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Comment by jraines | Hacker News Reader

What's the difference between a "well, actually" and correcting someone's misunderstanding -- or rather, when is it not welcome? My understanding is that it's when someone parachutes into a conversation uninvited to correct someone, but if I was in a learning setting like Hacker School, I feel like I would welcome that from fellow students or instructors.

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A well-actually occurs when someone's understanding is 90% correct, and someone comes along and says, heroically, "you're entirely wrong, because of this missing 10%". When iterated this kind of grandstanding erodes the confidence of someone who's working with a partial understanding, which in truth is all of us.

Particularly if the missing 10% is completely unrelated to the situation under discussion.

"Ok, so the client contacts the server and receives the result, but half of the result is missing, so...."

"Well, actually, the client uses DNS to look up the server's address first."

"Ok, thanks. Now I know."

A well-done well-actually is a brilliant demonstration of superiority.

I was in the Summer 2013 batch.

There is no hard-and-fast rule for figuring out what is and is not a well-actually, but the biggest factors (at least for me) are (1) did it derail the conversation, (2) did my correcting someone make it less acceptable to not know something, and (3) was my motivation to do something like show off?

I've been guilty of all 3. Anecdotally, I found that the effect of this lightweight rule was that at HS it was very much ok to not know something, and let me tell you, adjusting to the real world, where that is subtly untrue, is a trial.

As for the "parachuting in" problem, that's essentially the gist of a different lightweight social rule, "no backseat driving". :)

"(1) did it derail the conversation, (2) did my correcting someone make it less acceptable to not know something, and (3) was my motivation to do something like show off?"

Hallelujah! Someone who understands! :-) [1]

I've done it as well, and I hate it when I realize I am.

I suspect the worse part of HS' policies is exactly that "adjusting to the real world, where [it was very much ok to not know something] is subtly untrue, is a trial." In the typical business environment, appearing not to know something is a very unsubtle weakness.

[1] I'm completely unrelated to Hacker School.

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html As a child, I wondered why my sister could make friends and keep them so easily, while I could not. It would take me years to discover this. And now, as a public service I am sharing with you, my fellow geek friends, what I learned. Whoever pulls a "well, actually" almost always shifts the conversation to himself.

A "well actually" occurs when a person is splitting hairs. This can be desirable, for example when you're trying to obtain a complete understanding of something. But in normal conversation, such pedanticism is often annoying. The "well actually" policy, as I understand it, is an attempt to make such hair splitting "opt-in" rather than "opt-out".

It just seems like in order to get the most out of Hacker School one has to act with positive intent but otherwise entirely ignore the rules.

It looks immensely easy to fall into a trap of caring too much about the rules and not caring enough about the code, and I can imagine a large group of people trying to play along rather than try to become better "hackers". "Ohh, I'm sorry, you did actually just save us from three hours of bashing our head into a wall by recommending a specific algorithm, but you also broke the rules. For shame!"

I suspect that to get the most out of Hacker School one has to act with positive intent and otherwise entirely ignore the rules, but be prepared to admit that one's behavior is not already perfect.

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