Hacker News Reader

Comment by PappaPatat | Hacker News Reader

I hope it's intentionally, but you've proven exactly the parent's point: it is all nice and good to be able to speak your mind and the ones who are offended are to blame (which you seem to underwrite with the hear hear comment), until someone is blunt and direct to "you". Then it gets personal and nasty real quick.

Thing is, being open / honest sometimes triggers emotion and does not stimulate discussion or progress.

My experience (source: being Dutch / Swiss-German) is that it really really matters not only what is being said or even how true it is, a very important aspect is what / how the receiver interprets the message. When I am with my Dutch (Amsterdammer) family and friends, we are direct in a very specific way about specific subjects. Being with my Swiss-German family and friends we are too: but on different subjects and in different wording.

Just like humor translates lousy, so do nuance and social etiquettes.

View on HN

I think you've missed the point: the fact that his/her opinion is misguided and wrong doesn't change the fact that it is good that it was shared openly and bluntly.

Right, the comment was meant somewhat ironically. Less directly I might have said:

I agree there are often situation where it would be helpful if people would be more direct.

However I think there are situations where it’s better to either avoid the issue entirely, or take a less direct approach. That might be the case with those who have radically different views to us, or are members of a minority where taking a direct approach might be misinterpreted as overly agressive, or could make them feel otherwise unwelcome.

Oh, so you weren't actually being direct, but instead were being intentionally rude for the sole sake of being rude and offensive.

Hmm...

Do you even realize there is a difference?

To me it is actually kind of ironic that the continual equating of "plain truth, even if it causes offense" with "intending to cause harm by intensional bullying masquerading as being truthful" has "progressed" [sic] so far as that people who hold these views truly can't tell the difference any longer.

Nope, I was being direct. I believe the things I wrote (at least with some degree of probability).

I just don’t think it’s helpful, or advances the discussion to say them the way I did (or at all). I said them that way to illustrate a point.

You’ve failed to grasp this point. Being direct is good sometimes, but not always. And sometimes being “direct” is used to mask bullying behavior.

The “google manifesto” is one such example. I’d guess you consider it “being direct”?

We love your many technical contributions to HN but I'm sorry to say that you've frequently been slipping into (a) ideological battle and (b) outright incivility when posting here, and it seems to be getting worse. Could you please roll that back? It's really a problem. These things destroy the container that makes HN viable as a site at all. We need senior users like you to strengthen it, not destabilize it.

I realize that it can be hard to bracket out one's reactive emotions when the internet is doing its provocation thing, but we need everyone here to try. Our common interest in having a site that doesn't suck needs to take precedence over our annoyance at each other's ideological views.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com