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Open-letter: Did hackernews become hateboard?

48 pointsby devrimabout 13 years ago
Anytime I come to hackernews, reading about a new startup, a new programming language (e.g. go), or a new concept (e.g. dotsies) to name a few, all i see is negative comments. We got our fair shares of them for our startup too.<p>I came to this conclusion, let me know if it makes any sense.<p>When there is something new, haters comment on it almost immediately. Sometimes, if you look at the time of the entry, you know, it's almost impossible to form any kind of opinion in that little time that the hater hated the whole thing already.<p>Sad part is, (inserting my analysis) if anyone actually has a few good things to say, they pass,<p>1) because then they would also be attacked by the same folks who just hated the original content. Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish kind of thing.<p>2) (scientific/logical/rational) quality of hating content is so low (sometimes downright ridiculous), it makes smart ones refuse to take part in such thread. You know this, when that weird dude comments on your facebook status, makes everyone else dissipate.<p>This situation makes hackernews a place where everything is mostly hated, not renowned or embraced. A few years back, hackernews was definitely not a hateboard - it was a great source of high-quality information.<p>These days I come here saying to myself "let's see how much sh*t this will receive on hackernews". It makes me sad, seeing one more platform that I respect, is taken away from me.<p>Do you agree? Or did I happen to see the bad ones? (http://d.pr/1wCv http://d.pr/j614) If yes, how do you think this can change ? Not asking for how we can fight against, "i know it all" guy, "every new thing is worse than what i know" dude; if what I'm saying is true, there are ways that system can fight to balance negatives and positives, maybe like stackoverflow does.<p>What do you think?

17 comments

_deliriumabout 13 years ago
I did a spot-check of what's currently on the frontpage of HN, and where there are clear sentiments expressed about a project, they seem to have a reasonable distribution of positive/negative, with more positive. Obviously this probably varies day to day, so more data would be needed to draw conclusions.<p>Projects with mainly positive comments currently:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3755656" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3755656</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754561" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754561</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754108" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754108</a><p>Mixed comments on this one:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3755276" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3755276</a><p>Mainly negative:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3752447" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3752447</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3755574" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3755574</a>
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pgabout 13 years ago
It's a problem. I was just thinking about ways to mitigate it as I was driving home from YC. I'll spend more time on this problem between batches.
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kristenleeabout 13 years ago
I agree with the OP, the level of negativity on HN is striking, if you peruse through the articles on the first page on any given day at least half will have some negative "hater" comment as the one with the most votes. You saw the same type of negative behavior on Techcrunch before they transitioned over to the Facebook commenting system, maybe there's something about anonymity that brings out the worst in people.
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viraptorabout 13 years ago
I get the impression that this is supported by hn to some extent by the "don't comment with me-too, or cool-stuff" kind of rules. If you see something that's actually new to you, you'll usually have a response like: this is good (up vote), disagree (comment), know something more (informative comment), know something related / similar (start slightly off-topic but related comment thread). And these are all useful comments to some extent.<p>If it's really news to you, the comment is really unlikely to be informative or deep. Actually there are people who are almost always in disagreement with news on some topic, but I don't think they're bad (see tptacek on every homemade-crypto related article).<p>I think the general negative response is just a result of the news themselves. Before you really get to understand/apply/have fun with some of the stuff, it will be far away from the front page already. But as long as there's at least a bit of constructive criticism in the negative ones, I think I'm fine with it.
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codeonfireabout 13 years ago
"Did hackernews become hateboard?"<p>No. you're just upset because you're afraid HN is losing its hip factor. Your links don't point to examples of negative comments, they point to images of a couple of people making negative comments about HN.<p>There is nothing wrong with the comments on this message board, and attempts to censor just to meet your ideal comment is stupid and wrong. The correct course of action for you is to start a new, hipper message board where you can post all you want about how awful the old one was and how you knew about it when it was still good. Please do this (hipsternews.com is taken).
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Sunchoabout 13 years ago
I think it's ironic that if I disagree with your post, I'll just be proving your point. Usually, I don't read the discussions as much as I click on the links to the articles. There are around two or four per day that look interesting to me (congratulations, by the way). Sometimes, I save articles to read later, so by the time I get around to reading an article, it's not being discussed on Hacker News anymore.<p>Maybe when I accumulate enough karma to down vote, I'll down vote some stuff. That's the most efficient way to hate. ;)
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chcabout 13 years ago
The fundamental problem is that the easiest non-fluffy response to something is to object. If you read an article and agree but don't have anything personal to add, posting "This is correct for the reasons stated" is a waste of time, so you probably don't (and should't). But if you read something and disagree, you can simply write "This is not correct because X and Y" and you've added something (though not something very worthwhile most of the time, as X and Y tend to be knee-jerk emotional reactions).
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pclarkabout 13 years ago
I would have a check box next to the add comment button that says "this is a nice comment" and if someone posts without ticking that box, redirect them to a page on civility.<p>If nothing else it'd be interesting to see if people tick it and still comment mean spirited things, this way they actually have to acknowledge they are flying in the face of Hacker News every time they comment.
dirkdemanabout 13 years ago
Maybe it's me, but I don't think it is that bad. Yes, you see the occasional trolls, but it's nowhere near as bad as Techcrunch or Reddit or whatever. There was a post about some guy wanting to move to SV asking for a place to crash, and he'd get the most wonderful comments and offerrs. I think HN is a nice community with a few newcomers who still have to learn that there is actually something like being nice to each other on the internet.<p>I'm sure things were different, more intimate and friendly a few years back, but that's more of an issue with becoming more mainstream. To me it doesn't matter, just ignore the haters and remain constructive, helpful and friendly. Well, I try to, at least!
brudgersabout 13 years ago
Negativity can be bad. Grinfucking always is.<p>HN offers a certain type of feedback for new ideas. When it was a smaller community, it offered a different type. This probably had some advantages when someone needed encouragement. The downside was that feedback was closer to the fiends and family end of the spectrum. Now a shared idea will see a broader range of opinions, and this probably means more people who will see the idea as pointless, trivial, or just plain dumb. The upside is that the idea will see more diverse debugging.<p>The issue with many "new idea" posts is that there doesn't seem to be a specific purpose behind them. So many are, "here's my site" followed by "yeah, I know the landing page sucks" and "thanks for letting me know that not everyone wants to log in with Facebook."<p>General requests for feedback illicit general responses.<p>Sometimes, I read "My great idea" threads and my impulse is to debug it. That means ruthlessly pointing to problems or possible problems - e.g. the person whose "startup idea" is a lifestyle consultancy which doesn't scale well and probably will never attract outside investment.<p>While one of the things I appreciate about the HN culture is "think about what you would say face to face," there's a certain way in which it doesn't apply - in person, I would know if sandwiching was productive, online, I assume that it isn't.<p>The reason I assume it isn't is because online comments are not just for the individual who asks the question -- this comment doesn't start "Dear Devrim." This comment is more or less standing on a soapbox in the public square, as are most in an online forum. In a public forum sandwiching adds noise and tends to ignore the context.
chris_dcostaabout 13 years ago
I was was thinking of leaving HN for exactly this reason,<p>I'm not long here but I already noticed that I often receive downvotes for being positive or having a social conscience, and oddly on the one occasion I expressed a controvertial (and negative) view I received a significant amount of upvotes.<p>I had always thought HN was about open, free and frank discussion where everyone's view counts, but unfortunately I'm afraid to say, I'm not getting that vibe at the moment.
mootothemaxabout 13 years ago
I've never been a major contributor here, but I've definitely commented less over the past six months. This is mostly due to dropping in on a few stories when they're at the 50-comment mark, and seeing the top-rated comments containing negative sentiments.<p>The annoying thing is that the best way to help fix this would be to comment <i>more</i>, rather than less. Basically, try and beat the demotivating effects ;)
staunchabout 13 years ago
A Slashdot style moderation system is probably the only real answer. Let some subset of users mark comments:<p><pre><code> [informative] [snarky] [humor] [question] </code></pre> Then take that into account when ranking comments.
geoffsandersabout 13 years ago
Being negative and being an asshole is not synonymous!<p>Believe it or not, it is completely possible to disagree and/or be critical of someones idea without being a jerk or an asshole. As we all know, emotion, intention, and connotation are all hard to convey in a text-only medium. Take a bit of extra time to ensure your comments are polite and respectful, and always keep in mind - PERCEPTION IS REALITY.
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tgrassabout 13 years ago
Is there any experience with merely hiding abusive commenters. That is, I'd like the option to be able mark an individual as hidden so that I don't have to read his comments again; the individual is still public to anyone who hasn't marked him. Over time it seems there could be multiple self selecting communities within the same comment section.
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trogdoroabout 13 years ago
OMG, this thread is so stupid. This is such a dumb idea. (That was a joke, get it? :)
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grabasticabout 13 years ago
haternews. I couldn't agree more.
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