constructive? I, personally, have run across multiple instances of one person's constructive and actionable feedback being another's gratuitously negative useless nitpicky feedback.
    • panic 12y ago
      Maybe a good rule is: the smaller the pedantic, nitpicky detail you address in your feedback, the more you should include other details as well. Instead of "this is wrong because detail X" say something like "this handles detail Y well and I think detail Z is clever, but detail X is wrong".
      • Kalium 12y ago
        I think your ideas are good and your intentions are laudible, but I question what purpose is served in asking people to wade through excessive verbiage in order to arrive at what could otherwise be concise and direct criticism.
        • 12y ago
• wilschroter 12y ago
  Sorta feel like there needs to be more teeth to this than simply guidelines based. @SamA what more "severe" approaches did you consider and why did you decide they wouldn't work? This is a difficult challenge.
  • gizmo 12y ago
    There's a good chance this will be sufficient. If HN discourse doesn't improve I'm sure sama and others will try something else (perhaps with more teeth, perhaps a software change).
• fapjacks 12y ago
  Hah! This is excellent and exactly what I see happening out in the real world. People don't like the unpleasantness and turmoil of disagreeable ideas and people with those ideas, and so the solution is not to burst the comfortable down-pillow bubble of their existence, but to pad it further by "eliminating" "negativity". Even better considering who gets to decide what constitutes "negativity". Fantastic job, guys. Bravo. Edit: There are some salient points here about downvoting and how it's affected the community, and I am extremely interested in how "to turn more moderation power over to the community" is going to compound the problem of incentivizing positive-only feedback, id est if and how this "community moderation" mechanism will couple with downvoting to make disagreeing even more hazardous.
• pera 12y ago
  This is great, my only (unconstructive) complain is why you didn't start with this before :)
• blt 12y ago
  I agree that we should try to reduce "this is a stupid idea" comments, but does that include "this doesn't belong on HN" comments?
  • maaaats 12y ago
    Just flag such stuff.
  • clay_to_n 12y ago
    Personally I think it should. HN is not just for technical stuff. If people don't think a submission matters, they won't vote it up. Parallel comment is also correct - just flag it
  • mbrubeck 12y ago
    These were already against the guidelines: > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• moe 12y ago
  Random idea: How about an extra pair of vote-buttons to classify a comment as "positive/negative" (karma-neutral)? I often find the karma-system frustratingly one-dimensional. Experiments in that direction are of course a slippery slope, but what place other than a hacker forum could be a better petri dish?
  • maxerickson 12y ago
    If we have extra buttons, let's have them be toggles like flag/unflag and name them something like "mean", "inane" and "misleading".
    • moe 12y ago
      Yes, that's actually the direction I was aiming for, a little bit like the Slashdot system. I just think it's very hard to choose meaningful adjectives/dimensions (the slashdot set also quickly feels limiting). That's why I'd start with the most basic sentiment(s) first (positive|negative, agree|disagree, ...), see how that goes, and possibly extend from there.
      • striking 12y ago
        What do adjectives have to do with commenting?
        • moe 12y ago
          Not with commenting but with classifying the comments. As maxerickson said we'd have additional votes for adjectives like e.g. "mean", "interesting", "funny" and others, but the hard part would be to choose a meaningful set. I think almost any set would probably feel arbitrary and limiting quickly, so I'd rather stick with very few, very basic ones and see how that goes.
          • maxerickson 12y ago
            I think the bigger problem is what to do with the extra information. In that light, something like "too far off topic" is probably more useful (I think the too far is good there, as a reminder that things probably ought to range a bit).
• zk00006 12y ago
  Given the fact that people get points for their answers, there is already bias towards positive and encouraging comments in hacker news. Notice how the comments start positive and later slowly add the information just to be "safe". Of course not in all cases. From my experience: if I give shallow positive comment I am more likely to get positive points, but strict negative and often deeper comment is down voted. This rule can further increase this bias.
  • tptacek 12y ago
    That sounds like a good thing.
    • TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
      It may sound like it on the surface, but I don't think it is a good thing in the long run. There's a fine line between making a community and making a herd. Upvoting / downvoting encourages both, the problem being trying to have enough to encourage the first without enough of the second to lose the community you've built.
• mwilkison 12y ago
  I really like Recurse Center's (formerly Hacker School) social rules: https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-rules https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-rules They address some non-obvious behaviors that tend to stunt conversation. It'd be nice to see some of those guidelines bleed over into the HN community.
  • lexcorvus 12y ago
    The first three rules are fine, but the fourth ("No subtle -isms") strikes me as rather hypocritical given the Recurse Center's policy of offering financial support only to favored minorities. They write [1] We want the Recurse Center to be a space with as little bigotry as possible in it. and yet their financial aid policies are explicitly discriminatory [2]: The Recurse Center is free for everyone, and we offer need-based living expense grants for women and people from racial and ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in programming. In other words, poor white and Asian men can attend, but they don't qualify for any extra support. This is an "ism", but there's nothing subtle about it. [1]: https://www.recurse.com/manual#no-subtle-isms https://www.recurse.com/manual#no-subtle-isms [2]: https://www.recurse.com/diversity https://www.recurse.com/diversity
    • tptacek 12y ago
      What does your opinion about Recurse's financial aid program have to do with whether their community guidelines are good? Either the isms rule is good or it isn't; its validity does not depend on you agreeing with the rest of their actions.
      • lexcorvus 12y ago
        Their guidelines are hypocritical, i.e., bad. To spell it out explicitly: the -isms rule is probably fine as far as it goes, but if HN is going to be inspired by the Recurse Center's policies, it should go a step further and officially discourage the Recurse Center's brand of pious discrimination as well.
        • 12y ago
• andrepd 12y ago
  This measure is bullshit.
  • rikkus 12y ago
    I scrolled to the bottom of the comments because I knew some people would have made jokes and been downvoted for it. Just thought I'd let you know that _I_ laughed, so thanks.
• decasteve 12y ago
  When criticizing a post/article, either commenting about the subject of the article and/or the writer of the article, my rule of thumb is to put myself in their shoes. What if I was the person being written about? Or what if I was the author of the article? Some comments would (and do) have a negative impact on me. Other more objective comments or advice, though still sometimes hard to take when it is criticism, should be expressed freely.
• nathanaldensr 12y ago
  Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior? Doesn't cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo chamber? To me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid criticism--or cynicism (perhaps of startup culture itself, due to Y-combinator's interest in startup culture continuing). Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, no? Even though it's designed to spark an honest debate.
  • Karunamon 12y ago
    Is it? I've always thought of cynicism as a terrible thing. You don't need to be "distrustful of human integrity and sincerity" in order to disagree with someone. For whatever its worth, I don't see this comment as "gratuitously negative". You're not posting just to get a rise, you're leaving people with something substantive to reply to by way of expanding on your viewpoint (a "this sucks" comment doesn't do that).
  • ZenoArrow 12y ago
    "Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, no?" No, your comment would be fine. The idea is, if you're going to be negative, at least be thoughtful about how you want to say it. Looking at it a different way, if you're negative, do you take the pleasure from being honest or from being dramatic? If you take pleasure from being honest, there's nothing stopping you from being both honest and welcoming. If you want to be dramatic, do it as a joke, but don't do it to boost your ego, and go after the idea rather than the person. There are ways to have your cake and eat it.
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior? No. In fact, cynicism can be a herd-like behavior. > Doesn't cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo chamber? No, it doesn't. It might add another problem on top, but that doesn't actually make things better. > To me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid criticism If it is valid, on-topic criticism, it isn't gratuitous negativity. > or cynicism Discouraging plain cynicism as distinguished from reasoned criticism is, IMO, a positive benefit. > Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, no? I don't see how.
• Ardeof 12y ago
  Rofl here we go, the subject of what is offensive vs. what is not. Only scam artists, people wanting something from you, or people who don't give two shits about life will act or pretend to be positive.
• throwawaymaroon 12y ago
  Quite frankly, I don't think this place has the capability to discern constructive "positive" negativity from truly pointless garbage. Meanwhile the cloaked negativity where you're thinking cutting criticism but maintain a polite facade runs rampant. That's the toxicity I worry about. When negativity becomes forbidden, it is only those with power whose negativity gets heard. They (read: you, Sam) only have to sit through negativity that's phrased appropriate to their 'position.' This is a non-rule anyway. Suggestions aren't going to make the next gender hellhole thread any less toxic. > Gentle reminders by peers are the best way we know to make the culture better. Consider this a gentle reminder that you're trying to control the tone of conversations that can't be both polite and honest; it won't work, but that doesn't make you less of a meddling, controlling asshole for trying.
• pain 12y ago
  Trauma-erasure. It is empathy-violating when classified moderators without logs claim emotional authorities to tone police by calling their efforts psychological. Triggering. Why do psychotechnological toolers resist persistent "shrinks for startups?"[1] versus recreating private wars by demanding forward-looking(-locking) statements and then having our data disappear at trauma random. [1] http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608 http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608
  • intellection 12y ago
    Cryptogrammar calls itself ruler and points at everyone who says something else as crypto (minus grammar). Cryptoempathy? I learned how to use computers from corporations which speak crypto emotions and tie my hands and words to their terms (then call it an original band-aid). Where are the psychotchnologists? What would empathy do? What would counting do? What would logging do? What would errors do? What would error logging do? What would record-keeping do?
• chippy 12y ago
  There is nothing to worry about. I do think it is indicative of a certain kind of new diversity friendly, "safe space", slightly censorious attitude which is rooted in normal human group psychology, keeping the tribe safe and secure and also swayed by whatever flavour of popular radical politics is operating at the time. It's nothing new. I wouldn't worry about this affecting Hacker News but if it does, we will notice the discussions becoming stilted, people will self-censor and there will emerge other places where people can feel more comfortable with their own voices. We are far from that day. That day might not ever come, HN is too small in my opinion. I wonder though - how (if we take it to unlikely worst case scenario) would it affect how the behaviour of certain well known personalities such as Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds is viewed in the future where any form of negativity is censored against?
  • Karunamon 12y ago
    Does that even follow, though? HN's community has traditionally (thankfully!) flatly rejected the "safe space" PC game whenever it's attempted to be played here, either in the comments or the submissions. Remember that the guideline is against "gratuitous negativity", not "negativity" in general. HN will still be a place where actual crap gets called crap, but hopefully this means that we'll see less middlebrow criticism and more actually substantive comments.
    • makmanalp 12y ago
      > HN will still be a place where actual crap gets called crap I daresay that this is the problem. When one has the option to say "I think this isn't good from perspective X, because of thing Y", and one says "this is crap", one is being unconstructive and mean. To say that something that someone did or thought is "crap" or "rubbish", the way I see it, is just needlessly inflammatory. I think a lot of people conflate being inflammatory with being frank and straightforward. "Look at how non-PC I am, I told it like it is!!" The truth is option A above is just as frank, but much more civil, and isn't creating enmity when there isn't cause for any.
      • Karunamon 12y ago
• brickmort 12y ago
  Great move! HN is in dire need of this guideline. Someone could post the most amazing new project that they have worked months/years on, and the comments section would inevitably have comments like "this is rubbish, completely unusable, security flaws here and there" etc etc
  • buckbova 12y ago
    Aside from "this is rubbish" the rest of that sounds very constructive. Anyone with a product to share should want feedback. Doesn't mean that person needs to act on it. Also, if you are criticized, take a second to think about it before immediately defending yourself. The worst Show HN threads are where the OP feels the need to respond to every comment on the board to defend his or her project. Learn to take the criticism.
  • lnanek2 12y ago
    People saying it is useless are useful, however, because you can see why it is useless to them and either accept it isn't part of your target market or change the product to include them. People just saying great things when they aren't allowed to be negative is kind of meaningless and unhelpful.
    • dragonwriter 12y ago
      > People saying it is useless are useful, however, because you can see why it is useless to them No, people saying why it is useless (which is grounded, not gratuitous, negativity at worst) are useful for that reason. People merely saying that it is useless are not useful. > People just saying great things when they aren't allowed to be negative is kind of meaningless and unhelpful. A community guideline against gratuitous negativity cannot reasonably be expected to result in "people saying great things when they aren't allowed to be negative" because people are still allowed to be negative, and, in any case, people saying positive things with explanations are just as useful as people saying negative things with explanations.
  • feybay 12y ago
    I'm not really sure what the problem with that is. Security flaws are important to know about, as well as personal opinions. We don't want HN to turn into a hugbox, as that gets rid of all the info that is useful. Positivity is nice, but criticism is what chips away at the block of marble until it becomes a beautiful statue.
• pduszak 12y ago
  Sam Altman's response to all the criticism received on his article "Bubble talk."
• sprash 12y ago
  This is the worst idea ever. I'm generally a pretty negative person for a reason. Negative feedback is necessary for anything to actually get better. And who or what decides what is "gratuitous". This is a recipe for despotism and censorship.
  • mfringel 12y ago
    I disagree. Feedback is usually necessary for anything to actually get better. Negative feedback might be necessary for the commenter to feel better.
  • kolbe 12y ago
    I couldn't agree more. What gets sold to us as an idea that will reduce "gratuitous" negativity can pretty quickly tun into a tool that censors any valid criticism of YC companies that would have a material negative impact on their portfolio's value.
  • DanBC 12y ago
    You can provide negative feedback in a useful constructive way. I don't get the impression that HN wants you to stop doing that.
  • switch007 12y ago
    I agree. This reminiscent of a manager that wants to make a mark by creating arbitrary, vague rules out of the blue. This a community. Was there a "we think we may have a gratuitous negativity problem" discussion? Thin end of the wedge, perhaps. I hope not. (From the article) "Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb." If negative, anonymous feedback here disuades and disenchants them, what hope is there? Are we going to have a Safe Place section of the site, to protect applicants from all bad things? Bad things happen. Mean people will say mean things on the Internet. Life is hard.
    • krebby 12y ago
      > If negative, anonymous feedback here disuades and disenchants them, what hope is there? Absolutely. See Dropbox's Show HN, the slashdot iPod announcement, and every other worthwhile product ever. As a community we're pretty bad at picking successes.
• pain 12y ago
  One of the most passive-aggressive habits is avoiding negativity experiences and emotional developments to feel positively correct. Maturity realizing empathy seconds, that line numbers need to grow exponentially for any form of -logy, requires a deeper stance for tense problem solving pain points.
  • bengali3 12y ago
    I agree with the avoiding negativity, but can you elaborate on an example of avoiding "emotional developments to feel positively correct"
    • pain 12y ago
      Sometimes it hurts to make sense and that is okay. An example being voted from hell to heaven and back and forth again and again is making your question triggering, meaning being nice is just a command and control like with linux top. I rarely resolve my (social(emotional)) system issues by just id removing and killing task. (Intergenerational traumas as much and as well as intergenerative gramma(r) traumma [sic]. Aethic-apathic-empathic determination to make an example of singular social commentary is disturbing (but healthy too, if you can actually solve the problem long-term enough to granulate -logy.))
      • throwawaymaroon 12y ago
        What the heck is a fluidic writer doing in this haunt of logic? Wonderful to stumble across your ologies; keep churning, spurning, turning the logos as you see fit, my friend.
        • pain 12y ago
          logologicalities* u mean? =)) =∫∫ Hurting here :/ Neighborhood webwatchers still pitchforking to make odd ends meet, even though we can also log and filter listening memercy with that tool memery, hunting predates and predominates gathering emotional-intelligence memresistors.
• kolbe 12y ago
  > Negativity isn't the problem--gratuitous negativity is. Is it just regular negative of me to say statements like that one are horrible, or it is gratuitously negative? Am I being a critical thinker when I say that, whenever I hear people make statement like that one, they are usually weaseling into some businessey doublespeak that roughly translates into "people like me can be negative, people like you cannot, but I refuse to say that outright." Or is that shallow cynicism? I get your general message, Sam. And while I don't agree with it, I see how enforcing some unwritten "gratuitous negativity" code could improve HN discussions (I just don't think it would). But I do not know of any place on the internet where I find better discussions on daily news; so my opinion: when it's this great already, why do some vague micro-morality-management thing like this to try to change it?
  • serve_yay 12y ago
    This is exactly my concern, fortunately stated better than I could have myself.
  • chc 12y ago
    > But I do not know of any place on the internet where I find better discussions on daily news; so my opinion: when it's this great already, why do some vague micro-morality-management thing like this to try to change it? Well, I know of a place on the Internet where I used to find better discussions: Hacker News. I think Sam is attempting to push HN back toward what it used to be.
  • dang 12y ago
    In my view, yes, that's shallow cynicism, because it denies good faith in the other. You may be right that not many places on the internet are better, but HN can and should be much better than it is. Rather than measuring it against rampant internet negativity of today, we should measure it against a future online community where people have learned to refrain from taking their negative feelings out on others. It no doubt took a long time for people to (mostly) learn how not to do that in person, so it's not surprising if takes us a while to learn not to do it online.
    • 12y ago
• bane 12y ago
  You know what, I think this is a good idea. I definitely get into "I'm the world's biggest asshole today" mode too frequently. Maybe if I get called out on it more it'll help make me a better person. I know the rest of the civil discourse rules here on HN have helped me become more thoughtful in other modes of interaction.
  • SamReidHughes 12y ago
    > I definitely get into "I'm the world's biggest asshole today" mode too frequently. No you don't.
    • bane 12y ago
      Well, at least we can always kaizen our way to betterment?
• TEMPLEOS_DEV 12y ago
  get bent
• queryly 12y ago
  It is part of life lesson to distinguish bull shits from constructive criticism. If you haven't learned it elsewhere, HN is good place to start.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• pain 12y ago
  Old Hacker News Guideline: Avoidant (Kill Pain.) New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Trauma (Kill Pain. Be Nice!) I (CC) @traumahack because I feel we are mistaking advanced emotional-intelligence with objectification eracing perfect forms. The bitcism of pretending we can order people to make empathy.money by requring we read documentation to spell our own feelings and thoughts. Amount of energy being distressed for distrust is enormously debilitating for a social enterprise that powers and issues social memory. Voting taboo makes and takes time and space too variable a problem, yet we filter it as a memory equation for what and who stays alive to what degree, before power is even amount. Voting taboo takes time, space, and variables, yet we filter it as a memory equation for what and who stays alive to what degree, before power is even amount.
  • pain 12y ago
    The racial biteracy and bitcism is so deep that we literally and figuratively change the color of the words we miss as law. What are we object-relational mapping legal-rational-emotional consciousness by proscribing that error-missing. (Reps memory ignorance as-if, as-shh-if, some sort of truth syrum?) ((War machinery organization is recreational for private supermoderation corporations clustering and cultivating public commentary centralization for forward-looking statements about major social-emotional networking of speech.)) Without web archival/memory/recovery/rescue/leak services many users would lack a single vital sign of life, from sites that erase first, and then call their unconscious actions entactogenesis. illogy ve. logy
    • microempathy 12y ago
      Rainbows colors of law would be healthier.
      • Centreal 12y ago
        Rainbow filters would be smarter and healthier, for the research and development community here is being given limited feeds.
• jokoon 12y ago
  Even when it's for technical stuff, it's getting condescending pretty quickly. You'll feel bad for being wrong.
  • monksy 12y ago
    And then you should get over it and learn something to correct it.
    • jokoon 12y ago
      maybe the blog post about "avoiding gratuitous negativity" is kinda about avoiding the hurting of people's feelings.
• guscost 12y ago
  I'm sometimes bothered by the unhelpful cynicism that pops up here and elsewhere, but if I'm bothered more often than I used to be, it's probably more the effect of me getting old than any objective change. Unhelpful cynicism was probably more common in my own comments from five years ago. Arguing politely (read: effectively) is a skill that takes a long time to learn. These uncultured kids will show up every year, and it would be quite a leap to attribute it to anything but the steady passage of time.
• nikcub 12y ago
  being a cynic with startups and new tech is an easy way to appear wise and correct since ~90% fail, so it is no surprise many take it up as a position as you can appear a genius while offering no actual insight, base it on little actual understanding and it doesn't require much thought.
  • dang 12y ago
    It's such an important point, and I think it applies to new ideas and projects as well as it does to startups. You can maintain a high correctness percentage simply by negating everything, but this is guaranteed to destroy expected value. One psychological aspect of this is the need to feel that one is right. Smart technical people can become addicted to this, but it's the wrong thing to optimize for if you care about curiosity, which it kills.
• nirkalimi 12y ago
  Excited about this. I would love for this to be implemented all over the internet. It is fairly easy to be negative. In fact, the cynical approach is the easiest point of view you can take. I have been working on this myself, and I encourage everyone to try and go the whole day/week/month practicing the opposite. I think this has to do with how we are taught. Critical thinking somewhere down the line gave justification to being 'gratuitously negative'. I went my whole life thinking that I was being helpful when in reality I was just hurting people.
• andrewstuart 12y ago
  It's "the programmers way" to try to come up with some sort of moderation/policing system to solve this. Please do not come up with a moderation system. There should simply be a confirmation step after hitting submit, reminding the poster that they are valued for their positive contribution and giving the poster the chance to rethink their post and cancel if its too negative. Additionally when posting, require people to self-rate the level of negativity of their post when they submit from one to ten. Publish that number along with the post. There's nothing at the moment that explicitly asks or reminds people of expectations when they post. What is it that makes you think posters know there is an expectation not to be negative? People don't read the community guidelines every time they post, UNLESS key points of the guidelines are presented to them. The community moderation system, what it ends up being, will be gamed and abused and alienate and anger people. Don't do it. Witness the toxic mess of StackOverflow. HN is not in a position right now to express concern about negative posts because it is not explicitly asking people to avoid negative posting, at the time that they post, and requiring the user to think about it. That is step one. HN would be implementing a passive-aggressive solution by going to an indirect system that continues to allow people to post negatively and then gets the community to police it later. Address it up-front, at the time of posting. Let people be responsible for their own posts. Asked to think it through, posters will dial back the negativity.
  • DanBC 12y ago
    > There's nothing at the moment that explicitly asks or reminds people of expectations when they post. New users are asked to read the guidelines when they post. I don't know how long that reminder stays there, but there's a linkto the guidelines right under the text entry box.
    • andrewstuart 12y ago
      Some background document doesn't address the users present behaviour. If there is some critical behaviour you want reinforced then you can't hand wave vaguely at some background document. You need to drive people through a process that requires them to confirm that are behaving in the expected way. "How negative is this post?" 0: not negative 10: it's snarky
• oskarth 12y ago
  Great work! It's amazing just how many arguments reduce to nothing if you discard those that don't apply the principle of charity.
• tomc1985 12y ago
  What is with everyone trying to suppress negativity? :( Freakin happiness nazis
• gtrubetskoy 12y ago
  It would be interesting if we all agreed to vote up gratuitously negative and dismissive comments in a Geroge-Costanza-The-Opposite way in response to this (and only this!) post, just to illuminate how much of that goes around.
• ohjesusthatguy 12y ago
  FUCK THIS SHIT.
• nabla9 12y ago
  related matter: 1. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related hacking or engineering projects is not beneficial unless it's very detailed or insightful. If you don't like it, move on. Don't give your two cents if it's critique. 2. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related to science should be default (unless they come from top notch publications like Nature or Science). The quality of science news and press releases related to science is abysmal. People consume science hype almost like religious people listen sermons about heaven and don't even realize it. Popularized science posted in HN is 99% rubbish.
• frakkingcylons 12y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of this rule, but I think the better policy is to ban low-effort comments. Either way, glad to see the HN team doing something.
• pyrrhotech 12y ago
  A lot of us (I'm at the top of the list) are occasionally hasty to be negative on the hottest new social media startups. As SA says, it's human nature to feel jealousy and sour grapes. "Damn these kids and their stupid chat apps that I could have made in 3 days when I was 16... and now they're raising 10 million dollars???". That's how most of us grinding it out at big companies likely feel when we read post after post of it, but it's not constructive to either ourselves or the community. Instead, I think there are some things to learn about markets, trends and even of how to conquer our own defeating psychosis from these stories.
  • dang 12y ago
    This is precisely the kind of self-reflection that, in my experience, helps one resist the temptation to negativity that Sam wrote about in his post. It isn't easy and one invariably lapses, but it's profoundly worth doing. Thanks for giving us an admirable example.
• dalacv 12y ago
  F* you. That's the stupidest rule I've ever heard of.
• meesterdude 12y ago
  I find the "gratuitous negativity" a bit vague; i think thats poor wording choice, and something more descriptive should be developed. But I agree the principle is is good. Its ok for people to be dumb, and for ideas or products to be shit. They exist / will keep coming. But if you want to actually contribute to the discussion, ask questions instead of belittling them. Try to steer them in the right direction instead of trying to get them to jump off the tracks entirely. Building stuff is hard, presenting things to your peers is nerve wrecking. Armchairs are comfy to speak from, but they don't move anything forward.
• npaquin 12y ago
  STFU.
  • npaquin 12y ago
    lulz. moralfags.
• bougiefever 12y ago
  In other words, don't be a big meanie. If you don't see the value in someone else's idea for an invention, ask questions. Maybe you're missing something.
• arca_vorago 12y ago
  "Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing of value to the community." I will assure you that my very deep cynicism was reached through long and arduous resistance to such, but critical thinking, logic, rationality, and truth rank higher than happiness in my book. I will continue to be as negative as I see fit, without being constantly "gratuitously negative".
• EdSharkey 12y ago
  Must comments be soothing and agreeable to be appreciated at all? Is it okay to be caustic if you're also making a good point? For example, I often say intentionally chaotic things in relation to Microsoft stories because we have a history and this reflects my current impression of that company. That said, I find a lot of their recent changes, open source contributions, and future plans very agreeable and sometimes amazing and I try to point that out. So, is it ok to dredge up their past transgressions if I can simultaneously make positive observations regarding MSFT's future? Even though I tinge towards the negative/chaos, I notice that I can 'score' better with people whenever I put effort into the quality of my writing.
  • tptacek 12y ago
    No, they merely need to be substantive.
    • throwawaymaroon 12y ago
      This is a sensible policy only until you have to define what is and isn't substantive. Since "substantive" tends to evaluate to "it changed my mind or I don't believe it to be completely wrong," it becomes a subjective game very quickly. Arguing something that many people disagree with outright is inherently going to look negative no matter how 'substantive' it turns out to be.
      • tptacek 12y ago
        The post we're commenting on addresses this: this concern is why the guideline is enforced only as a community norm, not with code.
        • throwawaymaroon 12y ago
          In other words, it's a policy with no teeth, a simple admonishment? I mean, I don't disagree: I think this changes absolutely nothing. If anything it's a renewal of the old guidelines, not an addition to them. I suppose I think there's some ambiguity into what is intended, and there's therefore some investigation into HN's relationship with negativity going on. There's a kneejerk reaction to view this as an attempt to prevent people like me from spouting their usual hostility towards the tech scene, and I demand the right to be booed off stage!
• rokhayakebe 12y ago
  Please remove the ability to download. Downvotes are the first step towards meanness.
  • pain 12y ago
    <3 I missed your comment!i I felt that way too for https://whatwouldempathydo.reddit.com https://whatwouldempathydo.reddit.com. It was the first measure I took. #Meanreal. #Votereal. #Censereal. #Sensereal. #Centreal. . #Traumareal. #Painreal.
  • rokhayakebe 12y ago
    Sorry, I meant ability to downvote.
• notacoward 12y ago
  This might work if enforcement had any chance whatsoever of being enforced fairly, and not just another club the staff and the already-karma-rich can use to harass people who don't see the world as they do. Is it gratuitously negative for me to point out that, in the entire history of moderation systems on forums like these, that has never happened? Here's what I really expect will happen, based on thirty-plus years' experience online. * Comments that are insightful and informative overall, and recognized by the community for being so, will still get dinged for one poor choice of phrase. * Comments that are critical of anything outside the already-obvious zeitgeist, but worded passive-aggressively enough that their actual gratuitous negativity and chilling effect can be explained away, will get a pass. This will have less of an effect on negativity than on diversity of opinion.
• InclinedPlane 12y ago
  Some tips: If you write a response, before sending it go back through and edit it, think about removing unneeded negativity now that you have a fully fleshed post. If your post starts with "No." or "You're wrong." consider removing those and just letting your argument stand on its own. Consider using softer and more charitable words like "mistaken" instead of "wrong". Usually that's what is meant in most cases anyway. Avoid the backdoor route to building a strawman, don't add unspecified details or intensity to a post that isn't there. Doing so makes it easier to get on a high horse, but usually that isn't warranted. Get used to having a genial exchange of views with a slight difference of opinion, it's not necessary for every "argument" to be a fight to the death. Try to read posts by others more charitably, and take the time to apologize for mistakes you've made or times you've let your emotions get the better of your reason. Upvote comments you disagree with that are well made and lead to a good discussion.
  • MollyR 12y ago
    These are good tips. I will be using them. Do you have advice how to figure out if someone is responding in bad faith, and what to do in those situations ? EDIT: > Avoid the backdoor route to building a strawman, don't add unspecified details or intensity to a post that isn't there. What if you must add details to clarify what the context of the post is ? ex .Water is liquid. I reply But Water is solid when below freezing.
    • InclinedPlane 12y ago
      If someone is responding in bad faith, then usually you just want to curtail talking to them. If you think it's still necessary to continue the thread due to the "audience", then concentrate on facts and sources and just make the strongest argument you can then just leave it alone. Avoid trying to get the last word or being goaded into responding just because someone said something that makes you upset. In regards to clarification, that's easy, ask questions, ask for clarification. Just don't assume.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• carsongross 12y ago
  Request for a special case: if we are the original author or it's a ShowHN, can we allow gratuitous negativity by declaration? I've had some people talk some mad shit about intercooler.js and yet, after engaging them a bit, I learned some very useful things.
  • dang 12y ago
    I don't think that violates the spirit of the guidelines, so why not.
• abalone 12y ago
  Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity? Seriously, it's a slippery slope. "Nothing of substance" is a term that needs more clarification that what that post provides. It seems to suggest that if the criticism is too harsh, then it's no longer substantial. I think there's a better guideline than that. The best ideas not only can withstand criticism, they get better with criticism. If you examine what's being revealed about Apple and Steve Jobs -- the most successful company in the world right now -- it's not that they avoided criticism. And contrary to rumors it's not that they didn't nurture seemingly "dumb" ideas. Jobs would toss them out there all the time, by his own admission. Nurturing crazy young creative ideas and rigorous critical analysis are both part of Apple's process. Apple's secret is that the criticism is directed at the idea not the person. That is what defines "nothing of substance": the target of the criticism, not the intensity. If it's about the idea, that's substantial, even if it's harsh. If it becomes personal, then that's truly not adding substance. You "throw it in the cauldron" and then rigorously debate everything in the pot in a manner divorced from the people who contributed it. That's how you boil it down to the best stuff, not by holding back.
  • tptacek 12y ago
    The post you're responding to is at pains to explain that the new guideline isn't "no negativity", which seems to moot your concern pretty much completely.
    • abalone 12y ago
      Not at all. You've highlighted the problem with your phrase "isn't no negativity". It's a poorly defined slippery slope of a criterion. Where is the line drawn? Banning personal attacks, but allowing unlimited criticism of ideas, is more of an objective guideline.
      • tptacek 12y ago
        Unlimited criticism of ideas is fine as long as it's substantive. Critical comments must contribute something to the discussion. A reader unfamiliar with the topic of the discussion should be expect to learn something from critical comments, more than "a commenter named $foo doesn't like this thing".
• JoshTriplett 12y ago
  > To support this, Daniel and the HN team are working on another new idea I'm very excited about--code-named "Modnesty"--to turn more moderation power over to the community. We'll be sharing more on that in the coming months. That sounds really interesting. I'm curious what kind of additional moderation capabilities this potentially includes. In particular, personally I'm less interested in the moderation ability to more heavily bury or downvote awful comments or stories, and more interested in the ability to "rescue" something that's been excessively flagged/downvoted.
  • dang 12y ago
    Yes, that's what we're working on. It turned out to be tricky for technical reasons, but we're getting there.
• mlvljr 12y ago
  Whatever. [waiting]
  • mlvljr 12y ago
    Push harder, folks, I'd like to see this one at the very bottom :)
    • pain 12y ago
      I∫ will race you. =∫∫ ∫og will race log. Maybe empathy karma will come around. Empathy comes and goes, money comes and goes, karma comes and goes. Sadly it hurts when it is accellerated by force of will to determine a ruler and winner to feel good versus bad about. Fog of war is very real for hacked news logy, where edit change commit revision history is basic needs remorse remotely administrated by the "unsayable trauma of hidden language" rulers.
      • mlvljr 12y ago
        How true :/
        • pain 12y ago
          til True. :∫ One day we can log til. Maybe.
• coreyoconnor 12y ago
  Can we extend this to the rest of Silicon Valley?
• pdxgene 12y ago
  +1. Yes, please.
• jmadsen 12y ago
  I'm glad they finally stepped in to try to deal with this problem. HN has long ago become something of a joke to the rest of the English-speaking internet at large. When a great many people you know and respect "can't be bothered with that site", you should be concerned. For those of you thinking this is somehow unnecessary, let me remind you that genius will only take you so far. Good social skills get you the rest of the way. Look at this as an opportunity for self-improvement where you may not recognize that you need some.
• edmack 12y ago
  This is great. I hope the community rally around this and make it happen.
• chaosfactor 12y ago
  Wow, this post has some hard core moralizing in it. The whole concept that a mean comment is going to prevent the next AirBnB. That may be the case, but it's unfalsifiable and straight up passing more judgement. I can do without that, personally. I mean, you seriously won't let Linus Torvalds post on HN?
  • exodust 12y ago
    Not only that, but overly positive, glass always half full comments for the sake of guidelines might prevent the next AirBnB too. Perhaps for those people seeking feedback who want brutally raw, might-hurt-a-bit honesty, a special flag can be set inviting all manner of such comments. I know I'd elect for that, and would be disappointed with anything less. Spicy internet discussion can flush out the pipes of a concept and invigorate thoughtful discussion quite efficiently. It can also derail, but it's worth the risk IMHO.
• SeanDav 12y ago
  While on this subject, I would like to see less downvoting for comments you don't agree with but are otherwise ok. Downvoting should be reserved for factually incorrect comments, trolling, meanness and other undesirable properties, not for a difference of opinion.
• TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
  I do not agree with this. I agree with the principle, but in practice, it is too subjective. Reasonable people can - and will - disagree as to what is warranted and what they consider justifiable. Now, if it was well-defined, that would be something else. But I don't see any way of doing so, humanity being such as it is.
• stronglikedan 12y ago
  One simple thing that I've found to help me write comments of all types in a positive and unoffensive manner is to simply proof read the comment before posting. I re-read all of my comments aloud in my head, and make necessary adjustments before hitting the submit button. I find that emotion and enthusiasm can lead to gratuitous negativity without even realizing it, as those things don't always translate well to plain text. Aside from posts, this applies to emails and texts. Since I started this, I am almost never accused of coming across in a negative tone, even when I want to convey disappointment or other negative emotions. There's usually always a way to craft it so that it's perceived as constructive criticisms, and thus, well received. Write with emotion, and proof read without. As a bonus, I rarely make spelling or grammatical errors, except occasionally out of ignorance.
  • dang 12y ago
    Yes! And if, like me, you tend to see what you should have edited out only submitting it, there is a handy "delay" parameter in your profile. (Though kogir will smite me for mentioning it.)
• andrewstuart 12y ago
  The English would tackle this problem by asking people to be nice. The Americans would tackle this by policing, punishment and penalties. The cold war communists of the 1950s by forcing the community to watch each other and report offenders.
  • tacos 12y ago
    I like you. Let's be friends.
  • miles 12y ago
    Reminds me of this shirt[1] from Casanovas in Makawao, HI: Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are Italian, the Mechanics German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by the Italians. [1] http://www.happyhotelier.com/2008/06/01/quote-of-the-day-no-3/ http://www.happyhotelier.com/2008/06/01/quote-of-the-day-no-...
• vitriol83 12y ago
  good idea. perhaps we should abolish downvoting too- isn't that the very definition of gratuitous negativity?
• stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  It is with great joy and positive vibrations that I receive this real world implementation of a few worthy ideas from the amazing Psycho-Pass[1] anime series. Cynicism is not conducive to peaceful productivity and it should be gracefully eliminated. Preferably by silencing gratuitously negative voices, for the common good of the cheerfully desperate community of Silicon Valley and by extension - the world. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass
  • pain 12y ago
    Psycho-Pass-Words!i (I missed your social-emotional commentary because, well, hacker news lacks and blocks access and permission to basic data open filters needs sadly.)
  • krick 12y ago
    Wow. That's pretty subtle.
• lazyeye 12y ago
  The question alot of HNers ask themselves before commenting.."What can I say that makes me sound clever and better than the original poster?". The easy, lazy approach is just to find something to criticize. Alot of insecure people on HN.
• 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  It isn't so much the negative comments that bug me as much as the downvoting with no explanation.
  • ptaipale 12y ago
    I wondered the same the other day. Best explanation I could come up with is that an explanatory comment would expose the downvoter to being downvoted (in retaliation or otherwise).
• twoy 12y ago
  Negative comments based on reason are the reason why I keep checking HN comments. Those comments are valuable because trade offs are rarely shown than benefits. However those interesting comments are often downvoted with spinal reflex.
• curiously 12y ago
  I don't like this. This is akin to censorship.
• oafitupa 12y ago
  But now Bitcoin haters will have nothing to say!
• pekk 12y ago
  I find the broadness of this guideline really worrisome and likely to exacerbate bad traits HN has developed. It's going to be extremely easy, I invite you to watch for this, to broadly apply it to whatever is against the prevailing groupthink, and selectively exclude the prevailing groupthink. For example, "shallow cynicism" about favorites like Wikileaks will be mercilessly punished, as already happens by downvote, but by contrast "shallow cynicism" about enemies like the US Government is de rigueur here, so pointing out that it is shallow cynicism will be mercilessly punished - now with additional reinforcement from staff due to the "negativity" guideline.
• suyash 12y ago
  HN moderation is total crap, too much control will kill the openness of this platform.
• kposehn 12y ago
  I read this and immediately thought "I hope I never actually did this myself" Looking through my comment history, I have a few times previously. We're all fallible, but at the same time this sort of negativity can come through without intending it. I'm really caring and optimistic, so to see some of my comments become unintentionally overly negative is kind of humbling. Let's all remember how easy this is to do and keep an eye on ourselves. It matters.
• deleted 12y ago
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• pain 12y ago
  How does a steel man reflect? How does a steel man reflect about problems? How does a steel man reflect about problem solving? How does a steel man reflect about problem solving if it is broken? How does a steel man reflect about problem solving if it is broken (and hurting to describe (something unsaid (difficult to (just block (list (listen))))? Robo swears robo cares a (alpha proto) race is healthier. Recreating racism with bitcism is mechanical. Pattern recognition by accellerated racism is pattern mapping missing lots (of school sensor sec).
  • castis 12y ago
    You wouldn't happen to know of a tutorial on how to understand all the things you just said, would you?
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    • pain 12y ago
      name-calling is minus emotion-calling, and stonewalls the hurt steelmanning-steelgrammaruning is name-building minus emotion-building. apathic harm principle but the rule we're reframetrustworking is so-called empathic determinate. _You wouldn't happen to know of a tutorial trauma officially on how to overprotect apath all the things we said, would you shh seriality?_ My post was flagged[*] for using Robo Swears (slavery reflection) as a metaphor/mechaphor/medaphor for gross pattern recognition mapping (besides being free-form broke terms of pattern recognition service apparently). After growing used to years of legal-information-technology replacing psychology I respond by asking for help against reversed transaction messages (of psychological currency as well as much a namecoin facing 51% grammar attacks). [1] https://archive.today/NUw0D https://archive.today/NUw0D / http://web.archive.org/web/20150404003942/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317916 http://web.archive.org/web/20150404003942/https://news.ycomb... / http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1428109271614562&date=%400&fromform=1 http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1428109271614562&date=%4... / ... / severe memory-problem rules force manual saving. Maybe http://fetching.io http://fetching.io is a anti-psychotic-memory-moderation-meditation-medication-lock-log-doc-dot-dote if it were open source. dang.
• dataker 12y ago
  While I understand the reasons behind the article, I don't think it's a real issue on HN. If someone uses gratuitous negativity, other users generally will comment and refute the fallacious claim. As logic and respect are usually kept, users will rarely feel terrible like other communities and forums.
• ianstallings 12y ago
  Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person and wouldn't be allowed to post here for very long before he was hell banned. Maybe the issue isn't so much negativity as it is sensitivity.
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person HN guidelines do not address whether a person is good or bad (or "terrible"). > and wouldn't be allowed to post here for very long before he was hell banned. You assume that Torvalds, if he choose to participate in HN, would apply the same mode of interaction he applies in different contexts with different expectations. While, certainly, there are people who are unable to adjust their mode of interaction based on what is appropriate in different contexts, I don't see that it is clear that Torvalds is among them. > Maybe the issue isn't so much negativity as it is sensitivity. Or maybe the issue is that what lots of people want out of HN isn't the same kind of environment in which the actions of Torvalds to which you are obliquely referring occur.
    • decisiveness 12y ago
      >Or maybe the issue is that what lots of people want out of HN isn't the same kind of environment in which the actions of Torvalds to which you are obliquely referring occur. The actions of Torvalds, though brash, are respected not because of his accomplishments, but because his assertions are usually quite valid. Many of us can learn from not discarding useful counterpoints simply because of how colorfully or insultingly they are delivered.
  • pekk 12y ago
    Doesn't that depend on whether Linus is posting gratuitously negative stuff to HN? I don't think it matters to this guideline whether Linus bawls out kernel lieutenants on kernel mailing lists.
• blazespin 12y ago
  I think this is an effective idea for building community, but it is not rational or scientific if carried to far. An important principal in science is falsification. Actively attacking an idea provides a critically important perspective and those who avoid that perspective are doomed to failure.
• johnhenry 12y ago
  "How are we going to enforce this? By asking the community to do so. Gentle reminders by peers are the best way we know to make the culture better." I like this approach because this, itself, is a gentle reminder to the community. Perhaps the best way is to avoid active censorship and encourage us to reflect upon ourselves. However; I do fear that this will, at least on some threads, lead to a passive aggressive string of comments that's no more helpful than what we are trying to avoid in the first place.
• Gatsky 12y ago
  The guideline has some vaguely politically correct overtones, which seems to be putting people off a little, but I think this is unwarranted. Good comments seem to me to have the same characteristics - insight, good will, lessons from experience, novelty, thoughtfulness. Strongly held, polarising and poorly explained opinions aren't one of those characteristics. I myself have written comments which start with a negative comment, and then through fleshing it out arrive at a more moderate position at the end... at which point I go back and change the first sentence. Don't just write the first sentence...
• decisiveness 12y ago
  The problem is that "shallow cynicism", "gratuitous negativity", and "all forms of meanness" are vague distinctions all subject to interpretation. Guidelines like this should have specific examples to aid in their definitions so we can criticize or agree with them. What could be considered "mean" to someone emotional/thin skinned, might be interpreted as helpful criticism to someone not so sensitive. Sometimes it's really hard to say something respectfully negative (oxymoron), and even harder for it to be interpreted as respectful. I, for one, appreciate when people talk trash to me (especially when I'm wrong). It's an awakening I sometimes don't get from a less firm/colorful counterargument.
  • brazzledazzle 12y ago
    As a counterpoint: The more specific your guidelines are the more you have people who will attempt to abuse them pedantically (see reddit for so many examples). They will also become rules, rather than guidelines. I think the idea may be that they want the community to use these as guidelines and interpret them as appropriate to keep the site mature and pointed in the right direction.
• andrewstuart 12y ago
  It would be interesting to run a six month exercise in which HN users could tag HN posts with single keywords that identify the tone of the post.
• kimdouglasmason 12y ago
  Rah Rah Rah! If your startup is not winning, just pivot, and be positive enough, and you will inevitably win. Selection bias doesn't exist and was made up by negative Nancys. Seriously though, stick a fork in HN. It's over. Enjoy the echo chamber that this place will inevitably become.
  • orthoganol 12y ago
    There are echo chamber aspects of HN... Especially Sam's AMA, which I was hoping would be a discussion of Sam's life, philosophies, interesting anecdotes, etc. like it is over on Reddit, but instead was predominantly questions about how to get into YC :(. Even so I'll take the good with the bad, you still get great insights on technology. It just morphs for the worse when YC companies post, or the topic turn to getting into YC.
  • jv22222 12y ago
    If you've been following HN for 4+ years then you will have noticed that, in some ways, HN is already an echo chamber. The same regular startupy stories with different titles crop up as each new batch of folks discover HN. I'm talking about things like... - How I increased my conversion funnel by x% - What I learnt from my 3 failed startups - [Entreporn Startup] Raises 50m - How I earned $500k as an indie games developer - Etc.
  • vixen99 12y ago
    "Negativity isn't the problem--gratuitous negativity is. By that we mean negativity that adds nothing of substance to a comment". You obviously read this or you wouldn't comment. So can you explain how there's anything remiss about this statement? 'Nothing of substance' = hot air useful only for pushing up an empty skimpy container.
• snarfy 12y ago
  It's a common trend I see, not just here, but in all online forums as they grow. I'm glad to see you guys calling it out.
• marincounty 12y ago
  "The human trait of being unhappy with other people's success is something we’ve all felt and should all try to avoid." The problem is one man's success is another man's failure? Success is a very subjective term. I agree with the post, but not with what I feel is the author's view of success. In my world, it's not about how much money you have; it's how you got that money, or what you do with it once you accumulated vast amounts. To any wealthy person. Wealth has many different heads. You can have good genes--great wealth. You can have a kind heart--better wealth. You can have a great intelect--great wealth. You can have Morals--maybe the best success? And yes, you can have financial wealth, but that financial wealth will always be scrutinized because so many times it was made in unscrupulous ways. Personally, I am not sure airbnb is a sucess, or even legal in most counties in the U.S.? I will fight for it if I ever see it helping out with Homelessness though? Let me get my Uber out. Their latest commercial, "I don't need a special car to drive for Uber?" Yes--you need a special car to drive for Uber. It must be 2008 or newer. It must be four door. If you drive in NY, it must be on that list.(A list I can't figure out. It doesn't have anything to do with safety, but about aesthetics?) I know Paul Graham is going after the multiple negative comments that occur too frequently when someone introduces their new app. This site has become more than just a Programmer's site though. Some discussions are going to get heated.
• beefsack 12y ago
  I hope this doesn't affect the unique pragmatism you find around here. I've seen a lot of ego-stroking back-patting around here recently which don't add substance to conversations, should we have a guideline around gratuitous positivity too?
• paulhauggis 12y ago
  "New work and new ideas are fragile. Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb. Obviously, we want Hacker News to help startups and people doing new work, not hurt them. Building stuff is hard, and you'll always need a thick skin. But we see no need for Hacker News to make the problem worse." I see it different way. I think many times, people with terrible startup ideas get led along too far because they haven't been told enough it's not a very good idea. The result can be very harmful: life savings lost, dropping out of college, investors money lost (which could be friends and family). "The human trait of being unhappy with other people's success is something we’ve all felt and should all try to avoid" I don't think the negative comments is an example of this. Most of the negative comments I have seen are before a person is successful, not after. Even so, they are just words. If overly negative comments discourage you from starting a company, maybe you shouldn't be starting a company. You just aren't ready. Negative comments, unless constructive, are meaningless. I just wish more people stopped taking these comments so personally and seriously. Is this new policy also going to apply to the negative comments I see every day toward opposing political and ideological views? Many communities have started this policy online, but I have found it's a tool used to silence critics and opposing viewpoints. I just hope this doesn't also happen to the HN community.
• jsweojtj 12y ago
  No. No no no no no no no.
• Animats 12y ago
  The musical version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp-IvX8VM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp-IvX8VM8
• blawa 12y ago
  Stop with the Microsoft hate people, all companies are doing PR, favouring one and hating others- you're only making a fool of yourself
• deciplex 12y ago
  Well, at the risk of adding "gratuitous negativity" to this comment thread, I'll say this: sounds like another way for people to rationalize downvoting posts they merely dislike or disagree with.
• cryofan 12y ago
  big brother is watching
• peterarmstrong 12y ago
  How about doubleplusunpositivity? In all seriousness, the line between a valuable piece of criticism and gratuitous negativity seems like a fine line, and one of the things I like about HN is that there is usually intelligent criticism in the comments. This seems like it goes against that...
• pain 12y ago
  Downvoting negativity is the definition of gratuitous: "given or done free of charge." We logact as-if removing parts of speech of sense of logic is going to change history, without commiting a full transactional analysis.
• vitd 12y ago
  I think I agree with the spirit of this guideline, but I have serious doubts that it can work. Here's why: I joined HN a year or two ago. I didn't go back and read any posts written before I joined. Anyone joining after today will have no idea that this is the way things are supposed to be. Further, I suspect (though I hope I'm wrong) that a rule like this could end up causing the same issues that people here complain about with Stack Overflow. Namely, we'll end up with a brigade of people who feel it's their job to keep the "gratuitous negativity" to a minimum. The only problem is that everyone will have a different idea of what constitutes "gratuitous". But I hope to be proven wrong!
  • dang 12y ago
    > I think I agree with the spirit of this guideline, but I have serious doubts that it can work. Let's see. HN is experimental, and this is just another experiment. If it works, it will be because community members help shift the culture in a higher-quality direction. That, by the way, is also how newcomers find out about these things. Rules don't communicate themselves, but culture does.
    • zrail 12y ago
      Putting the rules on the comment page might help, though. Not just a link, either, but the whole set of guidelines, along with a statement to the effect that, by posting, you agree to abide by the guidelines. A constant reminder that this is a community with certain expectations of it's members.
    • solve 12y ago
      Dang, what's the percentage of active / new users who visit the guidelines page? Can you measure this in the website analytics? > Rules don't communicate themselves, but culture does. At this point, you should really just copy the methods that Producthunt used to shape their community culture. Their strategy was perfect. In PH's case, it wasn't some intangible culture persuading people how to act, it was the founders directly telling people that being supportive and friendly is absolutely required, or else you'll be banned from commenting. See their 3 great recent videos on this precise topic: https://courses.platzi.com/classes/build-grow-online-communities/concepto/how-to-build-and-grow-online-communities-by-produc/product-hunt-live-class-part-1/material/ https://courses.platzi.com/classes/build-grow-online-communi...
• allochthon 12y ago
  One of the main ways gratuitous negativity is found here is in downvoting of comments for anything other than trolling. There are many well-meaning comments that are downvoted that should not be. It makes the membership of this site look ugly (those that do the downvoting, anyway). It is bad enough in some cases that I have taken it as a badge of honor; to my mind that means it's not really serving its purpose.
• retrogradeorbit 12y ago
  This is just a terrible idea. Will I have this comment flagged for expressing this? A thought experiment. If you and some others are in a car, and it's just driven off a cliff, and as you are falling you say to the other occupants, "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here!" is that gratuitous negativity? No, it's the truth. Most people, in this car, don't want to hear the truth. As they say, ignorance is bliss. Stop being so negative! Saying we've driven off a cliff is getting me down! So shutup! The thing is, reality is not all sunshine and rainbows. There are some very hard realities unfolding in the world right now. Remove the ability to make negative comments and now you can't criticise things. The car driving off the cliff is a metaphor for our society which now openly tortures, wages a never ending false war on terror, and is a government of wolves that's using incrementalism to roll out a police state. We double tap drone strike weddings, we snoop on every communication on the planet. And when it's found out, absolutely nothing changes, because we are already captured. We are already prisoners. This is not negativity. This is reality. This is the truth. Some people, when faced with this, want to shake people, wake them up and say 'lets fix this'. But most want to bury their head in the sand. They want to gag the words. They want to shoot the messenger. And then go back to sleep in their ivory tower, hoping that they will die of old age before the consequences really come home to roost. For a group of supposedly smart people, this is incredibly dumb. I've just finished reading Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" to try and get a better understanding of the societal structure of prisons and punishment to better understand the times I live in. And most of what's in that book would be deemed by a lot of people here as 'gratuitous negativity'. And yet Foucault was one of the great minds of our time. Under this guideline his ideas are no longer welcome. And so it goes. “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell
  • josephagoss 12y ago
    Please correct me if I am wrong, but the way I read the OP was that negativity without reason is one part of the issue. In your case of the car falling off a cliff, perhaps it is gratuitous negativity to say "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here!" but it's not gratuitous negativity to say "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here because this car is falling towards the ground at high speed due to gravity and motion and we're all about to die!" I think if there is at least some reasoning shown with the negativity, the argument is more clear and others can learn from it. Again, I could have misunderstood both the OP and your comment, if so I apologize.
• dennisgorelik 12y ago
  Unfortunately Sam did not give any examples, so it's hard to understand what exactly he means by "Gratuitous Negativity". In particular, it's not clear where constructive criticism ends and gratuitous negativity starts.
• bra-ket 12y ago
  what a stupid idea
• jksmith 12y ago
  Getting downvoted on this board can sometimes be a mark of distinction. And anybody who complains about golang not having generics is a wimpy whiner, IMO. And as has been said before on this board, Hail Satan.
• QuantumRoar 12y ago
  > Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing of value to the community. That's a comparison of apples and oranges. Critical thinking is something you do, i.e. an action. Cynicism is an attribute of a person. This essentially tells that a cynic, i.e. the person as a whole, should not contribute in the case he/she is shallow. Whatever 'shallow' means in the context of a point of view developed from years of experience. So even if such a 'shallow cynic' is critically thinking he/she is excluded as per that statement. I'd rephrase that statement using a word like sarcasm (that is actually an action and not a statement about a person) since the guidelines should not criticize persons but their actions, which is – by the way – the right way to phrase negative feedback.
• runewell 12y ago
  Correctly interpreting online communication is difficult. What one person considers constructive feedback another person may interpret as negativity. Reminds me of that Key & Peele skit: https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo
• cdub32k 12y ago
  This post was unpleasant to read and distracted me from actual work
  • vixen99 12y ago
    Why? Your opinion is worth nothing of itself; the reasons for your opinion are a different matter. But here you give none so why comment?
• mncolinlee 12y ago
  I have an idea related to this guideline. Good tools already exist to do automated sentiment analysis. It would be extremely interesting to build forum software for HN that detects when a commenter is going too far with negativity and then gently guides that person to tone it down a bit while the comment is still being composed. Maybe a few gentle prompts at the right moment is all it really takes.
  • dang 12y ago
    I'd love to be wrong about this, but believe that the sentiment tools are too crude to rely on. They tend to get the nuances of conversation wrong, and those are the life blood of HN threads. We do intend to try it, though, when we have the cycles. It might be useful as a supplement, or if nothing else a fun experiment.
• Sealy 12y ago
  I like this policy. I think it'll help encourage positivity in a field which can often receive harsh critique. Bullying, especially cyber-bullying has never been an easier, faceless crime that we have to unite to stand up against. Good on you Y-Combinator for leading the efforts. Mr Zuckerberg and his team must have had similar conversations at Facebook when people keep asking him about whether or not to add a 'dis-like' button. He said publicly that although he did not agree with a thumbs down button, he did see a need for another button which would acknowledge a post. Say for example, if someone posts about bereaving a lost loved one. Others may not want to hit a 'like' button in that context but would love to hit an alternative 'acknowledge / agree' button.
• modernerd 12y ago
  “The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.” – Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
• bootload 12y ago
  "Modnesty --to turn more moderation power over to the community." Q. Does everyone get equal access to moderation? If so, will equal access cause a skew in moderation?
  • dang 12y ago
    As equal as the current access is to flagging, unless we see evidence that that won't work.
    • bootload 12y ago
      thx Dan
• Dewie 12y ago
  It's simple to be mean on HN. You just have to hide it in some layers of passive aggression and snark. I guess now you need to add another layer. Yay. HN has got an army of people with overinflated sense of self and importance. I guess people calling them on their self-delusional bullshit is "gratuitous negativity". What a bunch of assholes.
• danbmil99 12y ago
  Good luck with that
  • danbmil99 12y ago
    HN could use a better sense of irony
• JadeNB 12y ago
  I've seen reference to this and other HN guidelines in the past, but the only reason that I know what some of these guidelines are (or even about their existence) is because of occasional mention in discussions. Is there a single source for the guidelines that I should be following?
  • davecardwell 12y ago
    There is a link in the footer to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• smoyer 12y ago
  My comments (depending on my mood) will often include "Snark" while still making a point. I suspect I'm going to get down-voted much more often if the community decides that down-votes are the way to enforce this. I don't mind being down-voted occasionally but I'd rather not be hell-banned - I think I still contribute to the community overall. I (previously) used the average karma/contribution on my profile page to self-police by trying to maintain an average around at least 3. Any idea why it was removed? Will it be coming back in some form? Any ideas on other ways to make sure I'm staying positive on here?
  • dang 12y ago
    If worried, you can always email us at hn@ycombinator.com to get a reading on what's going on (not that we always know). But really, don't worry about it. Of course you're a positive contributor. Truly negative contributors, by the way, never worry about this. We got rid of average because (a) after looking extensively at the data we didn't see any value in it, (b) we had evidence of people gaming the metric, (c) its implementation was complicated, and most importantly (d) we think upvotes are wrong thing to optimize for. Optimize for saying substantive things.
• biomimic 12y ago
  Then fix my account.
• tmalsburg2 12y ago
  One issue with this regulation is that hacker news is an international community and there are strong cultural differences in what is perceived as being too negative. In the US, people have a very low threshold and there is always a high pressure to be positive and supportive. People from Europe perceive this as phony and they tend to be more direct with their criticism. I lived in both cultures and observed that in the US there is a strong emphasis on presenting criticism in a considerate and toned-down way, whereas in Europe people are better at dealing with open criticism. There are merits to both approaches and I don't think it's a good idea to force the American way of doing things on this community. Hacker news needs to evolve a composite of the two ways to deal with criticism in an organic fashion.
  • dang 12y ago
    This is an important point and one reason why we have no interest in overdoing this. HN already is a composite of the kind you're talking about. It's not perfect—there is cross-cultural friction—but it is workable.
• lobo_tuerto 12y ago
  Also, one should never take anything too personal. Even if the critique is somewhat mean, try to extract what the critique is about and move along. You will learn to grow a thick skin, but also, to absorb any useful feedback from whatever source it might come from.
• superobserver 12y ago
  Gratuitous negativity is a given when it is possible for users to downvote others anonymously for no good reason. My recent posts are a testament to that; thus, a call to avoiding it would necessitate the abolition of downvoting, which will never happen.