Re:Hacker News is depressing
by drunkpotato on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @01:35PM
(#5745262)
It also takes quite a lot of self-control on the part of the receiver to get something constructive out of derision. Frankly, it's exhausting.
A specific example: I was looking for some help with a bash script a while ago. I am no bash expert. I got heaps of abuse for my terrible script. At first I got emotional, and a good 75% of the time I would have stopped there, feeling grumpy and hating assholes on the internet. This time I took a deep breath, posted my whole script as a gist, and said to one of the most abusive but seemingly knowledgable IRC citizens, "Ok, I see it's not as robust as it could be, so I would appreciate some help. What am I doing wrong? How can I improve this?" The script was much improved in robustness and readability.
I got a good script but I was drained by the effort. If I had gotten your second response instead of the first, think of how much time and good will would have been saved.
Being respectful and understanding is not a waste of time, and being rude is not cutting through the bullshit. Your point regarding derision is spot on, except I don't think it makes the derider feel better either.
A specific example: I was looking for some help with a bash script a while ago. I am no bash expert. I got heaps of abuse for my terrible script. At first I got emotional, and a good 75% of the time I would have stopped there, feeling grumpy and hating assholes on the internet. This time I took a deep breath, posted my whole script as a gist, and said to one of the most abusive but seemingly knowledgable IRC citizens, "Ok, I see it's not as robust as it could be, so I would appreciate some help. What am I doing wrong? How can I improve this?" The script was much improved in robustness and readability.
I got a good script but I was drained by the effort. If I had gotten your second response instead of the first, think of how much time and good will would have been saved.
Being respectful and understanding is not a waste of time, and being rude is not cutting through the bullshit. Your point regarding derision is spot on, except I don't think it makes the derider feel better either.