Comment by irahul
13 years ago
Some of them have been thought out - "how I mapped caps lock" by yakshaver, "derailed by a pedantic comment" by wellactually(I suffer from this; working on it), "apple's downfall" by armchairceo; the comment puns(stylish, worn-out, nebolous) are pretty meh.
Despite this being a parody, I would still like to point out "a labor of love you can say mean things about". I have seen it happen here way too often. Someone posts something and the crowd goes wild - "this is a feature not a product", "as a designer I can tell you you suck", "another cool aid drinkers pretending node.js is cool" etc. Someone posts a "Show HN" doesn't mean you get the right to walk all over it. And the worse part is, you pretend you were doing him a favor - "I was only giving feedback which the poster asked for". The poster asked for feedback, not for insults. It doesn't matter if you are a programming god(most of the people doing it aren't, but still) - there is a difference between feedback and "look at this pathetic shit thinking he is worth anything".
I am sure I am not the only one who thinks people go overboard with their so-called feedback. pg especially made a post about the flood of launches coming in and being nice to them.
Please be nice to them. For you their launch may be "yet another YC startup," but for each individual startup this is their big moment.
> Someone posts a "Show HN" doesn't mean you get the right to walk all over it.
the right definitely exists and should be cherished. I agree that being nice is a nice goal but I also love unfiltered honest feedback like you can easily get from this community.
> the right definitely exists
What right? If you are talking about free speech, that isn't applicable here. Owners of site can allow or disallow expressions on their discretion.
When I said right, I meant the typical defense - "They posted it here. They asked for it.". I am saying just because someone posts a "Show HN" doesn't imply you can be a jerk and hide behind "but they wanted feedback".
> unfiltered honest
The problem with "unfiltered and honest" is it doesn't have a agreed-on definition.
You must be blind to not notice the crime against humanity that "white on yellow" text is.
The white on yellow text is unreadable.
To some people, 1 might look honest and unfiltered; to me it looks like some asshole trying to be tough guy on the web.
2 isn't filtering anything and is honest. "Not being an asshole" and "being honest and straight forward" aren't mutually exclusive.
Hyperbole isn't the same thing as dishonesty or malice. If you believe a poster sincerely thinks white on yellow text is a crime against humanity in a world of child soldiers, oppressive regimes, systemic corruption and walled garden app ecosystems, then why would you consider their opinion relevant in the first place?
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Honesty and respect are not mutually exclusive.
You can give great, thoughtful feedback that accurately describes your feelings without being unprofessional or disrespectful.
Sure, and people should.
But saying that people don't have the right to do otherwise is a much stronger statement than what you just stated. In fact, people in general have the right to do many things which are immoral or even unethical, e.g. the Westboro Baptist protests at funerals.
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I wish more people had a sense of humor online. A real one. As it is, sometimes I feel like all my comments have to be bland. You never know how someone will interpret something.
I've noticed a drop in meanness since it was brought to the attention of the community. It still happens, but many people appear to be making a conscious effort to avoid it in their comments and combat it editorially in the comments of others.
The thing of it is, I'm of two minds on this: yes, it seems that HN (and the Internet in general) can be overly harsh, especially considering that many of the harshest critics will probably never do anything substantialy close to a lot of what gets submitted. OTOH, it's sort of like boot camp: if someone can't handle mean things said about their idea, then they probably won't survive the slings and arrows of the market (and yes, I know not all of the "Show HNs" are business related). Also, many people, when they see something that seems obvious, already done, or simply wrong, tend to have a bad reaction (see http://xkcd.com/386/). Still, criticisms could be phrased better; OTOH again, but many of the originators of "Show HNs" that seemed like the most likely to suceed were the ones who show up, acknowledge valid criticism, and fix faults with their projects. Some of the best even thank polite critics for input.
Some comments are mean because the poster is a jerk. But some of the most valuable comments you will get are angry diatribes from people who probably saw potential in your idea but were disappointed for some reason. These are well worth tuning into. The worst type of comment is the one that wasn't made because no one gave a damn one way or the other.
> These are well worth tuning into.
If I do a "Show HN", I will read each and every comment and think about it. But that's not the point of contention here. The point is you can be honest, unfiltered, upset and can still not be an asshole.
My point is that even assholes can have valid insights (and aren't shy of expressing them).
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> Someone posts a "Show HN" doesn't mean you get the right to walk all over it
I didn't realize that signing up to HN entitled me to negativity free advertising for my pet project.
Wouldn't you expect people posting Show HN posts to know what happens in the comment threads of all of them?
I agree that the community should try to discourage plain insults, but I want to see well reasoned thoughts and critiques of other projects from the community. If that critique is harsh then it's harsh. Welcome to going public with your idea. I agree with you about the insults, but you are also drifting towards encouraging protecting egos that are tied to their product. That's not a helpful community norm. Be supportive of people working hard and ruthlessly honest about their ideas and products.
Also, we're coming up on a decade of digg/reddit/HN style social news sites. Is it time to stop being surprised that the behaviour that this medium incentivises is the behaviour we keep seeing?
> Wouldn't you expect people posting Show HN posts to know what happens in the comment threads of all of them?
It happens all the time and posters are well aware of the behavior. Neither of these mean it's desirable to put down everyone who does a "Show HN". If anything, it happens all the time is the reason behind the concern.
> I want to see well reasoned thoughts and critiques of other projects from the community.
> Be supportive of people working hard and ruthlessly honest about their ideas and products.
I am not advocating heaps of praise for anyone who does a "Show HN". Honesty and not being an asshole aren't mutually exclusive.
> Is it time to stop being surprised that the behaviour that this medium incentivises is the behaviour we keep seeing?
I am not too sure if HN incentivises being a jerk to "Show HN" or posts in general. But if it does, it should stop. Just because it happens doesn't make it desirable.
> But if it does, it should stop. Just because it happens doesn't make it desirable.
Never said it was desirable. I'm just fairly convinced that this is the type of interaction that humans do when they communicate in this medium. Like I said, we have 7 or 8 years of experiments and people acting pretty much the same throughout. Some combination of anonymity, fake points to score every contribution with voting and emphasis on many short nuggets of information rather than long form maybe? who knows.
> it should stop
"why can't everyone just get along". I think it's safe to assume by now that this behaviour is human nature + this communication medium. You can tell people to "stop it" or you can change the system that encourages/causes/incentivises that behaviour. Only one of those approaches has ever worked.