Re:US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
by argumentum on Tuesday December 09, 2014 @10:58PM
(#8727610)
As a mild disagreement, I would worry that over-enforcement of this principle would squelch out all humor. While humor may not quite be in the spirit of colleagues, or politics, it is certainly within the spirit of friendship. I am not sure about the right line to draw, but I do think that a truly friendly community is one that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Re:US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
by dang on Wednesday December 10, 2014 @01:02AM
(#8727901)
Isn't humor obviously within the spirit of colleagues? It certainly has been, any place where I've had colleagues.
There's a kind of caricaturing wit that could be called uncharitable, but only if it's meant to distort, in which case the humor is a means to something else and it's the something else that's the problem.
Not on Hacker News it isn't. We want people to apply the Principle of Charity and respond to the strongest reasonable interpretation of what each other is saying [1]. Alternatively,
A comment in reply to another comment should be written in the spirit of colleagues cooperating in good faith to figure out the truth about something, not politicians trying to ridicule and misrepresent the other side. [2]
It increasingly seems to me that we should add these principles to the site guidelines, though they're arguably derivable from them.
It's true that when people seem (and/or are) hopelessly wrong and misguided, and no one else seems (and/or is) respecting these principles, there's a great temptation to say "fuck it" and let loose with snark. But that needs to be resisted. The community depends on you and other established users to set good examples. Otherwise how can we tell new users that they can't do the same—or rather, do worse, since these things always get worse?
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761