He seems to be trying to portray himself as a victim here, but he acknowledges that he was the initiator - he spoke out stridently, insultingly in violent and profane language against a whole field. He then explains how terribly he was treated (even though in most of his actual numbers there's a pretty good balance between positive and neutral comments), and characterises it as a "low quality discourse"
His solution is to keep doing it but avoid "public unmoderated fora" because then he can initiate all the monkey dances he wants and apparently he believes people will then civilly discuss what he has said.
I would propose he continue to post publicly (there were valuable things in what he wrote) but if he avoids profanity, insults, extreme and disrespectful statements then he probably won't initiate monkey dances.
NB: the thread about "only two computationally difficult problems" is worth a read as there is definitely more there than his characterisation would leave you to believe:
He seems to be trying to portray himself as a victim here
I don't see that; it doesn't seem like he cares about the comments at all except as an indicator that it's not worth his time participating in public fora. Which is a judgment call he's entirely entitled to make for himself.
he spoke out stridently, insultingly in violent and profane language against a whole field.
Intended for an audience that was used to his rants, and could take what he said in context. He wasn't the one who posted it to reddit.
avoid "public unmoderated fora" because then he can initiate all the monkey dances he wants and apparently he believes people will then civilly discuss what he has said.
Which is what the group he intended the rant for did. In other words, what he did was not a "monkey dance", and his "belief" was based on actual fact.
One post of my blog got some attention days ago. I unfortunately had to turn comments off for that specific post, I was quite insulted. I got impressed by the level of thought people were putting into those insults. Some of them went to my linkedin account to read an un-updated bio and used it to formulate the craziest theories about a post that didn't criticize anything, was just some info+entertainment.
One of the insults was so impressive that I actually emailed the person asking what the hell was that, he just apologized and said he didn't fully read the article.
I'm starting to think everybody is a bit schizophrenic.
> "I'm starting to think everybody is a bit schizophrenic."
Given the "online disinhibition effect," I think that observation can be considered a statistic (the presence of that trend demonstrates real, if hidden, attitudes). The collective response is naturally quite defensive and misanthropic. (Heck, people still burn "witches"... Or anyone else they are afraid of.)
Even before the Internet, it was obvious that the criticism of strangers was harsher than the criticism of friends and colleagues. Addressing strangers is the new norm, but it's far from second nature. I think some of the schizophrenia can be attributed to the natural tendency to fear the unknown (racism, etc), and to another very basic thought process:
1) I want people to think I'm important/knowledgeable (Internet "street cred").
2) OK, I have to at least post something if people are going to know I'm awesome.
3) So, what's my opinion? (People post to type, not because they have a thoughtful insight.)
4) I'm short on time... I'll just skim...
5) Post the first thing that passes the spell check. ("Boy, I sure tore him a new one.")
6) Profit!!! (The Karma comes rolling in... See 1)
(The rest of the misanthropy might have medical and economic components.)
The group-think phenomena, however, has negative and positive attributes though, so please don't choose to be pessimistic ("not participating in public, unmoderated fora") simply because of the presence of the negative ones. We should all try to be more respectful, and understanding, but I'm convinced that the absence of another thoughtful voice will only amplify those of the bullies.
"I agree with the author on all points" is a much less interesting post to write than "I think the author is wrong because X." Indeed, even if I agree with an author, I will occasionally post some criticism, unconsidered edge case, or even try to defend an opposing/unpopular theory. I usually hope that by doing so, I get some criticism of my criticism; I'm really just interested in mentally exploring the topic.
If you asked me the question "When would I ever want to seek public comment?" I would answer "Whenever you want criticism." I will also add that the tone of your writing will be reflected in the responses. If you say to the internet: “Fuck you, bioinformatics. Eat shit and die.” Expect the general reaction to be "Fuck you too" regardless of how right you are.
> "even if I agree with an author, I will occasionally post some criticism [etc]"
I would classify that as positive or neutral. It seems the original author would also classify "substantive criticism" (his words) or "constructive criticism" that way. But he notes that none of the criticism he received was of value, consisting mostly of insults and straw men, which are rightly classified as negative.
His tone may at least be partially to blame. But I've witnessed the larger pattern in plenty of circumstances where tone is not a problem -- it's easy to get insulting, empty criticism from strangers, but it's hard to find substantive criticism except in places that intentionally foster it.
I think the concept of "group monkey dance" is a good one- mainly, I think its insightful to point out that people will collectively be much crueler to someone than any of them would be on their own. This is something us nerds are intimately familiar with from uncomfortable social settings in highschool, but it didn't occur to me that the same dynamic might be at work in big internet discussions.
I understand, but my question still stands. I've been participating in online discussions for many years now, and I saw this pattern very early on. I didn't call it the "group monkey dance", but that just means I didn't know that name for the pattern. The pattern itself was obvious.
If you only look at what you are looking at, you'll get discouraged. I've had a few items on sites that got completely destroyed in the comment sections, but a month later, I still have several visitors from those sites on those same articles, and many of them are returning visitors. So, while your initial analysis is correct, I think you will find the long-term surprising. The finding is that despite all the negative comments, the vast majority of the readers actually do like it, but they aren't going to speak up against the maelstrom.
I don't see the irony. I don't agree with the whole premise that people reacted negatively in public because of the monkey dancing thing.
Another explanation, IMO much more likely, is that people who disagreed with his claims simply chose not engage him in private due to the tone of the rant. Maybe his coworkers and collaborators find it very well to be told to "rot in your computational shit heap", but for most outsiders this sort of thing doesn't signal a willingness to have a polite conversation.
Besides, the top 3 comments on the reddit thread, while "negative" and not thoroughly polite, also addressed some of OP's points and provided information for people interested in the field.
I must say I find the ratio of positive:neutral:negative comments on Reddit vs Hacker News (1:16:24 vs 21:119:21) to be spot on. It's one of the reasons I absolutely love HN (going meta here and a little off-topic!): well-phrased dissenting views are just as likely to be featured and upvoted as the "common take" and on most topics, there is no substantial "group think" effect.
It's also my biggest problem with Reddit, you get instakarma for simply being a d^H jerk or off-topic. I'd like to see this kind of comparison more often, esp. with more data points (17 comments on Reddit is not enough).
Also interesting would be a fourth category being "off-topic" for comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the OP, but somehow propagate like wild fire on certain forums. (Ironic, since this very post is off-topic, no? :smirk:)
People copy frustration from each other [1] - that is why public speaking and writing needs to be careful. In general people know the rules and they used to speak and write differently depending on the audience and they used to put a lot of work into public speaking/writing to avoid provoking the 'monkey dances'. The internet somehow blurs the distinction, there is so much public writing that we don't have time to put that extra effort, and also it feels like it is private writing - that is why we have flamewars (http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/online-conflict-in-the-light-o...).
It was a mistake that his rant addressed to his friends was posted publicly, but I am also sure that with some effort it could be made less flamebaiting.
People are inherently critical. Maybe it's some evolutionary effect for human survival, but either way we're all prey. No one is going to agree with you on 100% of the issues, 100% of the time. That's not how the world works. All of us have different influences from different lives and draw different conclusions. A majority may disagree with a minority, but that doesn't give the majority the right to silence opposition. Difference is fundamental to discourse.
His solution is to keep doing it but avoid "public unmoderated fora" because then he can initiate all the monkey dances he wants and apparently he believes people will then civilly discuss what he has said.
I would propose he continue to post publicly (there were valuable things in what he wrote) but if he avoids profanity, insults, extreme and disrespectful statements then he probably won't initiate monkey dances.
NB: the thread about "only two computationally difficult problems" is worth a read as there is definitely more there than his characterisation would leave you to believe:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5123746