I'm curious how many people who have the ability to upvote or flag stories actually do so. For my part, I'm very conservative:
- I never flag stories; I may not find a story interesting, but I don't feel it's appropriate to impose my interests on others or 'police' their discussions.
- I rarely upvote stories, mostly because I'm usually browsing stories that are already on the front-page. Occasionally I skim through the new stories and if I see something interesting there I might upvote it.
- For comments, I upvote comments I find particularly helpful or insightful. I don't downvote comments very often unless they're particularly rude. However, I never downvote comments that are part of a discussion I'm having; I don't trust my impartiality in that case.
If my behavior is typical, then stories are being controlled by a 'vocal minority' who take the time to upvote or flag them. As in any group, the vocal minority tends to have the more fundamentalist / extremist points of view on a subject, which could lead to the outcomes TFA discusses.
- I flag stories only if it seems like the story is abusive, not just off-topic (e.g., overly self-promotional, complete noise, etc). This happens very rarely.
- I don't usually upvote stories. I only do so if I have a very immediate "holy shit this is amazing!" reaction to it.
- I upvote comments frequently, particularly if it's a good, well-argued point done in good style (i.e., more factual than rhetoric). I downvote a lot more than I used to, but usually reserve it for posts I consider abusive. This means ad hominems and egregious displays of fundamentalism/extremism (e.g., "all laws are paid for by big corporate interests", which comes up every. single. time. AirBnb or Uber is mentioned).
That last part is subject to some personal bias naturally, but I do think it's important to reward posts that provide a holistic, nuanced view of issues rather than the fiery rhetoric of people banging on black and white drums. I've noticed a lot more of this sort of drumbeating on HN nowadays.
There are some topics that show up on HN frequently, but the discussion is incredibly poor every single time. I've given up on upvoting/downvoting any such discussions and simply don't read them anymore. This includes everything on sexism in tech.
I think the problem is that some people are not as thoughtful as you are when it comes to up/downvotes. The terrible "downvote because I disagree" is not as bad as in other forums but it's definitely on the rise. When people use the voting system to express an opinion instead of judging the quality of the comment itself it kills the quality of the discussion very very quickly in my experience.
The people who don't take the voting system seriously are probably those who are the most likely to mindlessly upvote/downvote stories and comments.
I think up and down votes should be rationed. Or at least have some kind of cost (when your ratio is depleted you can upvote by using your own karma?). I remember slashdot had (has?) a similar system. It would force the users to think twice before mindlessly up or down voting anything. Maybe a downvote should be more expensive as an upvote, even.
Flagging stories would still be free for completely off topic contents (and fighting voting rings).
EDIT: or as an alternative: the more you vote the less your vote is meaningful.
- I only flag stories that are clearly posted here for promotional purposes only (example: Ask HN threads where the author does not ask anything but just posts a link to his site/startup)
- I upvote stories that I feel have a very good level of quality (i.e., deeply technical stuff) and have a low point count (support the underdogs)
- I upvote any comment that's mature, respectful, and which the author clearly spent a decent chunk of time on.
- I never flag stories, but would if it was spam or trolling (but I've not seen any of either hit the front page, and that on /new is already [dead])
- I upvote stories fairly liberally. I use the saved_stories feature on my own profile as a lightweight bookmarking solution. So anything of interest that I think "I may want to find this again in future" I upvote. I tend to visit /new once or twice a day to spot interesting things that haven't hit the front-page, I think of this as community service.
- I upvote only the most insightful comments, I upvote comments less than I upvote stories. I downvote only the most rude or dumb comments, the ones filled with bile, hatred and flamebait views... downvotes are very rare but that's my criteria. I don't downvote dumb jokes, but notice other people tend to.
I never upvote/downvote other people's comments if I've taken part in the debate. I do notice that it's not possible to downvote the branch of the debate you've participated in, but I just avoid voting on any comment on a story I've posted a comment on.
One thing I have noticed, on a couple of occasions I've made a divisive statement and whilst it would overall get upvoted my total karma gets reduced. It seems a few people throw hissyfits when they disagree and go check other comments you've made and downvote a bunch of them.
My voting behavior on HN is very different from other websites. Since the saved stories and upvotes are the same, and upvotes cannot be taken back, I use the upvote as a "save story" button. There are many submissions which are not of a good quality, but the ensuing discussion on the wider topic prompts me to save the submissions as there is no option to save comments. I maintain a separate database of my saved stories, which I keep preiodically updating and pruning, primarily for NLP and ML experiments. So that is my personally "curated" list of HN bookmarks. Though I must say my visits here have become less frequent.
- I flag stories only if they're poorly-written and completely unrelated to tech, or if they are opinion pieces that fail to back up their assertions (two or three short paragraphs)--in those cases I'll try to comment on why I flagged it.
- I upvote stories if they're technically interesting or socially relevant; I try to make a pass through the new section at least once every day.
- I upvote comments that are thoughtful or witty but on-topic, and downvote comments that are poorly written, severely off-topic, or mean in a non-clever way (dumb trolls).
The practice of downvoting because you don't agree with something is tricky--it makes sense (I can more easily pick out comments that probably run counter to the community and thus have better entropy) but also is kind of detrimental, because it conflates "This is a bad, poorly-worded off-topic comment" with "This is a comment I find disagreeable".
You know what sux, stories critical of HN are getting flagged and pushed off the front page, exactly the flaw that this article points out. This article is at position 58 now with 308 upvotes after being submitted 9 hours ago. There's another link from 9h ago with 48 upvotes and it's at position 36.
This article is direct user feedback and points out that moderation is just harmful for what HN stands for, why "making it disappear". You can't moderate a community-driven website. You can for porn or harassment speech, but not for critique, seriously. Even if the critique is unconstructive, that's how humans discuss, don't moderate that, otherwise you will falsify the outcome.
That's like the NSA, always trying to control things and sweeping things under the carpet, no like.
> - I never flag stories; I may not find a story interesting, but I don't feel it's appropriate to impose my interests on others or 'police' their discussions.
I used to until I lost the ability. I guess the impulse came from stackoverflow, where you are encourage to try and make the site better by editing and flagging poor items.
I used to go to the new page and flag 3-5 stories a day. I thought this was a benefit to the community and one way I could help make it better.
Finally one day I lost the ability to flag. I assumed a moderator didn't like one of the stories I'd flagged and took the privileged away.
- I flagged one story in my time on HN (< 2 yrs). It was obvious spam (referrer included and went to a webstore; unrelated title).
- I see newer stories thanks to some chrome extensions showing a 2 column layout. I rarely upvote though as I feel I am too inexperienced to decide what others should find interesting.
- I upvote comments that made me learn something. I downvote "redditism", flaming etc.
I heard about a guy getting hellbanned for flagging all but one of the "Steve Jobs is dead" stories on the day Steve Jobs died. Each time my finger hovers over the "flag" button I wonder ". . . is this really worth the hassle?" Then I close the tab and go off somewhere else.
(I've flagged probably 10 things total.)
EDIT: jlgreco corrects me. The guy I was thinking of was flag-banned, not hell-banned.
Your HN behaviour is pretty much identical to mine. I rarely comment, I do occasionally but generally I skim through comments and upvote occasional comments I find interesting.
I flag when the story is deceitful or otherwise not a legitimate topic of discussion. I also rarely upvote stores, although I frequently up or down comments.
Yep, let's ignore the main issues raised by the post and have a meta discussion instead.
- Leftist orthodoxy (Keynesian good/Austrian bad, etc.)
- Disappearing dissenters (HeckBanning, NegVotesToOblivion)
- Apple the Immaculate (and Saint Jobs the Perfect)
- All startups are equal (but YC's are more equaler than others)
Please HeckBan this and prove the points made about HN's accoustics and whatnot. Whatever you do, must not upArrow and offend the hive mind.
Stories that discuss the difficulties faced by minorities in our field are summarily disappeared.
Really?
I've tended to notice the opposite: new ones are constantly appearing, they get lots of comments, inspire heated debates and most sentiments are sympathetic, sometimes to an almost unhealthy and postmodern degree.
Count me as one of the unhealthily sympathetic. That said, different people and/or cultures have more or less tolerance for argument. One person's 'spirited debate' can be another's 'flamewar'.
Now, preface my following comments with the fact that I don't have data to back them up, so really you can take or leave what I'm about to say--if it resonates, then maybe I'm on to something--if it doesn't, then maybe I'm just projecting.
What I've noticed is a pattern that a dispassionate article about the plight of women in the tech industry will survive, but an article by a woman who is actively angry about being harassed will get a large number of angry, devaluing comments and will disappear very quickly.
On a positive note, this reflects a culture that values a level of scientific detachment, and also a recognition of the fact that Internet arguments can get very circular and ugly and can ultimately destroy an online community if left unchecked.
The problem is that this pattern also belies a cultural devaluation of the role of anger in combating trauma. Where trauma exists, anger will exist. Angry people are not always fair and balanced--in fact the state of the emotion actively undermines such a thing. Anger and scientific detachment are quite antithetical, because an angry person is very much inside of the thing they're supposed to be detached about--and it's hurting them.
So when a woman who is traumatized writes an article out of anger, there is inherent value in that, even if the anger behind the article makes it one-sided, because in the end that person is (bravely, in the face of the inevitable harassment that will come of it) bearing witness to what is (in my own experience) a major problem in the industry, a problem that is not only hurting people but limiting the talent pool significantly.
These stories regularly appear, get upvoted, inspire lots of discussion, then get flagged and disappeared within the hour. It's almost as if the people /visiting/ this site want to talk about these things but the people /running/ the site don't.
Also, many of us have no problems with postmodernity and consider ourselves part of the political left. Which is fine, programming and god forbid "startup culture" should not be monolithic.
I've gotten into several interesting discussions on these topics, only to have them rapidly drop from the front page and/or be killed. In general, I think this should be seen as a much bigger issue than it is on HN.
I generally take the view that if everyone is complaining, then the middle ground is being struck. The classic example is the BBC - the BNP (British National Party, nasty fascists) often claim the BBC has a "left wing bias", which makes activists on the centre left laugh out loud, given how much right-wing bias we detect in programmes like the flagship "today" on R4 in the mornings.
So, unless both sides are complaining (me and you, the OP and the flaggers, PG, tokenadult and stiff,) something is wrong. :)
This is really an egregious pattern. Two examples below.
One is an npr story. You can flag these stories all you want, but they still influence how the wider population views programmers and the field. Wouldn't it be interesting to discuss that here?
"The original story linked to a review of peer-reviewed scientific research."
I believe the credit we assign to peer reviewed scientific, mathematical, or engineering papers shouldn't be anywhere near the same weight we assign to peer reviewed social science papers. I dealt with quite a lot of these papers early in my career and they do a wonderful job of backing up grant proposals but a poor job of being correct.
My takeaway was that they tried to present some idea as universal when it really required the culture of the researcher in the geographical area the researcher was studying[1]. The second problem is that they didn't understand what they were studying. They didn't think that way.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are some amazing researchers whose results were really useful, but the lack of true rigor in many of these studies is just poor. Don't get me started about the damn math errors or "correlation does not imply causation" arguments.
1) Community risk factor studies have to be the worst. The number of them that only studied urban settings, but believed their results applied to rural areas is astounding.
While my inclination is to agree with your critical view of social science research, I think picking at this example misses the point of the article.
The idea that 'hivemind' discussions are drowning out 'other' viewpoints has merit with respect to this forum. There are copious examples, from role-of-government discussions to technical preferences.
Indeed, there are cases where the community massively promotes dubious science that it finds agreeable.
We would be foolish to throw out this author's commentary because one of his examples is not bulletproof.
"My takeaway was that they tried to present some idea as universal "
Strange apologia. This isn't about whether it was a good article or not or the relative merits of peer reviewed social science. It's about whether it's good for the community when top articles are disappeared by a bunch of dittoheads simply because pg was critical.
Before pg post: top article.
After pg post: flagged to oblivion.
If that's going to be the case than it would be better for the community that pg had not commented in that post. Which is unfortunate because pg is very insightful and I think right in that case. Insight is wasted when it's buried on page 10.
The fault obviously is the poor use/abuse of the flagging power and has been extensively documented previously. I've seen zero evidence that it adds anything to this site. Make it cost 100 or 1000 karma to flag something and maybe it can work.
Flamewars != disagreements. Discouraging flamewars (namecalling, counterproductive arguing that devolves into ad hominem and unrelated attacks) doesn't mean it kills stories that generate disagreement and discussion. I've had many a disagreement in HN threads, been convinced that my original stance was wrong, and (I believe) convinced others that their original stance was wrong (or incomplete, or to change something about it). I've also learned a lot from simply posting what my understanding of an issue is and letting those more familiar add to it. The fact that HN does not want to go the way of Usenet/Reddit/4chan/name a forum doesn't make it an echo chamber.
I hope people disagree with me in this thread and prove my point.
Discouraging flamewars is one thing, but Hacker News does it by leaning hard into different practices that are also bad for discussion.
The fake air of noticeably forced civility on top of a disagreement is annoying to stomach at best, and can cause decent into passive aggression. By treating some regular ol' nonsense as erudite points at the same level as the people who actually know what they're talking about, an uninformed passerby will walk away with the wrong impression about the ideas presented. Disagreements aren't settled on the facts if someone is willing to talk longer and strain their original points further than the person they're talking with can tolerate. I've noticed that the most-informed in a Hacker News thread is not necessarily well-informed, unless I'm ready and willing to write walls of text (which I never am) there is often no point in attempting to join the conversation. The closest I'll even try anymore is making a small point at the fringe.
Reasoned disagreement is obviously easier to deal with than emotional attacks, but topics that incite emotional responses are arguably the most important ones to keep visible - they expose the most contentious points of disagreement in a community. It's certainly true that these angry discussions contain little of value in themselves, but the fact that they exist is valuable. A better compromise would be to limit further comments once a discussion has become overly vitriolic, not to disappear the story that sparked the anger.
"Flamewar" is such a Paul Graham term that doesn't really help with dealing with the problem.
I'd rather use the reddit terminology of "controversial discussions" where people are coming from very different places.
I think the problems with Hacker News has more to do with a failure to account for those situations over the echo chamber discussions where everyone is in (borderline-insufferable) agreement.
The author's sole example is incorrect. Paul Graham did not dismiss any peer reviewed research. The original article provided no argument (peer reviewed or otherwise) asserting that natural born programmers were a myth - the cited research merely argued that the belief in natural born programmers was harmful. Paul Graham gave an anecdote explaining why he believed in natural born programmers.
The whole argument of the article is a non-starter:
Building a social echo chamber risks marginalising us from the rest of society, gradually becoming ignored and irrelevant as our self-reinforcing opinions drift ever further away from the mainstream
I don't consume movies, books, music, food, web sites, or much of anything else because they're "mainstream".
I do so because they have a high degree of quality that holds my interests. Mainstream is often the opposite of quality.
The more mainstream HN becomes, the less desirable it becomes. If I wanted mainstream I'd spend more time looking at Slashdot and Reddit.
Abundance of throw-away accounts to express a potentially unpopular opinion is a good evidence of a groupthink environment. People either afraid to lose karma or be scrutinized or otherwise upset the mods.
I can often see people opening their comments with a hefty preamble, which goal is to justify the following controversial opinion, in hopes that it will not bring or at least lessen the wrath of the mob.
And of course people like their idols, too. When PG makes a comment - it's a godsend and instantly attracts the fervent following. In a similar manner, there's no lack of ardent supporters of Google that will rationalize any move by the company in a way that is good for the world.
Seems his prime complaint is that resonating consternation is aggressively removed, giving an undue illusion of peace and harmony - and somehow that's a bad thing.
Some issues are social hot buttons, with a roughly even split (if not in actual numbers, then in energy exerted in pushback against the opposing view), roughly equal validity to each perspective, and pretty much no chance of one side reversing their view en masse in short order. Repeated prolonged verbose heated arguments over these subjects will not lead to any meaningful consensus. Their presence tends to erupt as a tangent or non-sequitur to another discussion, destroying the overall thread in a wave of verbose hysteria. Nothing is served by their recurrence; we all know there's a dramatic split on views regarding the subject, we are each settled in our own views thereon, and frequent re-hashing the subject just sours the environment and encourages participants to seek more sensible discussions elsewhere. Ergo, there's no point in letting these recur. PG is right in weighting the algorithm so such destructive & pointless discussions tend to disappear.
Yes, we know such disagreements exist. A policy of "not here, guys" is a good thing. Yes, the issues being suppressed are of great sociopolitical importance; please recognize that decent people can disagree over them, please agree to disagree, and resolving that disagreement will not happen here - but continued rehashing thereof will create a toxic environment.
This is just a natural consequence of Hacker News not being a free market. The state controls of the karma system practically guarantee inefficiency in the free exchange of ideas. We need to stop subsidizing mediocrity.
Not every forum is obligated to be as democratic and decentralized as 4chan or Reddit. I like HN because it's more focused, and in some cases more aggressively moderated, even if the mechanisms for doing so are more opaque/blunt/arbitrary/etc. than in other forums. If HN was the only place on the web to discuss anything, I would be much more concerned about the points raised by this article. Fortunately it's not.
"There are no social problems in the technology industry. We have always been at war with Eastasia."
Boy oh boy, I sure love me some Orwell references.
Referencing 1984 should be on par with referencing Hitler. It's just a lazy debate tactic. If you have a good point you can make it without resorting to these much-too-often used references.
Orwell himself went against it his essay "Politics and the English Language". Read it. It'll do you good.
Hacker News is a meta-experiment on confirmation bias. In every meta-discussion I see on the "bias" in HN, there is always someone saying "HN is biased against X" and "HN is biased against not X". It's in the comments linked in this story, and I see it all over HN itself. My best explanation for that is an individual's confirmation bias.
Especially after pg's response to the blog post about sexual assault at CodeMash, I wonder—why can't the flamewar detector just disable comments?
I tend to have a lot of respect for pg, and found his apology for what happened in that thread to be admirable. Whether or not preventing discussion of the issue on HN is positive or negative...I have very complex feelings on the issue, and see valid arguments on both sides.
What I do not have mixed feelings about, however, is that these issues need to be put front and center, so that people in our industry a) know they exist b) know how common they are c) are inspired to make personal effort to fix it. I would hope that pg agrees.
If he does, why not make such stories, when they set off the flamewar detector, maintain their ranking, but disable comments? That way, the issue is still raised, and people are still alerted to it, but it prevents the (some believe) "unproductive" discussion.
What HN should do is add a feature where readers can upvote stories so they can have their say about what is on the front page. This would address OP's concerns.
"Seeking clarity is more valuable than agreement."
That changed the way I think about writing, and sharing my opinions or discussing other people's ideas. If you go into a disagreement looking to better understand what led the other party to their beliefs, you typically have a more mature and interesting discussion. Plus, why someone believes something I completely disagree with is more interesting than the what, anyway.
It is likely in the end that you both may agree to disagree, (a lost art in this age), but at least you can converse respectfully about complex ideas like adults.
Funny, my concerns about the social climate here are rather different. But I suspect writing this type of article is probably not the way to fix things. When people feel attacked, they get defensive and tend to become more entrenched, not less, due to trying to justify their behavior.
In other words, a place focused on particular subjects (technology, programming, science) collects people with similar life experiences, interests, worldviews, etc.
[+] [-] DougWebb|12 years ago|reply
- I never flag stories; I may not find a story interesting, but I don't feel it's appropriate to impose my interests on others or 'police' their discussions.
- I rarely upvote stories, mostly because I'm usually browsing stories that are already on the front-page. Occasionally I skim through the new stories and if I see something interesting there I might upvote it.
- For comments, I upvote comments I find particularly helpful or insightful. I don't downvote comments very often unless they're particularly rude. However, I never downvote comments that are part of a discussion I'm having; I don't trust my impartiality in that case.
If my behavior is typical, then stories are being controlled by a 'vocal minority' who take the time to upvote or flag them. As in any group, the vocal minority tends to have the more fundamentalist / extremist points of view on a subject, which could lead to the outcomes TFA discusses.
[+] [-] potatolicious|12 years ago|reply
- I don't usually upvote stories. I only do so if I have a very immediate "holy shit this is amazing!" reaction to it.
- I upvote comments frequently, particularly if it's a good, well-argued point done in good style (i.e., more factual than rhetoric). I downvote a lot more than I used to, but usually reserve it for posts I consider abusive. This means ad hominems and egregious displays of fundamentalism/extremism (e.g., "all laws are paid for by big corporate interests", which comes up every. single. time. AirBnb or Uber is mentioned).
That last part is subject to some personal bias naturally, but I do think it's important to reward posts that provide a holistic, nuanced view of issues rather than the fiery rhetoric of people banging on black and white drums. I've noticed a lot more of this sort of drumbeating on HN nowadays.
There are some topics that show up on HN frequently, but the discussion is incredibly poor every single time. I've given up on upvoting/downvoting any such discussions and simply don't read them anymore. This includes everything on sexism in tech.
[+] [-] simias|12 years ago|reply
The people who don't take the voting system seriously are probably those who are the most likely to mindlessly upvote/downvote stories and comments.
I think up and down votes should be rationed. Or at least have some kind of cost (when your ratio is depleted you can upvote by using your own karma?). I remember slashdot had (has?) a similar system. It would force the users to think twice before mindlessly up or down voting anything. Maybe a downvote should be more expensive as an upvote, even.
Flagging stories would still be free for completely off topic contents (and fighting voting rings).
EDIT: or as an alternative: the more you vote the less your vote is meaningful.
[+] [-] GuiA|12 years ago|reply
- I only flag stories that are clearly posted here for promotional purposes only (example: Ask HN threads where the author does not ask anything but just posts a link to his site/startup)
- I upvote stories that I feel have a very good level of quality (i.e., deeply technical stuff) and have a low point count (support the underdogs)
- I upvote any comment that's mature, respectful, and which the author clearly spent a decent chunk of time on.
[+] [-] buro9|12 years ago|reply
- I upvote stories fairly liberally. I use the saved_stories feature on my own profile as a lightweight bookmarking solution. So anything of interest that I think "I may want to find this again in future" I upvote. I tend to visit /new once or twice a day to spot interesting things that haven't hit the front-page, I think of this as community service.
- I upvote only the most insightful comments, I upvote comments less than I upvote stories. I downvote only the most rude or dumb comments, the ones filled with bile, hatred and flamebait views... downvotes are very rare but that's my criteria. I don't downvote dumb jokes, but notice other people tend to.
I never upvote/downvote other people's comments if I've taken part in the debate. I do notice that it's not possible to downvote the branch of the debate you've participated in, but I just avoid voting on any comment on a story I've posted a comment on.
One thing I have noticed, on a couple of occasions I've made a divisive statement and whilst it would overall get upvoted my total karma gets reduced. It seems a few people throw hissyfits when they disagree and go check other comments you've made and downvote a bunch of them.
[+] [-] unhappyhippie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angersock|12 years ago|reply
- I flag stories only if they're poorly-written and completely unrelated to tech, or if they are opinion pieces that fail to back up their assertions (two or three short paragraphs)--in those cases I'll try to comment on why I flagged it.
- I upvote stories if they're technically interesting or socially relevant; I try to make a pass through the new section at least once every day.
- I upvote comments that are thoughtful or witty but on-topic, and downvote comments that are poorly written, severely off-topic, or mean in a non-clever way (dumb trolls).
The practice of downvoting because you don't agree with something is tricky--it makes sense (I can more easily pick out comments that probably run counter to the community and thus have better entropy) but also is kind of detrimental, because it conflates "This is a bad, poorly-worded off-topic comment" with "This is a comment I find disagreeable".
[+] [-] wellboy|12 years ago|reply
This article is direct user feedback and points out that moderation is just harmful for what HN stands for, why "making it disappear". You can't moderate a community-driven website. You can for porn or harassment speech, but not for critique, seriously. Even if the critique is unconstructive, that's how humans discuss, don't moderate that, otherwise you will falsify the outcome.
That's like the NSA, always trying to control things and sweeping things under the carpet, no like.
[+] [-] chollida1|12 years ago|reply
I used to until I lost the ability. I guess the impulse came from stackoverflow, where you are encourage to try and make the site better by editing and flagging poor items.
I used to go to the new page and flag 3-5 stories a day. I thought this was a benefit to the community and one way I could help make it better.
Finally one day I lost the ability to flag. I assumed a moderator didn't like one of the stories I'd flagged and took the privileged away.
No good dead goes unpunished:)
[+] [-] Semaphor|12 years ago|reply
- I see newer stories thanks to some chrome extensions showing a 2 column layout. I rarely upvote though as I feel I am too inexperienced to decide what others should find interesting.
- I upvote comments that made me learn something. I downvote "redditism", flaming etc.
Just as another data point.
[+] [-] danielweber|12 years ago|reply
(I've flagged probably 10 things total.)
EDIT: jlgreco corrects me. The guy I was thinking of was flag-banned, not hell-banned.
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
If a submission is good I always upvote it.
I downvote quite often, but not for disagreement, only for comments that are not helpful to the discussion.
HN would be better if more people used their tools.
[+] [-] welly|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesaguilar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MartianObserver|12 years ago|reply
- Leftist orthodoxy (Keynesian good/Austrian bad, etc.) - Disappearing dissenters (HeckBanning, NegVotesToOblivion) - Apple the Immaculate (and Saint Jobs the Perfect) - All startups are equal (but YC's are more equaler than others)
Please HeckBan this and prove the points made about HN's accoustics and whatnot. Whatever you do, must not upArrow and offend the hive mind.
[+] [-] 10098|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vezzy-fnord|12 years ago|reply
Really?
I've tended to notice the opposite: new ones are constantly appearing, they get lots of comments, inspire heated debates and most sentiments are sympathetic, sometimes to an almost unhealthy and postmodern degree.
[+] [-] lemmsjid|12 years ago|reply
Now, preface my following comments with the fact that I don't have data to back them up, so really you can take or leave what I'm about to say--if it resonates, then maybe I'm on to something--if it doesn't, then maybe I'm just projecting.
What I've noticed is a pattern that a dispassionate article about the plight of women in the tech industry will survive, but an article by a woman who is actively angry about being harassed will get a large number of angry, devaluing comments and will disappear very quickly.
On a positive note, this reflects a culture that values a level of scientific detachment, and also a recognition of the fact that Internet arguments can get very circular and ugly and can ultimately destroy an online community if left unchecked.
The problem is that this pattern also belies a cultural devaluation of the role of anger in combating trauma. Where trauma exists, anger will exist. Angry people are not always fair and balanced--in fact the state of the emotion actively undermines such a thing. Anger and scientific detachment are quite antithetical, because an angry person is very much inside of the thing they're supposed to be detached about--and it's hurting them.
So when a woman who is traumatized writes an article out of anger, there is inherent value in that, even if the anger behind the article makes it one-sided, because in the end that person is (bravely, in the face of the inevitable harassment that will come of it) bearing witness to what is (in my own experience) a major problem in the industry, a problem that is not only hurting people but limiting the talent pool significantly.
[+] [-] llamataboot|12 years ago|reply
Also, many of us have no problems with postmodernity and consider ourselves part of the political left. Which is fine, programming and god forbid "startup culture" should not be monolithic.
[+] [-] tehwalrus|12 years ago|reply
I generally take the view that if everyone is complaining, then the middle ground is being struck. The classic example is the BBC - the BNP (British National Party, nasty fascists) often claim the BBC has a "left wing bias", which makes activists on the centre left laugh out loud, given how much right-wing bias we detect in programmes like the flagship "today" on R4 in the mornings.
So, unless both sides are complaining (me and you, the OP and the flaggers, PG, tokenadult and stiff,) something is wrong. :)
[+] [-] babs474|12 years ago|reply
One is an npr story. You can flag these stories all you want, but they still influence how the wider population views programmers and the field. Wouldn't it be interesting to discuss that here?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6374508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360328
[+] [-] myhf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] protomyth|12 years ago|reply
I believe the credit we assign to peer reviewed scientific, mathematical, or engineering papers shouldn't be anywhere near the same weight we assign to peer reviewed social science papers. I dealt with quite a lot of these papers early in my career and they do a wonderful job of backing up grant proposals but a poor job of being correct.
My takeaway was that they tried to present some idea as universal when it really required the culture of the researcher in the geographical area the researcher was studying[1]. The second problem is that they didn't understand what they were studying. They didn't think that way.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are some amazing researchers whose results were really useful, but the lack of true rigor in many of these studies is just poor. Don't get me started about the damn math errors or "correlation does not imply causation" arguments.
1) Community risk factor studies have to be the worst. The number of them that only studied urban settings, but believed their results applied to rural areas is astounding.
[+] [-] spartango|12 years ago|reply
The idea that 'hivemind' discussions are drowning out 'other' viewpoints has merit with respect to this forum. There are copious examples, from role-of-government discussions to technical preferences.
Indeed, there are cases where the community massively promotes dubious science that it finds agreeable.
We would be foolish to throw out this author's commentary because one of his examples is not bulletproof.
[+] [-] Steko|12 years ago|reply
Strange apologia. This isn't about whether it was a good article or not or the relative merits of peer reviewed social science. It's about whether it's good for the community when top articles are disappeared by a bunch of dittoheads simply because pg was critical.
Before pg post: top article.
After pg post: flagged to oblivion.
If that's going to be the case than it would be better for the community that pg had not commented in that post. Which is unfortunate because pg is very insightful and I think right in that case. Insight is wasted when it's buried on page 10.
The fault obviously is the poor use/abuse of the flagging power and has been extensively documented previously. I've seen zero evidence that it adds anything to this site. Make it cost 100 or 1000 karma to flag something and maybe it can work.
[+] [-] logicallee|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewcooke|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 001sky|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_watcher|12 years ago|reply
I hope people disagree with me in this thread and prove my point.
[+] [-] forgottenpass|12 years ago|reply
The fake air of noticeably forced civility on top of a disagreement is annoying to stomach at best, and can cause decent into passive aggression. By treating some regular ol' nonsense as erudite points at the same level as the people who actually know what they're talking about, an uninformed passerby will walk away with the wrong impression about the ideas presented. Disagreements aren't settled on the facts if someone is willing to talk longer and strain their original points further than the person they're talking with can tolerate. I've noticed that the most-informed in a Hacker News thread is not necessarily well-informed, unless I'm ready and willing to write walls of text (which I never am) there is often no point in attempting to join the conversation. The closest I'll even try anymore is making a small point at the fringe.
[+] [-] mjg59|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pxtl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmfrk|12 years ago|reply
I'd rather use the reddit terminology of "controversial discussions" where people are coming from very different places.
I think the problems with Hacker News has more to do with a failure to account for those situations over the echo chamber discussions where everyone is in (borderline-insufferable) agreement.
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spindritf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crusso|12 years ago|reply
Building a social echo chamber risks marginalising us from the rest of society, gradually becoming ignored and irrelevant as our self-reinforcing opinions drift ever further away from the mainstream
I don't consume movies, books, music, food, web sites, or much of anything else because they're "mainstream".
I do so because they have a high degree of quality that holds my interests. Mainstream is often the opposite of quality.
The more mainstream HN becomes, the less desirable it becomes. If I wanted mainstream I'd spend more time looking at Slashdot and Reddit.
[+] [-] znowi|12 years ago|reply
I can often see people opening their comments with a hefty preamble, which goal is to justify the following controversial opinion, in hopes that it will not bring or at least lessen the wrath of the mob.
And of course people like their idols, too. When PG makes a comment - it's a godsend and instantly attracts the fervent following. In a similar manner, there's no lack of ardent supporters of Google that will rationalize any move by the company in a way that is good for the world.
[+] [-] ctdonath|12 years ago|reply
Some issues are social hot buttons, with a roughly even split (if not in actual numbers, then in energy exerted in pushback against the opposing view), roughly equal validity to each perspective, and pretty much no chance of one side reversing their view en masse in short order. Repeated prolonged verbose heated arguments over these subjects will not lead to any meaningful consensus. Their presence tends to erupt as a tangent or non-sequitur to another discussion, destroying the overall thread in a wave of verbose hysteria. Nothing is served by their recurrence; we all know there's a dramatic split on views regarding the subject, we are each settled in our own views thereon, and frequent re-hashing the subject just sours the environment and encourages participants to seek more sensible discussions elsewhere. Ergo, there's no point in letting these recur. PG is right in weighting the algorithm so such destructive & pointless discussions tend to disappear.
Yes, we know such disagreements exist. A policy of "not here, guys" is a good thing. Yes, the issues being suppressed are of great sociopolitical importance; please recognize that decent people can disagree over them, please agree to disagree, and resolving that disagreement will not happen here - but continued rehashing thereof will create a toxic environment.
[+] [-] mortice|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwfunk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggy2011|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelAza|12 years ago|reply
Boy oh boy, I sure love me some Orwell references.
Referencing 1984 should be on par with referencing Hitler. It's just a lazy debate tactic. If you have a good point you can make it without resorting to these much-too-often used references.
Orwell himself went against it his essay "Politics and the English Language". Read it. It'll do you good.
[+] [-] scott_s|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thetabyte|12 years ago|reply
I tend to have a lot of respect for pg, and found his apology for what happened in that thread to be admirable. Whether or not preventing discussion of the issue on HN is positive or negative...I have very complex feelings on the issue, and see valid arguments on both sides.
What I do not have mixed feelings about, however, is that these issues need to be put front and center, so that people in our industry a) know they exist b) know how common they are c) are inspired to make personal effort to fix it. I would hope that pg agrees.
If he does, why not make such stories, when they set off the flamewar detector, maintain their ranking, but disable comments? That way, the issue is still raised, and people are still alerted to it, but it prevents the (some believe) "unproductive" discussion.
[+] [-] drcode|12 years ago|reply
</sarcasm>
[+] [-] elp1stolero|12 years ago|reply
"Seeking clarity is more valuable than agreement."
That changed the way I think about writing, and sharing my opinions or discussing other people's ideas. If you go into a disagreement looking to better understand what led the other party to their beliefs, you typically have a more mature and interesting discussion. Plus, why someone believes something I completely disagree with is more interesting than the what, anyway. It is likely in the end that you both may agree to disagree, (a lost art in this age), but at least you can converse respectfully about complex ideas like adults.
[+] [-] NovemberWest|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThomPete|12 years ago|reply
I see it as there is a certain culture here, one which i happen to be in agreement with most of the time, while there is still room for dissent.
[+] [-] theorique|12 years ago|reply