One phenomenon I've encountered here: There are times when I interject a neutral, but relevant point in a debate. Often one side assumes I'm arguing the other side and immediately tries to "counter" me. Then I have to explain that I'm merely pointing out an interesting point, not taking the side against.<p>I take this as a sign that some here are more intent on "winning" than on having a discussion.
This community does a pretty good job of disagreeing. Even the occasional bit of name-calling is usually buried in something thoughtful.<p>Irrelevance seems to be a greater danger to the comments here than the method of disagreements.<p>The comments are a place for discussing the content of the submitted article. They are not a place for complaining about the NYTimes registration, light text on a dark background, etc...
I would like to take this opportunity to bring up downvoting. Doesn't downvoting have the same end effect as DH0 (or DH3)?<p>A downvote signals disapproval/discouragement, yet it requires no legitimate counterargument or reasoning for it.<p>I haven't seen people calling each other "fags" here, but it seems the downvote is simply the HN version of calling people "fags."
There are many comments claiming that it's somehow bad, rude, or inconsiderate to downvote comments you disagree with. I totally disagree. There is nothing uncivil about downvoting. It simply means that someone took issue with something about your comment: its tone, its logic, whatever. There's no reason to take offense at this; you could just as easily find it intriguing.<p>Voting up or down is a nice, efficient mechanism for participating in a discussion when you do have a response, but it falls below the threshold of having enough time, enough interest, and <i>enough worth saying</i> to justify an explicit post. There's nothing illegitimate about responses that happen to fall below that threshold. In aggregate, they add great value to the site. To try to force people to make explicit comments that aren't naturally above the threshold would spread tedium, not civility.<p>People sometimes allege that opinions are being downvoted to oblivion on HN merely because they're unpopular. In my observation, this is rare. There's almost always some obvious reason (rudeness, irrelevance, etc.). But it's more self-flattering to think that your brave independent thinking was run over by a mob.<p>Egregious arbitrary downvoting does occur, of course, but it tends to get corrected. When I run across a comment at 0 or -1 that I see nothing objectionable about, I upvote it. Lots of other users do that too, so controversial comments tend to stay roughly at par. Lightweight self-correcting systems are hard to come by, so I think it's worth recognizing when you have one. That doesn't mean that experimentation is a bad idea, of course, but it will be hard IMO to come up with a better voting system. (The flagging system is a different matter.)
It has been a long time since I have read this one and it is a very good description of the forms of disagreement.<p>I do think that PG gives slightly too little weight to ad hominem attacks though. It is true they may be no better than name calling, but they can be highly informative and relevant too. I know he says they can carry some weight, but even there I do not think he gives at least the right kind of ad hominem attack its due.<p>For instance, in a technical field it can often be very difficult to understand much less evaluate a fully reasoned argument. In this case, to a laymen reader saying (truthfully of course) "The author of this piece has been shown to commit scientific fraud" may be more effective than trying to go through the entire argument in detail. Similarly with say financial advice being able to truthfully say "The author has been involved in con games in the past" can be more persuasive (when true!) than trying to analyze his latest claims. Even pointing out something like "This man's PHD is in <nonrelevant field>, not <relevant field>." can add value to a discussion. Of course it does not invalidate the original argument from the original author, but it does point out the readers that they should read it carefully and not give limited weight to the author's authority.<p>This is especially true since it can be easier in some technical fields to bring up evidence that sounds good superficially but that an expert knows is false than it is justify the truth. This is because understanding the truth often requires a detailed technical grounding already whereas the pseudoscience does not.
>This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. We've all seen comments like this:<p>>u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!<p>>But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. A comment like<p>>The author is a self-important dilettante.<p>>is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag."<p>I completely disagree. One is a direct verbal attack, the other can very possibly be a reasonable assertion. If it's followed by a fair explanation, all the better.
Very good, somehow hadn't seen this yet. Thanks!<p>If all comments on HN were disagreements, this could be an interesting alternative to the simple karma score of a comment. Better yet, f we could tease the concepts of each level away from the disagreement element, we could have an interesting way of classifying comments. Maybe a Conversational Hierarchy:<p>CH0 - Attack on a person<p>CH1 - Statement concerning a person<p>CH2 - Statement concerning a text<p>CH3 - Statement concerning a point made<p>CH4 - Reasoning/facts concerning a point made<p>CH5 - Reasoned response to a point made<p>CH6 - Reasoned response to the central point<p>5 and 6 could use a bit of beefing up, but you get the idea. They could each have karma scores assigned to them (negative for 0-2, neutral for 3, positive for 4-6) and the classification with the most votes wins. The "CH" appended to the beginning of the number makes it so noobs would be likely to the time to learn what they mean. The UI for this would have to be dead simple, maybe a dropdown.<p>Thoughts?
Communication can be used for emotional stimulus as much as intellectual stimulus, so it is not necessarily ideal that all arguments fit into some rigid ranking valuing objective refutations over emotionally driven spasms. "u r a fag" says a lot with a little: it's efficient. I mean, if everyone always strove towards perfectly clean refutations of central points, think about how boring the internet would be! It's simply not the case that everyone should just be looking to refute arguments with specifics. And besides, this way of looking at it <i>reeks</i> of elitism, like most Paul Graham articles. How can we trust what he's saying anyway? It's just to get hits to his blog. What a self-important dilettante.<p>:)
The very highest level of the Disagreement Hierarchy, of course, is DHH:<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetargon/127984254/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetargon/127984254/</a>
I think it should be stressed that these ideas are necessarily flexible based on the quality of the thing being disagreed with. Basically, Paul's assumed that the post being argued against is ideal, and against that has built his hierarchy. In real life, an effective argument, in fact sometimes the only possible argument, against a poorly formed thesis is a poor response.<p>For example, the conclusion that, "a DH2 or lower response is always unconvincing" is not true in the following case: Suppose someone posited that there is a blue species of monkey living in the basement below the U.S. Senate and the only reason he gave for us to believe him is that he is a trustworthy U.S. Senator. In disagreeing with him, if we bring an ad hominem attack against his trustworthiness it is entirely acceptable and relevant because his trustworthiness is the only proof he's brought in the first place.
This article seems to me to conflate two things: how to have an exploratory discussion between two opposing viewpoints and how to win an argument.<p>For example, in an exploratory discussion, using your opponent's terms can lead to quicker definition of those terms, and less talking past one another. On the other hand, when trying to win an argument, allowing your opponent to frame the debate (either by using their terms or addressing/refuting their central points) can be the worst possible strategy!<p>I suspect that exploratory discussions where both parties are genuinely disinterested are rare in most contexts.
The next step beyond refutation is synthesis; often intractable arguments are sustained because both sides have a good point that should be acknowledged but is all mixed up with not so valid assumptions.<p>I also think that "neutrality" or "objectivity" is an impossibility, especially in arguments about social problems. We would all benefit by admitting that we have interests at stake, and that EVERY argument usually has outcomes in terms of who gets what, no matter how "objectively" the arguers try to frame it.
maybe just turn off downvoting all together?<p>if someone is breaking the rules, they can be flagged<p>if you disagree with someone don't vote them up.<p>This way the top comments will go to the top as usual, and interesting discussions with 100s of upvotes won't have 3 points
Too bad it doesn't have a section on when and how to vote up/down. For example,<p>"V1:voting down because you have no sense of humor and the poster made a joke"<p>"V2:voting down because you nonspecifically disagree with the poster and don't actually have anything useful to say in response, in other words you downvote because you are angry at yourself."