> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.<p>This is one of the more serious pain points I notice (thankfully only occasionally).<p>Obviously getting some visibility is important for people launching new projects. Sometimes adversarial comments seem to be motivated by commercial rather than technical reasons.
The only one I subtly disagree with is "comments should be substantive". What it discourages I think is comments like "thanks" or other really 'unsubstantive' comments. It's true that maybe it adds noise, and in many cases are maybe supposed to be inferred without explicitly saying. But I think discouraging this slightly leans behaviour towards snark vs not. (If you see comments like "thanks" you're less likely to be snarky than if you see 'substantive' but maybe too harsh critiques in the comments that appear because "cool project!" isn't allowed.)<p>Personally I like to make it a point to break this rule from time to time to reduce this pattern.
The world of internet would be a _much_ better place if everyone at least have read this. I tried my best to adhere to these rules in any social network.
Interesting how having intellectual curiosity as the goal, rather than the ubiquitous 'an inclusive space where everyone can feel safe', has ended up in a forum that's much 'safer' and less toxic than most places on the Internet.
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit.<p>As internet communities evolve over the years I have seen some changes in HN posts and comments but I suspect HN not trying to grow at any cost has done a good job of keeping it from becoming reddit.
While you are there, go through dang’s comments timeline <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang">https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang</a><p>Moderating something like HN is a very hard job. Gratitude .
Glad to see digging in a bit more on HN! While we're at it, if you're not aware of the "second chance pool", you should be: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/pool">https://news.ycombinator.com/pool</a><p>More discussions/description from dang here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308</a>
"How do I flag a comment?<p>Click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click the 'flag' link at the top. There's a small karma threshold before flag links appear.<p>"
This could be more clear. I was able to figure out what they meant, but "25 minutes ago" is not a timestamp. If you hover over the link it will display the timestamp, but I never even noticed that until today.<p>I think it would be clearer if the text said "click on the reply link". Yeah, I know the link doesn't say "reply", but "reply link" is what it is, and "timestamp" is something it isn't.
Here or elsewhere I’ve long followed these rules for commenting:<p>1. Be respectful.<p>2. Stay on topic.<p>3. Move the conversation forward. This sounds like a repetition of #2 but there is often a distinction in that, say, a discussion about a new product feature is likely not the time to discuss the company’s history with features. Going in that direction is moving the conversation sideways.<p>4. Provide supporting evidence for what is said. Claiming something like, “I’d never buy this from Company X” is a baseless statement compared to “I’d never buy this from Company X because A, B, and C are an indication I won’t get much support beyond the 90-day warranty and that’s not enough at that price point.” The trick I use for this is to include a word like <i>because</i> since it compels an explanation.<p>5. Avoid attempts at humor. For one, text mediums like HN can easily lead to misinterpretations; there are many people reading for whom English is a second language, so being clever can cause confusion for those readers; if my humor were so good to be worthwhile for the amount of readers a place like HN has then I should be a comedian. I'm not a comedian.
A mentor once said to me something to the effect of "don't optimize for the noise - optimize for signal"<p>These guidelines, in many ways, embody that sentiment. While some might complain they are restrictive and harsh (I think, for example, of new commenters being met with a swift downvote to oblivion when they comment "me too!" or "cool!" on a thread), I view them as a way to elevate discourse, prioritizing the depth and quality of conversation over fleeting internet trends, a beacon of light in this sorry internet that mostly devalues thoughtful discourse and inquiry.<p>Understanding the dynamics of a community and its shared norms can be as important, if not more so, than the actual content. in nurturing a thoughtful environment, in particular an environment that nurtures curiosity and civil discourse, we're not just preserving the present, but serving as role models for tomorrow's communities. personally I'm glad that HN emphasizes intellectual curiosity and mutual respect. this is truly a special place
> Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.<p>This means whenever Microsoft announce something or someone writes about something on Twitter, submit that instead of theverge.com.
What good does it do to have upvotes and downvotes on a site, if you have no tools available to discriminate between them. When most comments turn out to be obvious, redundant or repetitive, a tool that identifies the pertinent portions of a discussion seems not only in good order, but becomes an imperative for growth at some point. Asking every participant to make these discernments is a giant waste of valuable people's time.
This is a good set of rules; I would tend to guess (but not know) that 99.9999% of the <i>human</i> users of HN follow these rules 99.9999% of the time...<p>The <i>human</i> users of HN -- I do not have a problem with, 99.9999% of the time...<p>In fact, quite the opposite -- I'd submit and suggest that the intellectual capacity and the willingness and ability to help others of the HN community is quite amazing indeed!<p>But let's talk about AI-driven automated bot postings for a moment...<p>I, as a user, don't mind bot postings so much -- IF (if and only if!) they contribute something of value to the discussion. That is, without being snarky, without being derrogatory, without distracting from or railroading the conversation, without moving the conversation in a political and/or ideological direction, or engaging in the public shaming of specifically named individuals...<p>Because there seem to be a lot of bot postings like that...<p>>"HN has the following rule:<p>"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."<p><i>This seems to be the rule that is most broken by apparently agenda-driven AI bots on HN...</i> (it's as if some are intentionally trying to provoke people!)<p>To conclude, HN = Exceedingly great community of humans!<p>My question (to the HN community, and to the bots!) is simply as follows:<p><i>How do we tell a human created post on HN -- from an AI bot created one?</i><p><i>?</i>
My pet peeve is:<p>"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."<p>Unless the context of the discussion is about voting (such as with these threads), I have a quick trigger finger when it comes to voting down comments that talk about votes.<p>Even if someone is asking "why am I getting down voted" or "If you are going to vote down, tell me why" complaints are annoying and pointless. Sometimes I explain, but it's not worth it, so I just vote down comments that do this.<p>Tangent<p>See, when someone does answer why they are getting voted down, the person being voted down will generally argue with the person answering, which just means you didn't want to learn why people were voting you down, and rather, you wanted to argue. If you just thanked the person for answering "why are people voting down my comment", you'd get the answer more often. But answering that question is generally NOT an invitiation to argue the merits of the reasoning for voting down.<p>For example, let's say I know you are getting voted down because I've rouintely see your comment get voted down because a group of people think it's wrong for whatever reason. So, I answer: "You are getting voted down because people think you are wrong." If you come back and argue with me, saying you aren't wrong... you've missed the entire exchange. I'm not necessarily arguing for one side or another, I'm simply explaining why you are getting voted down. Feel free to disagree with the reasoning, but it doesn't make my answer wrong.<p>End Tangent<p>Anyways, if you want to know why you are being voted down by people you respect, do your research. And if you don't respect the people voting you down, why does it matter what they think?
IMO the guidelines could use some updates. For example, there are some unwritten conventions that could be formalized:<p>1) Search for duplicates before you submit a link.<p>2) If the submission is not from the current year, append (YEAR) at the end of the title.<p>3) It should be clarified that the guidelines about comments apply to linked article authors too. "Be kind. Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work."<p>4) There's dang's own idiosyncratic, controversial, unwritten exception to "Please submit the original source", i.e., unless it's a corporate PR.<p>[EDIT:] Three different replies have said to append [pdf] and [video] to submissions, but that's <i>already</i> in the guidelines. "If you submit a video or pdf, please warn us by appending [video] or [pdf] to the title."
There's really one thing missing from the guidelines IMO - "don't downvote for disagreement, downvote for offtopic/flamebait/inappropriate comment".<p>Well, this should be obvious, but it sadly isn't...
On submissions: if you blocked global news websites, at least a quarter of the top posts would be gone.<p>On comments: they could solve a shitload of the complaints about comments by just adding meta-votes, like those on Slashdot, and letting individual users define their own filters for what they do and don't want to see. Automating and letting the community manage itself would be <i>so</i> much more efficient and fair than relying on mods, or the extremely vague and unhelpful generic vote button.
I get flagged pretty often on here, but every time it happens I can agree "ok damn it they got me". Other times, I know a comment will anger many but is quality and within the discussion, and it stays up.<p>For how easy it would be to just ban me (which I think has happened before, in the form of a shadowban maybe I forget), it doesn't seem to happen.<p>Moderation on here is pretty dang good for how large the community is.
The one thing I wish was added - either in the guidelines or as a change to the actual web UI - was replying to a comment that you're downvoting; it's frustrating both to have one's own comments downvoted without explanation, and to come across a comment that's grey without obvious reason (Was it factually incorrect? Endorsing an unpopular idea? It's not always obvious).<p>(I'm not saying HN should do exactly the same thing, but one example is Slashdot's system where a comment can get downvoted in a way that tags it specifically as trolling/offtopic/whatever - <a href="https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml</a> seems to describe it alright)
If the function of this medium is to promote thoughtful, useful discourse, the emergent conventions are working against that premise.<p>Rule 0: this isn't reddit. Pointing out this isn't reddit isn't a shallow dismissal, it is an apt response to an equally shallow pun/joke.<p>Rule -1: you shouldn't downvote for disagreeing unless you post some substantive or tangible response. If the post doesn't deserve a response, you should report the post.<p>Sorting comments by popularity, with the convention of Up=agree down=disagree, just promotes populist opinions explicitly.<p>A much better metric would be the amount of responses a post gets divided by the entropic density of the post/thread.<p>4 paragraphs of "musk bad. rust good." gets 13 replies? decent.<p>Posting "Whataboutism is whataboutism.", gets 40+ responses, back and forths, multiple tangents of discourse, all in a fraction of the timeframe.<p>Which one results in a more higher-quality discourse? As it is now, the circle jerk floats to the top like a buoy, the actual discourse gets hidden in a spectrum of contrast.<p>The presentation, ranking, sorting, and conventions of all major aggregative and news sites forgo a metric that optimizes for quality (of discussions) and instead optimizes for quantity of participation, no matter the detriment.<p>minimaxing shallow PKI's and forgoing second-order effects, as always.
Also Nerd Sniping[0] should be avoided, although that slips through the cracks here on HN. A form of Cunningham's Law[1]<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd_sniping" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd_sniping</a><p>[1] <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law</a>