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Comment by zachinglis | Hacker News Reader

I think it was valid critique. (Something I am sure you give the companies you fund.) It's not always easy to provide critique without knocking the cause - But I understood that's how jug6ernaut meant it.

If I were to buy a tshirt for HN, which I might possibly do - I'd want it to show off a message rather than it looking like it could be for anything. This doesn't feel personal to the brand to me – I could buy this anywhere for a number of reasons.

And of all your description of what you want the community to be - do you want it full of snark like your response? Your response was far more 'schoolyard bullying.'

We're adults here, if we can't take critique without crying foul - the internet isn't for us.

(And this is not me attacking, or having a go.)

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Like I said, the original comment is really more confused than dismissive. And I do feel kind of bad for making fun of the guy. I should have known that saying I wished it was the top comment might make it so.

You're mistaken about the design though. It's both funny to make the design so minimalistic, and yet simultaneously a pretty bold assertion of brand power. And since we don't want HN to grow fast, we don't need to send any messages to anyone who doesn't already recognize the shirt.

There are already a bunch of mean comments in this thread. You're right that instant-dismissal and unconstructive criticism on HN is a problem.

Some people will like the shirt and buy it. Some people will not like the shirt, and will not buy and and not make any comment on it. Some people will offer some kind of critique, which is sort of fun but kind of futile (the shirt is made and being sold. It's too late for critique unless you're going to make and sell another batch in future.)

But what to do about the people who don't like the shirt and loudly tell everyone that they don't like the shirt in ways that are not interesting or useful? Do downvotes work for that?

Do you need to give a small group of carefully vetted people a super-downvote button? (This would be based on your knowledge and trust of those people, not on any karma scores). ((I've wanted to start a hoax about the HN secret pages for high karma users. I've resisted because that kind of meta drama can be pretty harmful, and there are other places where it'd be more fun.)

I think the whole point of critique (esp. in this particular case) is to provide feedback. In both my and the OP's mind, the shirt was created with at least some mild hope that people might buy it. Offering what I consider to be a valid suggestion on how to improve sales is not futile. Now, if the shirt was posted with absolutely no expectation of sales then I would agree with your point.

I've seen sometimes that my downvote doesn't count (doesn't cause a fairly new comment to go gray, and to be even more certain, doesn't lower the poster's karma).

I've experimented quite a bit with it and have some theories about when it works and when it doesn't, but it's still not completely predictable to me.

Well, there you have it. The original comment prompted a large discussion, eventually leading to further clarification of the meaning of the design itself. I don't see what's wrong with that; conversations wouldn't be very interesting at all if everyone unilaterally agreed with each other.

More like I wasted a lot of time spelling out something that was already obvious. This is a bug in forums, not a feature, and one that has bitten me many times. You can't be concise on forums, because if you leave any possible room for misinterpretation, someone will reply with it.

which often evolves to a rather refreshing discussion that doesn't have to necessarily end with an agreement

That is true, but isn't it only revealing the problem that correct interpretation is not conveyed, not causing it? If it wasn't possible to reply, the same people would still hold the misinterpretation, but then the author wouldn't see it.

Communication is hard.

PG described a process by which the most literal-minded participants -- those with abnormally low tolerance for ambiguity -- drag everyone down to their level. I would welcome measures that neutralize that process even if the negative consequence you describe comes to pass.

Why is "100% clear communication" an assumed universal good? Some jokes are only funny because some people don't get them. And yet, this--as I might term it--"populist heartburn" at realizing one is in the not-getting-it majority, and demanding an explanation, ruins the fun of those who do.

Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" might be appropriate reading here. :)

Not quite three stripes simple, but still a pretty solid logo. In terms of apparel, the block graphics reminded me of Hilfiger. As an image, it reminds me a bit of Albers, Itten, and a similar strand in mid-century painting.

I was going to post this elsewhere, but I guess I'll just drop it here... That's not what HN looks like to me. Why? Because like (I assume) most users that reached whatever the magic number is for a custom-color top bar, I've changed the default orange (a random shade of purplish in my case).

I 'got' the design because of the description, but if I had seen it randomly on the street, I'm not sure I would have immediately associated it with HN.

Not sure that any of this matters, but the marketing/branding side of me finds the whole color scheme thing an interesting discussion.

who says the t-shirt you wear is/should be for the benefit of the random guy on the street?

Usually because random guys on the street see a lot more of the "logo area" of your t-shirt than you do (it's sort of outside of your regular visual field unless you're looking straight down or in a mirror). Though, admittedly, possibly-savvy coworkers see similar amounts of it. Depends which you spend more time around, I guess.

We're adults here, if we can't take critique without crying foul - the internet isn't for us.

In my experience when people ask for a critique of something completely new, they're asking (usually without knowing it) for the high-bit: Does this completely suck, or should I keep working on it? Unfortunately people too often respond with only the low-bits, forgetting to add "but these are nit-picks, the overall idea doesn't suck, and you should keep working on it". At best that's frustrating, because you only hear low-bits when you wanted the high-bit. At worst it's a disaster, if you misread low-bits as high-bits and give up on something promising.

It is possible to get good public critique but it has to be handled carefully. There is an art to it. And even if you know what you are doing, it can still go very wrong. But how you frame it matters. Having an account here and the ability to request feedback does not guarantee that one knows how to ask effectively.

> I think it was valid critique. (Something I am sure you give the companies you fund.) It's not always easy to provide critique without knocking the cause

I always think about saying it to someone as I talk to them.

I'm about to launch a design critique site that I've been working on for months.

The truth is that it's easier to critique in person than online. If you don't know someone's personality and can't read their nuances it makes it a lot harder.

But thats a very good critique advice.

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