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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 wh

by 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".
    - mbesto 12y ago
      Perhaps what abalone is referring to is anything seemingly positive that doesn't add any value to the discussion should also be pointed out. In other words, gratuitous comments in general, positive or negative, should not be supported. For example, we see lots of "XYZ just raised $10mil" on here and the comment section is littered with "Congrats Jim!". Should we not be downvoting those too so we keep the consistency of "I learned something here" comments?
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Unwarranted positivity simply isn't as harmful as unwarranted negativity. There's basic psychology behind that, for instance, loss aversion.
        protomyth 12y ago
        I think our industry has seen more money lost, late nights spent, and souls damaged to "Unwarranted positivity" then any other cause.
        danenania 12y ago
        "Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes. The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.
        protomyth 12y ago
        > The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible. That has nothing to do with anything I have said. You have unfairly added an assumption to my comment and asserted I said something I did not. Saying that going too far on one side of an activity is bad does not imply that the other side is better. You have basically said because I don't think running 50 miles a day is healthy that I am advocating sloth. > "Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes. Our industries greatest successes have come from a place of optimism but been realistic in their thinking. Most programmers have suffered from people, including themselves, giving estimates that were "Unwarranted positivity".
lnanek2 12y ago
That's a very good point. I'd be much happier if they said the new guidelines is no personal attacks. That's very clear and easy to check. Instead we end up with this slippery slope of certain types of negativity vs. others and all it really means is the mods have a blank check to remove anything they don't like that isn't meaningless happy fun compliments.
- dang 12y ago
  As Sam pointed out, gratuitous negativity has always been against the guidelines. Personal attacks are, too, of course. The way this stuff really works out is in practice, so judge it based on what you see actually happening on HN. The intention here is pretty modest: to nudge the community slightly in the hope that the culture will grow a little more aligned with the guidelines. We're not interested in false positivity either. That doesn't mean this isn't a big deal. Gratuitous negativity is a hard problem because it's mostly unintentional. That's why the most important part of this is asking the community to gently give commenters feedback when they see it. Any significant effect of this guideline change will not be in what moderators do, but in what the community does. Given the quantity of comments posted to HN, there aren't enough moderators to make that big a dent by direct intervention anyhow. We like it that way.
  - gojah 12y ago
    > As Sam pointed out, gratuitous negativity has always been against the guidelines. Personal attacks are, too, of course. And yet you were okay with letting jacquesm escalate a dispute by adding more personal attacks to a tread after banning somebody. You're weak tea. You lack the courage to tell popular, high-karma users when they've also stepped over the line. You're only willing to attack newbies.
throwawaymsft 12y ago
When HN becomes an unending fount of positivity, we can address it then. Right now it's veering off the other side. Course correct first, finesse later.
notatoad 12y ago
I think it will be a while before we come to the point where a guideline against "gratuitous positivity" is required. This forum is pretty far towards the other end of the spectrum right now. I see where you're coming from though. The comments on HN, while often being negative, and almost entirely constructive. I try reading the comments at product hunt from time to time, and while all the "beautifully designed" and "i've been using this since [earlier than you] and i love it" comments are nice and surely make the developers feel good they inevitably add nothing of value to the submission, and as far as providing useful context to the submitted link they may as well not exist.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity? We could, but I don't see any evidence that there is an amount of that going around that requires an addition to the guidelines.
- cgaebel 12y ago
  You must not live in San Francisco.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > You must not live in San Francisco. No, but I'm rather familiar with it. In any case, I don't see how that's relevant; the context of the discussion is HN guidelines, not guidelines for San Francisco.
- frik 12y ago
  Especially on Show HN posts, there are people that can be categorized as fanboys and haters. Both groups add nothing substantial to the discussion. The constructive, interesting and insightful comments come from the normal users.

by abalone 12y ago

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".
  - mbesto 12y ago
    Perhaps what abalone is referring to is anything seemingly positive that doesn't add any value to the discussion should also be pointed out. In other words, gratuitous comments in general, positive or negative, should not be supported. For example, we see lots of "XYZ just raised $10mil" on here and the comment section is littered with "Congrats Jim!". Should we not be downvoting those too so we keep the consistency of "I learned something here" comments?
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Unwarranted positivity simply isn't as harmful as unwarranted negativity. There's basic psychology behind that, for instance, loss aversion.
      - protomyth 12y ago
        I think our industry has seen more money lost, late nights spent, and souls damaged to "Unwarranted positivity" then any other cause.
        danenania 12y ago
        "Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes. The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.
        protomyth 12y ago
        > The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible. That has nothing to do with anything I have said. You have unfairly added an assumption to my comment and asserted I said something I did not. Saying that going too far on one side of an activity is bad does not imply that the other side is better. You have basically said because I don't think running 50 miles a day is healthy that I am advocating sloth. > "Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes. Our industries greatest successes have come from a place of optimism but been realistic in their thinking. Most programmers have suffered from people, including themselves, giving estimates that were "Unwarranted positivity".

lnanek2 12y ago

That's a very good point. I'd be much happier if they said the new guidelines is no personal attacks. That's very clear and easy to check. Instead we end up with this slippery slope of certain types of negativity vs. others and all it really means is the mods have a blank check to remove anything they don't like that isn't meaningless happy fun compliments.

dang 12y ago
As Sam pointed out, gratuitous negativity has always been against the guidelines. Personal attacks are, too, of course. The way this stuff really works out is in practice, so judge it based on what you see actually happening on HN. The intention here is pretty modest: to nudge the community slightly in the hope that the culture will grow a little more aligned with the guidelines. We're not interested in false positivity either. That doesn't mean this isn't a big deal. Gratuitous negativity is a hard problem because it's mostly unintentional. That's why the most important part of this is asking the community to gently give commenters feedback when they see it. Any significant effect of this guideline change will not be in what moderators do, but in what the community does. Given the quantity of comments posted to HN, there aren't enough moderators to make that big a dent by direct intervention anyhow. We like it that way.
- gojah 12y ago
  > As Sam pointed out, gratuitous negativity has always been against the guidelines. Personal attacks are, too, of course. And yet you were okay with letting jacquesm escalate a dispute by adding more personal attacks to a tread after banning somebody. You're weak tea. You lack the courage to tell popular, high-karma users when they've also stepped over the line. You're only willing to attack newbies.

throwawaymsft 12y ago

When HN becomes an unending fount of positivity, we can address it then. Right now it's veering off the other side. Course correct first, finesse later.

notatoad 12y ago

I think it will be a while before we come to the point where a guideline against "gratuitous positivity" is required. This forum is pretty far towards the other end of the spectrum right now. I see where you're coming from though. The comments on HN, while often being negative, and almost entirely constructive. I try reading the comments at product hunt from time to time, and while all the "beautifully designed" and "i've been using this since [earlier than you] and i love it" comments are nice and surely make the developers feel good they inevitably add nothing of value to the submission, and as far as providing useful context to the submitted link they may as well not exist.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity? We could, but I don't see any evidence that there is an amount of that going around that requires an addition to the guidelines.

cgaebel 12y ago
You must not live in San Francisco.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > You must not live in San Francisco. No, but I'm rather familiar with it. In any case, I don't see how that's relevant; the context of the discussion is HN guidelines, not guidelines for San Francisco.
frik 12y ago
Especially on Show HN posts, there are people that can be categorized as fanboys and haters. Both groups add nothing substantial to the discussion. The constructive, interesting and insightful comments come from the normal users.