Re:Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with custome...
by DoreenMichele on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:55PM
(#16394817)
Wow, what a way to miss the big picture.
The people who shape this forum are mostly not anonymous. Most of the people at the top of the leaderboard use their real name or some portion of it. In many cases, you can find articles about them or profiles on an employer's website or other third party verification of their identity that is far stronger than Facebook insisting I go by Doreen.
Furthermore, you have to have a handle here to apply for YC, the incubator that owns this site and has fostered companies that include Reddit and AirBnB. So being an asshole on HN can be a great means to guarantee you will never have a shot at a successful startup.
The stakes for participating here in good faith can run into the millions of dollars. Anyone with any sense at all will make some attempt to restrain themselves, plus the most influential community leaders will set a better example than you are going to see on most forums that lack such table stakes.
There are plenty of people that don't realize any of that. I seem to be the only person who ever points that out. But the fact that it seems to go largely unrecognized in conversation here doesn't mean the effect isn't there. People who would never state that money is a big part of why they behave here will, nonetheless, behave here because of the serious consequences that can occur if they don't.
Paul Graham has written articles about the YC "don't be an asshole" rule. They are quite open about the fact that they don't want to work with such people. So anyone who has any aspirations whatsoever of applying to YC and 2 functioning brain cells is going to try to not be asshole here.
That has more power than what your public handle is. And I am completely fine with it.
The people who shape this forum are mostly not anonymous. Most of the people at the top of the leaderboard use their real name or some portion of it. In many cases, you can find articles about them or profiles on an employer's website or other third party verification of their identity that is far stronger than Facebook insisting I go by Doreen.
Furthermore, you have to have a handle here to apply for YC, the incubator that owns this site and has fostered companies that include Reddit and AirBnB. So being an asshole on HN can be a great means to guarantee you will never have a shot at a successful startup.
The stakes for participating here in good faith can run into the millions of dollars. Anyone with any sense at all will make some attempt to restrain themselves, plus the most influential community leaders will set a better example than you are going to see on most forums that lack such table stakes.
There are plenty of people that don't realize any of that. I seem to be the only person who ever points that out. But the fact that it seems to go largely unrecognized in conversation here doesn't mean the effect isn't there. People who would never state that money is a big part of why they behave here will, nonetheless, behave here because of the serious consequences that can occur if they don't.
Paul Graham has written articles about the YC "don't be an asshole" rule. They are quite open about the fact that they don't want to work with such people. So anyone who has any aspirations whatsoever of applying to YC and 2 functioning brain cells is going to try to not be asshole here.
That has more power than what your public handle is. And I am completely fine with it.