So happy to see it on the first page of HN. This has been my favorite personal website/weblog/web directory for over a year and I'm always stoked when my feed reader pings about an update.
Do not miss his HrefHunts[1], the interview with the Things Magazine[2] creator or his P2P Muxtape alternative[3].
I love this answer:
> I don’t necessarily think there needs to be a new future for blogging though. The heyday has passed, that’s all. Most forms of creative expression in most mediums still exist somewhere for someone. They just have to adapt to a quieter world.
Can you help me understand what this is? I read through it all and I couldn’t decipher what’s actually happening or what it’s about. It felt like word soup to me — I’m possibly far outside the intended audience.
File_id.diz isn’t pre-web, despite its origins in BBSs - it’s an archive descriptor, most commonly associated with the warez scene. I guess it largely died along with dialup, when multipart archives stopped being a necessity for large downloads.
From your flagged comment, you're interpreting the downvotes as some sort of reactionary resistance to your free thinking rebellion against conformity.
In reality I think it was because you gave a hostile, pompous response to an honest question about the motivation of TLA. The actual point you made is not controversial at all, in fact it's quite self evident, banal even.
I think it is a free-thinking rebellion against a certain type of conformity. I think that's a good thing, something that should be welcomed.
You don't know what's honest, hostile or pompous, only your interpretation. Pretend that's the truth? Don't impose that.
It's even harder through text when you don't have tone of voice, body language, other context. So you should be careful before leaping to accuse a hostile intent, don't you think?
Why should my comment be any less valid than the question. I don't think the question was bad at all. Don't judge stuff like that.
Your misinterpreting hostile intent should be a violation of the HN guidelines. That's not responding to the strongest version of what I said, that's misrepresenting to a straw man so you can hate on it. It's not my problem if you need to hate on something. That pal has nothing to do with me, so don't make it about me, huh?
Pretty clear I would think.
Also, "controversial" and "banal" depends on who you are, and context. When you put it like that...inspires me to think people maybe don't like having something obvious, but off-message pointed out to them? They want an answer, don't tell them to expand their mind.
But...teach people how to fish, not feed them, right?
Perhaps because it broke this guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's true—and a great thing to point out—that not everything on HN needs to explain itself right away, but in this case the lack of charity to the commenter trumped the expression of charity to the OP. And following up with dyspeptic community-bashing is definitely not a win.
There's no lack of charity. I would know, I wrote it. And the downvotes occurred before the community critique. Which also must have hit a nerve.
I think meta-questioning "do you even need to ask other's what this is about, why not let it work on you first" is responding to the strongest version of what was said, much stronger than simply answering the question.
People misinterpret dissent of the line for hostility, more so with something unfamiliar, where they want even more to have an answer "what is it". It's not very intellectually humble, but it is hilarious.
Interpreting hostility in my response ought to violate guidelines as well. Why should I be punished for others mistaken interpretations of hostility?
I think it's more about them reacting to their own misinterpretation.
I think it's a consequence of HN self-optimizes for people to be able to efficiently not just learn content from an article, but efficiently form an opinion from the comments. It's not so easy to form an opinion when there's multiple valid strands. I think people are projecting their expectation to not be confused.
"Don't tell me to expand my mind, just tell me what to think." It's not my problem if people get uncomfortable forming their own opinions sometimes. I think it's a good thing to have your own interpretation of Kicks Condor. That doesn't hurt anyone...but it might take you a bit of time/effort/discomfort to form it.
I guess I'm OK to do things that way because I grew up going to a lot of art galleries. Comfortable with ambiguity in some things. I think it's funny how engineers need everything to be explicit, and how that's connected to programming needing that as well. I think they could laugh at that about themselves, rather than getting seriously grumpy and hating on me...but hey, that's them, not me.
He's just misguided as to the reason he's being downvoted. In fact, it's absurd to say "HN needs everything to be easily digested" when the site in discussion is being upvoted by the same HN users.
Am I? Is it? I thought the characterization of people wanting an answer, not to be told to expand their mind, especially with something ambiguous was pretty accurate. That and a smaller number of people misinterpreting hostile intent.
I don't think it contradicts people also upvoting the submission. People like it, but don't want to be told they have to work for their own opinion on it. People come to comments expecting to get an opinion, not be told, "sorry, you're on your own with this one." Go back and read the comments I wrote here, maybe you'll learn something.
In addition, I do think engineers don't like having "what they don't know" pointed out to them, because they're job requires them to have answers. And I think they are willing to misinterpret that as hostile because of the shame they feel at not knowing something. It's just inaccurate projection. But in many other areas, ambiguity, openness and not having the answers are like good things.
I think people in hard tech can have more of that, that's all, bro.
> a smaller number of people misinterpreting hostile intent.
Yeah, I don't think it's smaller. Not hostile intent per se, but still an harsh tone for what's essentially an innocuous question. Had you wrote the same comment with a more sympathetic/didactic tone, rather than accusatory, I'd bet you you'd get upvotes instead.
> Go back and read the comments I wrote here, maybe you'll learn something.
See, this is another example. There's no other way to read this but as calling me a total ignorant, which would be disrespectful even if coming from someone I readily acknowledged as being much more knowledgeable than me.
> In addition, I do think engineers don't like having "what they don't know" pointed out to them, because they're job requires them to have answers. And I think they are willing to misinterpret that as hostile because of the shame they feel at not knowing something.
Again, there's nothing accusatory about it. Stop moving the goal posts. People didn't like it. Instead of blaming me, and pretending "Cris wrote something bad", they need to face how they felt about it.
But to learn more about what you mean, how would you rewrite that in a way that sounds sympathetic/didactic to you?
In addition, what's wrong with suggesting you read the comments I just wrote? Maybe you'll learn something is not saying you are ignorant at all. Just saying I have something to offer that maybe you didn't think of. I think that's a totally valid and healthy way to think about my own contribution. If I wanted to call you an ignorant idiot, I just would have said it. So... I think that's you totally misinterpreting based on, probably, precisely the triggering issue I identify with eng culture. So thanks for proving my point. Because what's wrong with learning something? That's a good thing. Learning is a strength. Admitting "I don't know" is a pre-requisite, and acknowledging, "heck, someone else probably does know" is a corollary.
It's a theory about engineers but it fits a lot of the data I see. It's not a matter of being convinced otherwise, because it's not binary. There's not only one truth. It can be true for some people and not true for others. I think it's a useful theory that highlights how an aspect of the job/predilection affects/correlates with people socially. I'm comfortable believing it and also not believing every person with engineering skills needs to be like that.
I think your interpretation of bad intent is based on an overly inflexible reading of what my response to that question. It sounds like you want to find something bad there. It's not that hard to "presume good faith" and work to find that, rather than (as it looks like you did here) doubling down trying to "prove" I'm somehow doing something wrong.
Anyway, have a good one. Hopefully this was instructive somehow, if you're flexible enough to hear it. Just a different point of view, doesn't have to threaten your world view, just can be "something in addition" you add to your own perspective. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Calmly relating my perspective is not bickering. It's not even meta, because I was directly addressing what's written.
Maybe some people are not happy with it, but you don't have to be the instrument of their will. I think you should have stood up for me when people accuse my original comment of being hostile when it wasn't, and the only thing hostile was reading it as hostile, and calling it pompous. How is that not obvious? But you let that slide....
I'm going to stand up for myself. Probably more so if I don't see anyone else doing it. If someone says something inaccurate, or gives something mean, I'll push back. What's the big deal? If you're going to disallow people to stand up for themselves, then you have to do it. And at least be even handed and disallow the ancestor comments. You gotta be fair otherwise it seems arbitrary, clawing and mean spirited. Hope you get it :)
Thanks. It brings a smile to my face how discussion forums take themselves so seriously, thinking they're all about robust discussion, but go batshit crazy on some dissenting points. I mean, this wasn't even flame war. I think a lot of it is about the medium, not the message. If you had a room of people, and I said that, maybe some engineer would have grumpily harrumphed and rolled their eyes, but I don't think it would have become a hate-fest or shouting match.
Think before you type, I guess. I do enjoy needling that narrow-mindedness like this tho, I think optimizing a little more for openness to experience is a good thing in the eng world.
Do not miss his HrefHunts[1], the interview with the Things Magazine[2] creator or his P2P Muxtape alternative[3].
I love this answer:
> I don’t necessarily think there needs to be a new future for blogging though. The heyday has passed, that’s all. Most forms of creative expression in most mediums still exist somewhere for someone. They just have to adapt to a quieter world.
[1] https://www.kickscondor.com/hrefhunt/
[2] https://www.kickscondor.com/things/
[3] https://www.kickscondor.com/duxtape/