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Dear HN: Please don't start a response with the word "wrong."

19 pointsby samdover 11 years ago
Example: Dave: The sky is green. Bob: Wrong. The sky is blue.<p>It just makes you look like an asshole. Be more tactful and civil in your discussions. I promise you people will respond more favorably if you don&#x27;t come out the gate blaring a buzzer like a game-show host.

6 comments

seijiover 11 years ago
<i>Be more tactful and civil in your discussions.</i><p>Not every opinion is valid or deserving of civil rebuttal. It&#x27;s a result of modern &quot;every opinion is equally valid as fact&quot; syndrome. We don&#x27;t have time to cordially try to rewire your brain to think the sky isn&#x27;t green.<p>Also, when trolls are trolling, they <i>want</i> elaborate thought out responses to their drivel. It&#x27;s easier to shut them down with &quot;wrong.&quot; And, as we know, you can&#x27;t distinguish an intentional troll from someone with sincerely warped views of the world.<p>In short, shut it all down. They should be inspired to research their wrongness to turn into more right-thinking apes.<p>[relevant life story: one of my high school math teachers had a big &quot;WRONG&quot; stamp (with red ink) he would enthusiastically smash onto your work if you were, well, wrong.]
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ifyoumakeitover 11 years ago
I&#x27;m dealing with that right now. Completely negating someone&#x27;s opinion only shuts down communication. It&#x27;s all in the phrasing and makes it sound like you are on different teams, especially in a work environment.
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kohanzover 11 years ago
Of any of the proponents of the &quot;Wrong. ...&quot; response, I wonder how many would use this phrasing face-to-face as opposed to online. Unlike my younger days, I do my best now to converse online as I do and would IRL and I find that this is one of those phrases that does not pass that test. IRL it would be considered plain rude and obnoxious.
frou_dhover 11 years ago
If this is pet peeve time then I&#x27;ll go with the alarming number of sentences people want to start with the word &quot;So&quot;. It makes you sound like you&#x27;re in constant rebuttal mode and trying to lay out the one true world view.
marssaxmanover 11 years ago
Yeah, I&#x27;ve noticed this. It doesn&#x27;t work.
informatimagoover 11 years ago
Wrong. People should learn to make the difference between an sentence they&#x27;re issuing being wrong or false, and they being bad. &quot;wrong&quot; does not mean they&#x27;re bad persons. Perhaps at most that they&#x27;re lazy or bad thinkers. That&#x27;s all. In any case when something is wrong, it would be wrong not to stop it immediately, telling it wrong.