6 ms·

Dear HN: I Don't care about your f*cking opinion

30 points by vanelsas 15y ago

davyjones 15y ago
OK...this is going to be a bit meta. Then why submit it here?
- eitland 15y ago
  Because it this piece is well written and can prove important to readers of HN.
MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
You just asked for HN's opinion, though, even though you don't care about it? That's a bit of doublethink right there. Anyway, yes, fuck you too, but if it makes you feel better, most of the Internet is populated by tools, trolls, and fools, and HN's not somehow above that. I'm not sure why you'd think that, either. As two of our greatest philosophers once noted, the Internet's greatest purpose is slandering others anonymously.
- vanelsas 15y ago
  I guess my writing skills are not so good. I think opinions matter, I just feel we can do a little less with f*cking opinions.
  - nowarninglabel 15y ago
    To me, your point was completely lost by the fact that you choose to attack people yourself, rather than highlight the stories with positive comments. You didn't really do a meaningful comparison, but rather just looked at two stories' comments and decided to write a rant about it. What would be cooler would be to take an Opinion Analyzer and run it over the comments from all stories for a week, and get a true idea of the factual amount of positive/negative.
    - vanelsas 15y ago
      Good point, and I might have done a better job at it.
  - MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
    As I said a bit ago on another story, sometimes shit sucks. We can't always be positive when there's so much stupidity in our field, and trying to paper over it with positive thinking isn't necessarily constructive; sometimes it's actually damaging to progress. When somebody says that something fuckin' sucks, they're probably full of bullshit, but maybe they're onto something.
aniket_ray 15y ago
Another negative comment here but frankly, I don't agree with the author's logic. Gruber had made a very unsubstantiated point and the commenters on that story had pointed that out. Apart from fanboyism, Gruber's comment is on pretty thin ice. Most commenters on the Android Open source story also raised some pretty valid concerns. It's not a lie that Google has been loose with term "open", commenters were ready to point that out. There is no reason to get all worked up about valid negative points (most of which are not opinions).
- nandemo 15y ago
  I agree regarding Gruber. And most of the top comments on the Google thread were either positive or "negative" but still informative.
dia80 15y ago
I read the comments on one of the articles he refers to. Given the potential for fanboism and holy war the topic (platform orientated career advice) inspires and that a larger fraction of readers probably feel qualified to comment on this post rather than, say, the Haskell cheat sheet I thought the comments were ok. Comments perhaps contain more critique than glowing praise because the action is at the margin. The value to me of a 'this is wonderful' comment followed by lots of 'I agree' is less that a robust discussion.
stuartk 15y ago
Most comment threads that I see on HN, by and large, contain both sides to any argument. They're like a conversation you might have with a friend, one person gives their opinion, the other perhaps gives the opposing argument and so on. But of course, if you take any single comment out of context, it's usually either positive or negative. There are exceptions where commenters give a more rounded, thought out perspective, but it's mainly short opinionated comments. And that's how conversations often are; short, off the cuff remarks. Rarely carefully worded, equal handed monologues.
jcr 15y ago
If you're on HN and haven't read all of the following, it's worth your time and effort to do so: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html Though far less important that the above, there are plenty people on HN who are counter examples to the points of the article author (vanelsas). I just had a exchange which was counter example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3241478 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3241478 It's fine to disagree, and it's good suggest improvements, but also taking the time to note the good stuff created by the original author helps and encourages civility.
jayfuerstenberg 15y ago
Every time HN down votes or strongly disagrees with my contributions, be they comments or submissions, I feel the same way as vanelsas. Not having the right to down vote, I usually decide to go on an up vote rampage to throw the system out of whack, even if only in a minuscule way. It's unfortunate that HN has a high concentration of people with nothing better to do than prove their superiority by tearing others apart. It's not too unlike chimpanzee society with an alpha male exerting his dominance over the rest with a display of violence. It's not often that someone can constructively show me why my argument is missing some point. You can down vote this too if you disagree with it. My karma here is a meaningless integer in a DB. I'd rather have meaningful talks with open minded individuals.
extension 15y ago
So your opinion, and those that support it, are positive contributions while contrary opinions are spiteful and useless? First of all, why are you here? To have people tell you that you are right, or to get closer to the truth? If it's the former, then this is the wrong place (and the right places would probably bore you). If it's the latter, then we're going to have to put forward different ideas about what the truth might be. Some of them will be right and some wrong. One can be excessively rude about this, but I find that is a very minor problem here. Usually, HN commenters are only as blunt as they need to be to express an idea clearly. What is more of a problem is when people get emotionally attached to their opinions and then get upset when anyone disagrees with them. We're only human, so that attachment tends to creep in. But staying detached is a much more sensible strategy than everybody walking on eggshells all the time. I am far more impressed with people who can take criticism than I am with people who can refrain from giving it.
- vanelsas 15y ago
  I can fully agree to that. I am not suggesting censorship or refraining from criticisms. I just like to see people doing that respectfully and in a way that actually adds something to the discussion
molecule 15y ago
"I honestly don’t care about your f*cking opinion... I just ask all of us to show a little respect..." be the change you want to see in the world.

30 points by vanelsas 15y ago

davyjones 15y ago

OK...this is going to be a bit meta. Then why submit it here?

eitland 15y ago
Because it this piece is well written and can prove important to readers of HN.

MostAwesomeDude 15y ago

You just asked for HN's opinion, though, even though you don't care about it? That's a bit of doublethink right there. Anyway, yes, fuck you too, but if it makes you feel better, most of the Internet is populated by tools, trolls, and fools, and HN's not somehow above that. I'm not sure why you'd think that, either. As two of our greatest philosophers once noted, the Internet's greatest purpose is slandering others anonymously.

vanelsas 15y ago
I guess my writing skills are not so good. I think opinions matter, I just feel we can do a little less with f*cking opinions.
- nowarninglabel 15y ago
  To me, your point was completely lost by the fact that you choose to attack people yourself, rather than highlight the stories with positive comments. You didn't really do a meaningful comparison, but rather just looked at two stories' comments and decided to write a rant about it. What would be cooler would be to take an Opinion Analyzer and run it over the comments from all stories for a week, and get a true idea of the factual amount of positive/negative.
  - vanelsas 15y ago
    Good point, and I might have done a better job at it.
- MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
  As I said a bit ago on another story, sometimes shit sucks. We can't always be positive when there's so much stupidity in our field, and trying to paper over it with positive thinking isn't necessarily constructive; sometimes it's actually damaging to progress. When somebody says that something fuckin' sucks, they're probably full of bullshit, but maybe they're onto something.

aniket_ray 15y ago

Another negative comment here but frankly, I don't agree with the author's logic. Gruber had made a very unsubstantiated point and the commenters on that story had pointed that out. Apart from fanboyism, Gruber's comment is on pretty thin ice. Most commenters on the Android Open source story also raised some pretty valid concerns. It's not a lie that Google has been loose with term "open", commenters were ready to point that out. There is no reason to get all worked up about valid negative points (most of which are not opinions).

nandemo 15y ago
I agree regarding Gruber. And most of the top comments on the Google thread were either positive or "negative" but still informative.

dia80 15y ago

I read the comments on one of the articles he refers to. Given the potential for fanboism and holy war the topic (platform orientated career advice) inspires and that a larger fraction of readers probably feel qualified to comment on this post rather than, say, the Haskell cheat sheet I thought the comments were ok. Comments perhaps contain more critique than glowing praise because the action is at the margin. The value to me of a 'this is wonderful' comment followed by lots of 'I agree' is less that a robust discussion.

stuartk 15y ago

Most comment threads that I see on HN, by and large, contain both sides to any argument. They're like a conversation you might have with a friend, one person gives their opinion, the other perhaps gives the opposing argument and so on. But of course, if you take any single comment out of context, it's usually either positive or negative. There are exceptions where commenters give a more rounded, thought out perspective, but it's mainly short opinionated comments. And that's how conversations often are; short, off the cuff remarks. Rarely carefully worded, equal handed monologues.

jcr 15y ago

If you're on HN and haven't read all of the following, it's worth your time and effort to do so: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html Though far less important that the above, there are plenty people on HN who are counter examples to the points of the article author (vanelsas). I just had a exchange which was counter example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3241478 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3241478 It's fine to disagree, and it's good suggest improvements, but also taking the time to note the good stuff created by the original author helps and encourages civility.

jayfuerstenberg 15y ago

Every time HN down votes or strongly disagrees with my contributions, be they comments or submissions, I feel the same way as vanelsas. Not having the right to down vote, I usually decide to go on an up vote rampage to throw the system out of whack, even if only in a minuscule way. It's unfortunate that HN has a high concentration of people with nothing better to do than prove their superiority by tearing others apart. It's not too unlike chimpanzee society with an alpha male exerting his dominance over the rest with a display of violence. It's not often that someone can constructively show me why my argument is missing some point. You can down vote this too if you disagree with it. My karma here is a meaningless integer in a DB. I'd rather have meaningful talks with open minded individuals.

extension 15y ago

So your opinion, and those that support it, are positive contributions while contrary opinions are spiteful and useless? First of all, why are you here? To have people tell you that you are right, or to get closer to the truth? If it's the former, then this is the wrong place (and the right places would probably bore you). If it's the latter, then we're going to have to put forward different ideas about what the truth might be. Some of them will be right and some wrong. One can be excessively rude about this, but I find that is a very minor problem here. Usually, HN commenters are only as blunt as they need to be to express an idea clearly. What is more of a problem is when people get emotionally attached to their opinions and then get upset when anyone disagrees with them. We're only human, so that attachment tends to creep in. But staying detached is a much more sensible strategy than everybody walking on eggshells all the time. I am far more impressed with people who can take criticism than I am with people who can refrain from giving it.

vanelsas 15y ago
I can fully agree to that. I am not suggesting censorship or refraining from criticisms. I just like to see people doing that respectfully and in a way that actually adds something to the discussion

molecule 15y ago

"I honestly don’t care about your f*cking opinion... I just ask all of us to show a little respect..." be the change you want to see in the world.