Comment by freshhawk
13 years ago
> 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.