Comment by irrespective

7 years ago

Much of the so-called 'hacker ethos' can be basically boiled down to 'you may be as much of a dick as you want as long as you're technically correct'.

18 comments

irrespective

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dang  7 years ago

That's not the sense in which we use that term here. The guiding value is curiosity, and people are asked to "Be kind."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

  • irrespective  7 years ago

    I'm using the word as it's been touted by notorious old school 'hackers' like esr or rms. The infamous guide for asking questions [0] by esr is the archetypal embodiment of this spirit: it's not that the advice in it isn't useful (it certainly is), it's just that esr comes off as a condescending dick when you read it. (This initial impression can be easily confirmed when you dig futher into the man's other writing and beliefs.)

    As for HN and the way it uses the word 'hacker', I will remain noncommital. I certainly acknowledge that the definition as it's currently employed on the guidelines has shifted since the 1970s, but whether it has actually achieved the kindess expected of it is left as an exercise for the reader.

    [0] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

    • dchichkov  7 years ago

      That guide recommends to be kind:

      How To Answer Questions in a Helpful Way

      Be gentle. Problem-related stress can make people seem rude or stupid even when they're not.

      Reply to a first offender off-line. There is no need of public humiliation for someone who may have made an honest mistake. A real newbie may not know how to search archives or where the FAQ is stored or posted.

      ...

      And in a sense, "Ask Questions The Smart Way" is also an exercise in precise (and non-offensive, respectful to other people`s time and kind communication).

      1 reply →

    • zozbot234  7 years ago

      > it's just that esr comes off as a condescending dick when you read it.

      That guide doesn't feel all that condescending, from reading it. Of course any guide to "asking smart questions" is going to be somewhat contentious, simply because it's very title implies that it's possible to ask stupid questions, and that people should strive to change their behavior around this. But it seems rather shallow to take issue with such claims.

fargle  7 years ago

Nonsense. The hacker ethos is to tinker and learn and there is a very high degree of regard for technical competence. Conversely, incompetence, laziness, especially blatantly so, especially publically is the biggest dick move there is. Wasting other people's metal energy is not nice.

In hacker ethos, you are appreciated for doing your homework and being right; that is very nice. You are a dick when you are lazy, wrong, or wasting people's time and energy.

sedeki  7 years ago

Well, do you consider people you know soley on the internet, friends?

  • AgentME  7 years ago

    Personally, I started making a lot more friends (and an SO!) on the internet when I finally started moving past the "I can be a dick if I'm right, being right matters, being nice is a distraction" mentality. And I think this makes me better, not worse, at communicating the things I think I'm right about.

Carpetsmoker  7 years ago

It's even encouraged to be a overly direct, because being nice is just a waste of precious brain cycles.

Perhaps my favourite example is that it's forbidden to thank people on Stack Overflow :-/

  • dmos62  7 years ago

    Vote up is the thanks gesture in SO. High-traffic forums moderate "thanks" messages because it increases information density, making the content easier to digest. Imagine an SO comment section with 300 thanks messages and you're looking for that one comment with relevant information.

    • Carpetsmoker  7 years ago

      I was talking about adding "thanks" in the question, not comments (which wasn't obvious from my previous post I guess).

  • sedeki  7 years ago

    You can be direct and nice at the same time. You’re saying that nice always implies extra, redundant chatter.

    I don’t consider the SO culture a relevant counter-example. Like, why does a gamified forum hurt your feelings?