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Comment by ghiotion | Hacker News Reader

> the system shouldn't require people poking around the blog to figure out what will work or not.

I don't agree with that. The Internet has allowed way to many folk's inner Id (i.e. Id, Ego, Superego) to run a muck. They see some snippet of something or other that offends their delicate sensibilities and they go apeshit in the comments. HN is based on what should be a simple idea: don't say anything in the comments that you wouldn't be willing to say to someone in person. There are variants on this theme: be thoughtful, don't be abrasive, [perhaps] keep your politics to yourself, etc. If someone gets riposted for their comments they ought to ask themselves, what am I doing wrong? Not, what's wrong with the community. If they're incapable of doing that, they probably don't belong here in the first place.

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> If someone gets riposted for their comments they ought to ask themselves, what am I doing wrong? Not, what's wrong with the community.

Have you ever seen THX 1138? It's a good movie.

In all seriousness... lets try to admit there are problems here. I lurk more than I post for simple fear of bothering someone's sensibilities. In fact, when I do post, I tend to generalize so I don't lose half my karma.

> Have you ever seen THX 1138?

I have. It's shocking to see Robert Duvall so young. I saw [Edit: not One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but To Kill a Mockingbird -- duh] recently and I couldn't believe he was Bo Bradley.

Anyway... I've found the people on here to be a bright group. Even when I post comments that get downvoted, I understand the reasons. Frankly, losing my karma doesn't bother me too much. As long as you can make your case intelligently, you'll be fine. For example, I made a comment defending spanking (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=127794) which I knew wouldn't be a popular stance. However, my approach was measured and, even though the majority disagreed, the comment itself wasn't viciously downvoted. The internet tends to distort one's sense of humanity. The bulk of the people out there are reasonable, the existence of 4chan notwithstanding.

I agree with you!

However, I'll add the caveat that things tend to get a little crazy around YC application deadlines. My feeling is that some people seem to feel the need to 'fall in line' around that time.

Boo Radley

I just stared at the 'Bo Radley' for a minute and thought...isn't it 'Boo'? Or maybe just pronounced that way?

You saved me looking it up :)

You're making an argument around the virtues of HN. I agree with them. My point is about how software should operate not a bout how the community should operate. Good software should be simple to use and understand. You say you do not agree with what I said, yet it does not look like you have addressed my point. Perhaps I made my point poorly. If so, apologies.

I think I understand where you're coming from and I agree with you that good software should be simple and easy to use/understand. And, I think HN is. At it's heart, it's simple software. My point was that the software doesn't stand in isolation; the community shapes and molds the behavior of the software. In a very real sense, the community is the software. HN lives (and dies) by how interesting the people who use it are.

While I'm onboard with the community + software = experience, let's look at the problems.

Let's say I posted a comment, "I love monkeys" and got down-voted to like -10 or something. Aside from relevance questions, perhaps HN is an anti-monkey society. How, from just the score, am I supposed to know that? In other words, by limiting my choice to simple up or down arrows, it makes the other guy scratch his head trying to figure out exactly how his comment was misconfigured for the group. So then he has to plead for somebody to explain that to him. Hopefully, he will get an explanation from somebody who represents the majority of downvoters, but that doesn't have to be the case. He's just as likely to receive advice from somebody, as in this case, who didn't know other huge parts of the community rules.

I love the social networking aspect of the site. But I'm not a fan of the current software as a communication tool between users or as something that would increase (instead of decrease) that experience. BTW, that's why so many "here's my picture of Dilbert" articles are posted -- there's less risk in offending anyone, and heck, you can't figure out what you did when you get downvoted anyway, so might as well go with easy, fast, and funny content over content that might have more substance (and be riskier from the point of view of the submitter)

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