I hear you loud and clear. Signed up for reddit in 2007 and last week finally decided to run "shreddit" and delete my entire post and comment history from the website. No way I'm letting some comment I made 13 years ago get taken out context and ruin my career or relationships.
Edit: why the downvotes? I am genuinely interested. Shreddit does not protect you from anything, it's only an illusion. I think more people should be aware of that.
A motivated individual could still dig things up, but many people (even most users of reddit) are unfamiliar with the archives out there.
https://hacker-news-example.factor.dev/
I'm not really sure why people would do this, except perhaps some seo shenanigans?
My opinion is this- if somebody wants to stalk my Internet personality, so be it. I'm willing to sacrifice those relationships.
I guess the problem would be if I ended up with some leadership/management position and a subordinate saw it?
Like this guy fired over an article written 33 years ago?
https://nypost.com/2020/07/03/boeing-communications-boss-nie...
A global pandemic is also an exceptionally rare event, yet it's wise to be prepared for such things because sometimes they happen.
As for "be in a position of power", there's a lot of websites with enough SEO to show up in the first page of Google results for your name. How much do you care about what potential employers/co-workers/business partners/romantic partners think of you?
For "be irrational enough", just look at any click-bait headline or random sampling of tweets. There's a lot of people in this world who are quite happy to take things at face-value without thinking too hard.
If someone judges me based on some randonm old comment without even talking to me, I absolutely do not want to work with them or be their friend, ever.
This is fine for you and me right now.
It is not fine for persons like one of the guys who was mentioned in the story in "the Atlantic" who had, for the first time in his life landed a good job only to be thrown under the bus at the first opportunity.
I'm fairly certain if a judge haf given him his job back he would have accepted it.
Why? Because I have been in a tight spot myself and while I wasn't fired (I moved to a new city to a job I was promised only to be told on Monday morning that they had reconsidered and wouldn't hire me anyway) I know the feeling of going -in a few hours - from a situation where everything looks nicer than ever before to a situation where I'm begging every nearby company to hire me.
From that doesn't follow that one should just say nothing (that isn't utterly benign and impersonal) on the web. This would leave something like participation in public debate to the forever unemployed or bots. If we think that far enough, you could also not communicate with other human beings in private messages, because they might take a screenshot or record it, and so on.
This could very well lead to a world where having a well paid job will come with less freedom, dignity and happiness than even being unemployed does today. I cannot affect the world much with my decisions, but by them I can unilaterally decide what kind of world I would have deserved to live in.
If only HN offered that option for people who signed up under identities that could be linked to their real identity back in the day when the Internet was sane(r).
It will live on in archive.org indefinitely anyway.
After I had entered my info, but before completing the process, it said “We found all these comments out there. Are any of them yours?”
It displayed a list of ancient stuff; a lot of it posted anonymously (I thought).
I was horrified, and immediately binned the signup.
The Internet can be a downright creepy place.
Maybe sometimes, not always.
I generally try to avoid being too controversial or, if I feel the need to make a potentially controversial point, couch it in thoughtful and reasoned terms (except on the rare occasions where I've drunk posted in which case it all goes out the window and I post something that makes no sense even to me the next day - and, of course, I don't recommend doing this).
You obviously can't see how many downvotes or upvotes a post on HN gets, or when they've come in, but I've certainly had situations where the score changes over time in a way that suggests a "wave" of downvotes followed by a "wave" of upvotes, and occasionally vice versa. I.e, comments that started out popular have become unpopular, and vice versa.
The other pattern I see from time to time is that you get absolutely roasted in the comments, but the silent majority upvote you massively. I remember posting something broadly supportive of Microsoft in some way or other where exactly this happened: I got completely slagged, but also picked up a ton of points.
I think this illustrates that the at least sometimes the mob involved in the mob wrath might be a lot smaller, and sometimes with less credible concerns, than you might think.
This is one of the problems I see with twitter: it's hugely adversarial yet only a small minority of people use it so when you go outside into the real world you realise it doesn't - or perhaps shouldn't - have that much bearing even though it's so prevalently cited in the media.
Did that save Stallman?
They're almost never used for their actual purpose anyway, which is to rank down uninformative or just dumb posts, they always end up being utilized in heated discussions as a way to stick it to whoever someone is arguing with.
Many users clearly want to quickly express their personal opinion in a low effort manner and are more than willing to "misuse" the voting mechanism for that. There was a post on the front page of HN earlier today about railroad crossings and blaming end users for (arguably) systemic failures. It seems like the current incarnation of social media runs afoul of this quite badly in all cases I'm aware of.
(I'm reminded of an SO comment by Tim Post about comments being their version of a public trash can and the reputation requirement for them roughly equating to a municipality welding them shut. The result is pretty much what you would expect.)
"Encourage the person; discourage the behavior."
Seems to have received lukewarm response, but it may be an oversimplified approach to a complex issue.
"There's always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong." –H. L. Mencken
[0] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/398537/what-can-we-...
Downvotes directly lead to a post being ignored, because they get greyed out and eventually die. I consider that a great self-moderation feature. How would you replace that?
This is an editorial issue, because those upvotes are decorative. They suggest a post has more reach and engagement, and perhaps is more entertaining. But not that it has more objective credibility - which is of course a reflection of Facebook's preference for promoting the former over the latter.
Voting isn't the answer. There may not be a community-sourced answer, because any system you imagine can be gamed by any more or less organised adversary.
The only workable solution is manual moderation with some attention to tone and content, and the banning of those who consistently troll.
This would work in a secure community, but it will stop working as soon as astroturfing PR firms and state troll farms move in, because on most sites it's trivially easy to create downvotes bots to attack specific names.
Here's an example: A couple of days ago, Antirez made this excellent post[0].
I could completely relate. I have been through the same kind of thing. I have created a project for free that is becoming a worldwide standard, but is tiny, and rather pathetic, compared to redis.
But I could still relate to what he wrote, and I made a post, saying that. I pointed to my own little project.
It immediately started getting downvoted. They were coming fast and furious, so I deleted it.
On reflection, I see that it was perceived as being "small-time loser compares himself to tech god."
I didn't mean it that way, but I'm a bit "on the spectrum," and aren't always too aware of how I come across.
I considered it a lost cause. I nuked it, and wrote a quick "thanks!" post, like everyone else.
The fox just wasn't worth the chase.
> They were coming fast and furious
All 4 of them? You know can only possibly lose 4 points, right?
Also, I noticed that on some topics I know more about than most, the best comments on the page are initially downvoted, then return to the black fairly soon.[0] You may just be penalizing yourself with the panicky deletions. And I'd much rather your comments stay here, if you meant what you said, and what you said and how you said it seemed good to you. Well, maybe you are a real bastard and frequently write horrible comments that should be deleted, but I doubt it. :-)
[0] Maybe/probably this happens with every topic, just I can only see it on topics I know best, where I can clearly see which are the good comments and which are plain wrong/ignorant.
For example, I have learned that there's very often many different aspects to others, beyond my shallow "first reaction." Although social media (and media, in general) encourages us to think of others as 1-dimensional "avatars," it has been my experience that every person is a marvelously complex being, with many different facets.
Sometimes, it's best for me to just keep my mouth/keyboard shut. Retroactive deletion is not the ideal approach, but I believe that it is better than leaving clearly unsuitable material out there, and I suffer from an overwhelming urge to participate in society, despite my challenges.
It might be a good exercise to consider the possibility that I could also have interests in life beyond HN. In fact, I often delete stuff, because it just isn't really important to me that I be heard. I don't live and die by the opinions of others, but it's important to be a member of society, and that means interacting with others in a respectful manner. If what I write does nothing but cause trouble, and I don't really care whether or not anyone likes it, then maybe the world would be a better place without my "wisdom."
I see that you also have many interests beyond the technical, so I have to assume that there was some point that you wanted to make, other than what appears to be a rather flaccid insult.
I must tender an apology. I don't think I have the capacity to understand your point.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say there or why. Just sounds condescending. That you do? We all do, I guess.
> I have to assume that there was some point that you wanted to make, other than what appears to be a rather flaccid insult.
That feels a bit rude, you could have just asked what my point is. I was offering what I hoped helpful advice. Wasn't meant to be insulting at all, sorry. (I assume you meant "a little pathetic"? My comment was meant in a "you can do better than that!" way, trying to lift up, not put down. "Be a man, like Eleanor Roosevelt" is I think a Simpsons quote, I should have put it in " "s)
I didn't write the comment when I first read yours, thinking it wasn't necessary to reply, but an hour later I thought of it again, so came back here to comment. It was apparently something I really wanted to say, which is one good test of whether to comment, I guess.
fix? why would you want to become part of the echo chamber? i do understand the desire to not receive a downvote. Your specific example was indeed perhaps out of place and the downvotes were maybe "correct" and thus you were right to reflect and delete the post.
but more often than not, with contentious topics like donald trump downvotes are merely "i disagree". the pushback you're getting here is about that kind of downvote, and I agree. there's nothing to "fix". HN tries to make sure such topics don't even make it here for discussion, but the filter is steep so plenty get through.
There are a couple other trigger topics, but I can't remember at this time. Oh, one is asking about salary, but I guess that's sort of understandable.
Like I said, I am trying to make amends. One of the symptoms of that, is that I can come across as "stuffy."
Also, I do want to put out a good image of myself, but that can come across as "self-promotion," something I'm downright awful at. I'm also pretty much terrible at relating (tends to come across as "making it all about me"), so it tends to fall flat, when I try.
People here also have made it or perceive that they are on the path to making it. They may think that housing costs are too high or the police are too violent or that outsourcing has been bad for the American worker. But we're by and large not without adequate housing, the target of police violence, or in the poor house. It's easier to be less outraged when you're sitting at the top of the heap.
The problem in the online culture is very, very simple: Twitter. The basic mechanics of the service create an incredibly awful culture. The mentality it has created now pollutes the rest of the internet, as do screenshots of its content. Only narcissists use Twitter. I know a lot of people in my real life - the people I like don't use Twitter, those I don't like do use Twitter. I think we should simply shun people use who use it, and treat them with disgust, as if we found out they get their news from supermarket tabloids or post obnoxious YouTube comments.
Many other internet platforms have risen and fallen before, I don't know why that one still lurches on.
There’s tons of crap on Twitter, but it’s just absurd to say only narcissists use Twitter.
Disclaimer: I use Twitter, I may be biased against the claim that this makes a narcissist.
To me, it’s just one of the most effective communication tools for that particular arsenal. Announcements, updates, and even matchmaking is done there — it’s too valuable to ignore.
There are also small groups of professionals and researchers who use Twitter effectively and very tool-like. They don't walk into politics, they use it to update everybody on stuff they find/learn and to be updated by everyone else. On paper, that's the intended way to use Twitter, but obviously they don't spend that much time on the platform, and they certainly don't get notifications on their phone when somebody they follow has tweeted something.
All you’ve written is snarky insults. I’m not responding to any of that.
From the HN guidelines:
- Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
- When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
- 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. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Do you see now? Twitter-style discourse is absolved of intellectual rigor and apparently it also is absolved of self-awareness.
No, but your reply to me was dripping with it.
> You really don't realize that your prior comment I was replying too is breaking many of the same HN guidelines you posted?
In what way? It was only a summary of the points that I and two other users further in the same thread had made.
> Do you really think that accusing someone of making "sweeping generalisations" and making no explanation of the accusation is "thoughtful and substantive".
I made a perfectly adequate explanation of why I think such a sweeping generalisation is invalid; that there are Twitter users who aren't complete narcissists. As the person to whom I responded said a couple of comments higher, "there's really a huge conflict when you're saying 'only narcissists use Twitter' in a discussion about how to be kind and productive on the internet.
My contribution to the discussion was originally to support hyperpape's rebuttal of Mizza's claim that not all Twitter users are narcissists. luckylion's comment further supported this same line of thinking as Mizza and I were following, giving further demonstrations of examples of non-narcisisstic Twitter usage.
My summarisation of all three comments, mine, luckylion's, and Mizza's, was that broad sweeping generalisations about a service's users are not helpful. I basically restated everything we had said in a sentence.
The only thing lacking in thoughtful and substantive contribution has been your absolute obsession with that summarisation, seemingly treating it to mean something other than what it is, becoming rude, abrasive, dismissive, and lacking in the sort of courtesy that most HN users would show to one another.
> Were you really responding "to the strongest plausible interpretation" of the person's comment? You were not.
Actually, as I just explained, you'll find that to be exactly what I did. I was merely summarising a few statements into a sentence.
> On the other hand, I actually was doing that with your comment.
I would disagree. From your tone, leading questions, abrasive wording, and insulting language, you have provided no real evidence of this.
Notice how none of those users seem to have any particular grievances about me having summarised our collective thoughts; just you.
None of them have made any leaps of logic like assuming that my perceived disagreement (and I cannot emphasise that enough, because I and the previous three comments, one of which was mine, were in complete agreement) amounted to a defence of "140 character snarky comebacks as the new intellectual standard for humanity" (something neither of the three of us mentioned); just you.
None of them is indirectly insulting me with lines such as "it does not appear like Twitter is doing you or your intellect much of any good", clearly detectable as ad hominem even if you make the subject of that sentence Twitter rather than me directly; just you.
You seem to be picking a fight where none needs to exist.
> Do you see now? Twitter-style discourse is absolved of intellectual rigor and apparently it is also absolved of self-awareness.
Firstly, I was not defending Twitter-style discourse. I will restate this: all I, as the other commenters, was doing was to state that not all Twitter users are narcissistic. I put no money either way about whether or not Twitter-style discourse is effective, defensible, or whatever.
I made no comment about whether Twitter-style discourse necessarily contained any trace of intellectual rigour or self-awareness.
However, I will hold that last paragraph as the best evidence possible of the pot calling the kettle black: you respond to an argument that neither I nor any previous commenters have made, use abusive and insulting language, and then deign to imply that I or my discussion may be lacking in intellectual rigour and/or self-awareness.
All for a misunderstanding.
All of which could have been avoided by you asking me to clarify my position, to determine whether or not I was being antagonistic (I was not), and to do so without resorting to being snarky, without cross-examining, to make the discussion more thoughtful and substantive.
Simply asking me what I meant, rather than laying straight into me with a series of attacks, would have demonstrated those principles.
Instead, you chose to shallowly dismiss the post without electing to understand its position, in doing so failing to respond to what I said with the strongest plausible interpretation by rather attacking an invented one that is easier to criticise.
Your first comment to me even called names, implying idiocy.
None of these things correctly apply to either my comment to which you replied nor the one prior — but I wouldn't put it past anybody to apply them to the two comments you've sent me.
To be fair, there's quite a bit of space between "absolute crap" and "optimal intellectual discussion". It could be mostly crap, or some crap and some joking about.
I am still waiting for the downvoters (or yourself) to actually offer any evidence to the contrary. But they will not because their intellect is built upon Twitter style discussion. Too bad, the internet is making people dumber.
This is what it boils down to for me. Slashdot was great because of CmdrTaco and when he left it that was about the time when that site went down the tubes. Hacker news is great because of dang. When the moderators leave, the communities often rot.
The medium is the message and sooner or later the twitter mechanisms get everyone regardless whether you have good social media hygiene. It's built for outrage. Instantanious nature, slot-machine like feeds, blinking like buttons, 'getting ratio'd', virality, this is what it's built for.
Then add the incentives built into any (anti)social network: they automate piling on. Engagement über alles, users be damned.
[I am painfully aware of the irony of posting a critical post about Twitter, quoting material that was originally posted at Twitter. The notion of pileon automation comes off of this tweet: https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1143950836533473286?la...]
I've found it to be a great place for feedback on my own work and also for finding new things, but I also instinctively filter out about 90% of what I see even in my own curated listing that I browse.
Every once in a while I get to Twitter.com and see how the algorithmic feed lays things out, and the experience would be a disaster, like with Facebook.
In old Japanese 2ch forum, there used to be a saying "Ignore trolls" and if a person behaving bad, they were said, "Be ROM(Read-Only-Member) half an year." It was a wise word.
Also, the number of users is quite small compared to... say, Reddit.
Reddit has become overly toxic, and the premise of this article is definitely in effect on reddit. The trolls are winning over there.
HN was a sometimes-read for me, but now it's becoming a daily-read replacing reddit, because it's just less toxic here (I hope).
Like wise anonymous speech has a huge and vital role in much of our history prior to the internet. Since the invention of the printing press people have used pseudonyms for their speech for a wide range of valid reasons
Further still the idea that "Real Names" curbs extremism has been clearly proven false, in fact is drives extremism, precisely because is drives out moderate voices and only the very extremes of the mob is left of yell at each other
Moderate voices will "If a post I make gets a couple of rapid downvotes, I nuke it." that is not a model for healthy debate or discourse
This isn't a place for me to challenge stuff. I come here to learn and to contribute.
Actually, let me amend that. I do like to present a "challenge," in that I want to model respectful, considerate behavior. It has been my experience that this is not always received well. I guess that people feel as if I am being "snooty."
I guarantee that it's far preferable to the way I used to interact with others on teh Internets tubes.
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."
I have a lot of experience. I have often cleared minefields by dancing through them.
One of the things that I enjoy, is being corrected, because I often learn that way. It may sting a bit, but I am constantly pushing boundaries, and learning new stuff. I write a bit about that, in the referenced Medium post[0].
I have been working with...difficult...people for almost 40 years. I have learned that it's not particularly productive to ram stuff down people's throats; especially if they are someone with a history of violence.
Being "wishy-washy" is also almost as unhelpful, so you will see that I do make strong points, in areas in which I have the authority to do so.
There are those that look at any appearance of moderation or self-restraint as "weakness," as you can see, from this very thread (in fact, one person actually came out and said that), and I often encounter people that mistake kindness for weakness.
They don't like me, when I end up calling them on it.
But I am also keenly aware that it isn't a good idea to hurt someone, if I want them to take me seriously. I have often made inadvertent utterances that have offered hurt, where none was meant. I sincerely regret that. In some cases, I sacrificed valuable relationships, because I made snap judgements, or ran off my mouth.
I am a very kind person, but I am not a weak one. I know that it may not seem like it's possible, but it's quite common to be both kind and strong. I have spent my entire adult life around people like that.
I value the people here. Note that I emphasized "people." I think that the modern social media landscape has encouraged us all to think of the folks on the other end of our communications as "not-people."
[0] https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/thats-not-what-ships-are-...
I do appreciate that HN is definitely not like reddit where the most of the top comments are one-liner jokes or puns.
As I work in dysfunctional industry (enterprise software development), being professional would ruin a lot of the fun of being on HN, as I would have to parrot their dysfunctional beliefs... Hence, I always write from anonymous accounts and decomission them often to make sure I'm not doxxed.
e.g. threads involving specific companies or topics can have more polarized voters and commenters.
ASCII art trolling is not new. Penis Bird Guy was a hugely famous Slashdot poster back in the 90s. I agree Slashdot doesn’t seem as good now as it was then, but the problem isn’t that.
They have found very polite ways to be rude.
On very rare occasions, I make a point that turned out to be just wrong and not salvageable in any way. If it lead to an interesting discussion, I leave it in place because it still provides context to that discussion, and I admit I'm wrong in another comment.
I almost wish downvotes meant enough here I could do that in good conscience. As it is, I have absolutely no idea why I get the downvotes I get, when I get downvotes, so they're not a learning process for me. They might as well be handed out at random. (I hesitate to make accusations.)
Wow. Just...wow.
LinkedIn was like that (in fact, sickeningly saccharine), but it's starting to fray.
Slashdot was good for a while, then CNN and YouTube kicked off their trolls, and they all went to /. It's now the place to go, if you want swastika ASCII art.
StackOverflow manages to be a painful place to participate, even though they are sincerely trying to be decent. I think it's way too "gamified," and competitive.
For myself, I'm an old troll. I admit that I was a right bastard, back in the UseNet days.
I am trying to atone.
One of the ways that I do that, is make all my info connected with every place I participate. If I am a jerk, you know where to find me. Alternatively, if I make a good impression, you know where to find me.
I also pay attention to downvotes. If a post I make gets a couple of rapid downvotes, I nuke it. Sometimes, I understand why; sometimes, not. It's just not worth it to me.
I am also making an effort not to engage too much. I may have a one-or-two-post back and forth, just to see if we can come to an accommodation, then it's "Have a great day!". Totally OK to let someone else have the last word. I have better uses for my time.