New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline <comment><USER2> One of the most negative habits is in my opinion the failure to read a comment charitably (to make an effort to interpret it in the best possible light). Instead, people often tend to misread or miserunderstand what's being said, only to use the opportunity to write a "correction" based on that false impression. A worse flavor of the same problem is a misunderstanding that is then used to justify outrage or personal annoyance.

That's what I find worthy of being changed, and I will certainly make an effort to read comments more charitably as well.

Overall though, and I realize this is quite anecdotal, rampant negativity - especially about things other members of the community have created - seems to have gotten less common recently.

<comment><USER3> Why should I try to interpret comments in the best possible light? I could make an effort to interpret them in the worst possible light, too. I have no reason to believe that internet commenters mean well.

<comment><USER4> Because HN has an international audience where English is often a second language; also cultural expectations can be markedly different to the US.

<comment><USER5> This is a much larger factor on HN than I think most people realize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity?

Seriously, it's a slippery slope. "Nothing of substance" is a term that needs more clarification that what that post provides. It seems to suggest that if the criticism is too harsh, then it's no longer substantial. I think there's a better guideline than that.

The best ideas not only can withstand criticism, _they get better_ with criticism. If you examine what's being revealed about Apple and Steve Jobs -- the most successful company in the world right now -- it's not that they avoided criticism. And contrary to rumors it's not that they didn't nurture seemingly "dumb" ideas. Jobs would toss them out there all the time, by his own admission. Nurturing crazy young creative ideas and rigorous critical analysis are _both_ part of Apple's process.

Apple's secret is that the criticism is directed at _the idea not the person._ That is what defines "nothing of substance": the target of the criticism, not the intensity. If it's about the idea, that's substantial, even if it's harsh. If it becomes personal, then that's truly not adding substance.

You "throw it in the cauldron" and then rigorously debate everything in the pot in a manner divorced from the people who contributed it. That's how you boil it down to the best stuff, not by holding back.

<comment><USER7> > Can we also have a rule against Gratuitous Positivity?

We could, but I don't see any evidence that there is an amount of that going around that requires an addition to the guidelines.

<comment><USER8> You must not live in San Francisco.

<comment><USER7> > You must not live in San Francisco.

No, but I'm rather familiar with it. In any case, I don't see how that's relevant; the context of the discussion is HN guidelines, not guidelines for San Francisco.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the downvote functionality is holding back the utility of HN more than anything else. It is grossly overused and very rarely for guidelines violations like it was designed for. Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. It's an awful experience and is the main fuel in a negative feedback loop that travels with users from thread to thread.

<comment><USER10> I agree with this. Conflating disagreement with downvoting seems to be mixing unrelated concerns. It is currently inconvenient (in karma terms) to hold dissenting opinions.

<comment><USER11> Interesting, what if in downvoting a comment you had to pick a reason? What are all the reasons one would downvote something?

"I do not agree" "I do not believe this adds value" "Inappropriate conduct" "I think you are being mean / rude" "Bad attempt at funny" "Off topic to parent" "Off topic to post" "Difficult to understand/Noise"

<comment><USER12> Slashdot does this.

What generally happens is that instead of one argument about been downvoted/upvoted you end up with even _more_ arguments about whether something is +5 funny or whatever.

I've no idea how you solve this in the general case tbh.

<comment><USER13> Part of that though is that +1 Funny doesn't add to your slashdot karma. So people sometimes "upvote to denigrate" because you can only get +5 anyway, a silly comment can get +5 Funny without actually rewarding the commenter (mocks the comment) - you can see this when replies get +5 Insightful or +5 Informative and are very contrary to the original comment.

Personally, I like the idea of having qualifiers on the downvote without one on the upvote - makes you think a little bit before downvoting... plus the vote buttons are ridiculously small on an mobile Safari - so having to click twice would prevent accidental downvotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Negativity isn't the problem--gratuitous negativity is.

Is it just regular negative of me to say statements like that one are horrible, or it is gratuitously negative? Am I being a critical thinker when I say that, whenever I hear people make statement like that one, they are usually weaseling into some businessey doublespeak that roughly translates into "people like me can be negative, people like you cannot, but I refuse to say that outright." Or is that shallow cynicism?

I get your general message, Sam. And while I don't agree with it, I see how enforcing some unwritten "gratuitous negativity" code could improve HN discussions (I just don't think it would). But I do not know of any place on the internet where I find better discussions on daily news; so my opinion: when it's this great already, why do some vague micro-morality-management thing like this to try to change it?

<comment><USER15> > Is it just regular negative of me to say statements like that one are > horrible, or it is gratuitously negative?

That is gratuitously negative because you are not contributing anything to the conversation except your opinion. While everyone tends to think their own opinion is an incredibly valuable gift to the world, the world rarely receives it as such.

> Am I being a critical thinker when I say that, whenever I hear people make > statement like that one, they are usually weaseling into some businessey > doublespeak that roughly translates into "people like me can be negative, > people like you cannot, but I refuse to say that outright."

You've taken a simple sentence of a few words, expanded it into a nebulous category of "statement[s] like that one", inferred motivation, and taken it as an assault on "people like you".

That's "critical thinking" if you use the definition of critical meaning "negative" but not the more valuable sort of criticism based on empirical evidence and carefully considered logic.

Now, if you'd presented examples of how previous arguments have been called "gratuitous" but in fact contained substantial contributions in terms of facts and logic, or vice versa, because of the status of the individuals involved, then you would have a real argument rather than just a vague expression of cynicism, and I for one would not call that "gratuitous negativity".

<comment><USER16> >That is gratuitously negative because you are not contributing anything to the conversation except your opinion.

That doesn't explain at all why something would be "gratuitously negative".

I can contribute my opinion that the sky is blue and provide no evidence or arguments. But if I only say "The sky is blue," and nothing else, then it doesn't look like I'm being "gratuitously negative".

<comment><USER15> My apologies. The question was asking if this statement was "gratuitously negative" or just "regular negative", so I thought we could take its negativity for granted.

I would tend to agree with the original commenter that "horrible" is a negative word, and with you that "blue" is not. I hope that clears it up.

<comment><USER16> It's fine. I was being overly-pedantic. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's "the programmers way" to try to come up with some sort of moderation/policing system to solve this. Please do not come up with a moderation system.

There should simply be a confirmation step after hitting submit, reminding the poster that they are valued for their positive contribution and giving the poster the chance to rethink their post and cancel if its too negative. Additionally when posting, require people to self-rate the level of negativity of their post when they submit from one to ten. Publish that number along with the post.

There's nothing at the moment that explicitly asks or reminds people of expectations when they post. What is it that makes you think posters know there is an expectation not to be negative? People don't read the community guidelines every time they post, UNLESS key points of the guidelines are presented to them.

The community moderation system, what it ends up being, will be gamed and abused and alienate and anger people. Don't do it. Witness the toxic mess of StackOverflow.

HN is not in a position right now to express concern about negative posts because it is not explicitly asking people to avoid negative posting, at the time that they post, and requiring the user to think about it. That is step one.

HN would be implementing a passive-aggressive solution by going to an indirect system that continues to allow people to post negatively and then gets the community to police it later. Address it up-front, at the time of posting. Let people be responsible for their own posts. Asked to think it through, posters will dial back the negativity.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for this, it's a good idea getting people to rate how negative their comments are... it would certainly be an interesting exercise, although it may just show that those who leave negative comments don't think they are being negative, whereas the people that can be bothered rating the negativity of others are probably more sensitive to negativity.

<comment><USER17> Self-rating the negativity of your comment is designed to force you to acknowledge that HN wants you to think and be reasonable.

The OP's blog post suggests that "Gentle reminders by peers" will make the culture better. I think these gentle reminders by peers in practice will whip everyone into a frenzy of hunting for negativity, naming negativity, blaming for negativity, being defensive about negativity, judging and feeling judged, anger, outrage and despair with constant accusations and counter accusations about the definition of negativity.

Some negativity is normal and natural and okay. HN wants less of it, so they should just ask people to make their own self assessment of their post _at the moment of posting_. Problem _mostly_ solved, but it's pointless to try to _completely_ solve it - the concept of negativity is open to interpretation and therefore everyone will have a different opinion.

I think plenty of people will tone it back after being forced to judge their own negativity.

<comment><USER19> Negativity is only bad if it's used to speak for other's feelings. You actually don't know if it will whip everyone into a frenzy. :)

<comment><USER17> Reading through this thread shows quite a few people in a frenzy about negativity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm very glad to see this idea turning into a community mechanism. HN has some great minds, and I love seeing the solutions they come up with to problems. It's a very technical, analytical, and rational community.

Unfortunately, some of the qualities that make a good technical problem solver can also lead to nitpikcing. It feels like trying to find the bugs in an argument. That can be useful, but only when it ties to the core idea rather than some tangential point. Top comments often sound like, "Well, technically, you're wrong on this one unimportant fact you mentioned briefly."

I'm glad HN is taking steps to ensure that feedback is constructive.

<comment><USER21> Bear in mind that what is and isn't constructive is not an objective measurement. It's a subjective value judgment. To some, finding bugs in someone's argument is a constructive thing - you are helping them by fixing their argument and showing them how to argue better in the future. Being better able to argue means an increased ability to communicate effectively with others.

So my question becomes thus: how do you define constructive? I, personally, have run across multiple instances of one person's constructive and actionable feedback being another's gratuitously negative useless nitpicky feedback.

<comment><USER22> Maybe a good rule is: the smaller the pedantic, nitpicky detail you address in your feedback, the more you should include other details as well. Instead of "this is wrong because detail X" say something like "this handles detail Y well and I think detail Z is clever, but detail X is wrong".

<comment><USER21> I think your ideas are good and your intentions are laudible, but I question what purpose is served in asking people to wade through excessive verbiage in order to arrive at what could otherwise be concise and direct criticism.

<comment><USER22> The idea is to give the reader a more complete picture. Often we skip over what we think is good about something and focus on the problems. I'm not saying you should come up with feel-good bullshit to make something fundamentally flawed seem like a good idea. I'm just saying that, when something is "mostly good but with one problem" we can learn just as much from why it's "mostly good" as we can from what the problem is.

<comment><USER21> I was attempting to give a demonstration of where notions of completeness-of- feedback such as this can lead by wrapping what could have been a concise point in needless verbose complexity. I am reminded of "How To Make Friends And Influence People", where it is advised that any criticism be couched in complements because people are easily manipulated by the positive emotional rush of a complement.

I'd like to think that such wrapping isn't needed on HN, and people are able to separate ideas or code from themselves for the purpose of accepting useful feedback. It is possible that this assumption is incorrect and should be abandoned, as people often have difficulty separating the two.

I find that I do not agree that positive feedback is as useful as negative feedback. Being told you are right certainly feels much better and is much kinder to the ego we all seek to stroke, but it is in being told you are wrong where is opportunity for growth lies. If we're clever, we can even manage to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid them ourselves. I am uncertain that forcing a "more complete" consideration of issues that are in the main not relevant is likely to improve the level of discourse or utility of feedback.

I'm going to avoid the issue of one person's fatal flaw being another's useless nitpick - it'll come up next time someone tries to be clever with crypto anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think some examples might be helpful. I would consider a gratuitously negative comment to be some variation of "That's a dumb idea" with no elaboration, or an ad hominem, and such comments are pretty much always downvoted already.

<comment><USER24> Here's a few examples I know of:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015734)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8938409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8938409)

<comment><USER25> The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is off- topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules.

<comment><USER26> You'll have to trust me when I say that what I'm about to write isn't personal. I have no idea what was going on in your head or heart when you wrote it and don't want to invent a story about your motivations. :)

> The first link is a low-quality comment / ad hominem, the second link is > off-topic / ad hominem. Both of those were already against the rules.

Although I wouldn't call this comment "gratuitously negative" or even "negative," I do believe it exemplifies one of the major root behaviors that lead to negativity (gratuitous or otherwise): failure to fully digest the conversation plus a reflexive desire to make a point.

First, as @dang pointed out elsewhere, this comment's point was _anticipated and addressed directly in the original post_ :

> Sharp readers may point out that the HN guidelines have always excluded > those things. That's true. But it's still enough of a problem in HN threads > that this is a clarification worth making. We tried it out last year when we > released special guidelines for Show HNs. It worked well there, so we're > extending it to the whole site.

Even if the point were worth making, it was already made by @sama. Why assume the grandparent comment wasn't written with that very paragraph in mind? If you didn't read all of the original essay, why jump in to comment on whether the examples were appropriate or not?

Second, even if that paragraph weren't there, comments like this add absolutely nothing constructive to the conversation and risk starting an irrelevant debate over the semantics of "gratuitously negative" vs. "ad hominem" vs. "off-topic". Much more constructive would be, "When @sama said 'gratuitously negative' I was thinking more of comments like: <links to some comments>. To me these are different from the examples you listed because <reasons>."

Don't have any examples in mind? Don't have time to go look for them? That's fine — don't comment!

Honestly, I'd bet money that @sama added that paragraph _specifically_ in an attempt to head off pointless top-level comments like, "Isn't this already against the rules? Look, here they are: Rule 3, Rule 14, and Rule 78(b)! Does @sama even read the rules of his own site? UGH."

All of these things pile up, leading to people responding reflexively to other people, who respond reflexively in turn, leading to...etc. etc.

<comment><USER25> I wasn't trying to make a point?

The original comment was "how is this different from ad hominems?" and the reply with examples of gratuitous negativity were ad hominems, which was contradictory so I elaborated to see if anyone could provide more context, which dang did. (Yes, I missed the intent of the paragraph in the original submission at first.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior? Doesn't cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo chamber? To me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid criticism--or cynicism (perhaps of startup culture itself, due to Y-combinator's interest in startup culture continuing). Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, no? Even though it's designed to spark an honest debate.

<comment><USER7> > Isn't some cynicism necessary to balance out herd-like behavior?

No. In fact, cynicism _can be_ a herd-like behavior.

> Doesn't cynicism help to temper what may otherwise become a rah-rah echo > chamber?

No, it doesn't. It might add another problem on top, but that doesn't actually make things better.

> To me, this policy seems like a way to squash otherwise-potentially-valid > criticism

If it is valid, on-topic criticism, it isn't gratuitous negativity.

> or cynicism

Discouraging plain cynicism as distinguished from reasoned criticism is, IMO, a positive benefit.

> Under the new policy, my comment could be considered gratuitously negative, > no?

I don't see how.

<comment><USER16> >If it is valid, on-topic criticism, it isn't gratuitous negativity.

We'll need some assurance that _invalid_ criticism can also fall under the category of "not gratuitously negative" as well. Otherwise, we've just defined "invalid" criticism as being against the rules. And strangely, the people in power are always the ones whose viewpoints are "valid", "true", etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The English would tackle this problem by asking people to be nice. The Americans would tackle this by policing, punishment and penalties. The cold war communists of the 1950s by forcing the community to watch each other and report offenders.

<comment><USER28> Reminds me of this shirt[1] from Casanovas in Makawao, HI:

 _Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are Italian, the Mechanics German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss._

 _Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by the Italians._

[1] [http://www.happyhotelier.com/2008/06/01/quote-of-the-day- no-...](http://www.happyhotelier.com/2008/06/01/quote-of-the-day-no-3/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I really like Recurse Center's (formerly Hacker School) social rules: [https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social- rules](https://www.recurse.com/manual#sub-sec-social-rules)

They address some non-obvious behaviors that tend to stunt conversation. It'd be nice to see some of those guidelines bleed over into the HN community.

<comment><USER30> I like the rule "no feigning surprise". "No well-actually's" and "No back-seat driving" to me seem designed to help the linear flow of IRL interaction. But in a threaded discussion forum like HN, the important main thread can still go on unimpeded despite "no well-actually" side-notes.

The "no-subtleisms" rule is designed to hinder the spread of information about the differences of different groups. "It's so easy my grandmother could do it" is supposedly bad because it reminds us that there is a group, old people, who are not like us. Focusing on differences can create a hostile us-vs-them climate. But it can also remind us that there is a world outside of SV. That there are other people with other abilities and skills, with other problems that need solving. In this particular case it can remind us that if we want to target old people with a product, to make sure it is easy to use.

<comment><USER31> Do you also make sure a product targeted towards women is especially easy to use? Saying "But older people really ARE less competent and I'm just trying to help them" is still ageist.

If you want to specify that something is usable by people with, say, "age related disabilities", great! But don't use "being a grandmother" as a synonym for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> One simple thing that I've found to help me write comments of all types in a positive and unoffensive manner is to simply proof read the comment before posting. I re-read all of my comments aloud in my head, and make necessary adjustments before hitting the submit button.

I find that emotion and enthusiasm can lead to gratuitous negativity without even realizing it, as those things don't always translate well to plain text. Aside from posts, this applies to emails and texts.

Since I started this, I am almost never accused of coming across in a negative tone, even when I want to convey disappointment or other negative emotions. There's usually always a way to craft it so that it's perceived as constructive criticisms, and thus, well received.

Write with emotion, and proof read without.

As a bonus, I rarely make spelling or grammatical errors, except occasionally out of ignorance.

<comment><USER5> Yes! And if, like me, you tend to see what you should have edited out only submitting it, there is a handy "delay" parameter in your profile. (Though kogir will smite me for mentioning it.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The problem is that "shallow cynicism", "gratuitous negativity", and "all forms of meanness" are vague distinctions all subject to interpretation.

Guidelines like this should have specific examples to aid in their definitions so we can criticize or agree with them. What could be considered "mean" to someone emotional/thin skinned, might be interpreted as helpful criticism to someone not so sensitive.

Sometimes it's really hard to say something respectfully negative (oxymoron), and even harder for it to be interpreted as respectful. I, for one, appreciate when people talk trash to me (especially when I'm wrong). It's an awakening I sometimes don't get from a less firm/colorful counterargument.

<comment><USER34> As a counterpoint: The more specific your guidelines are the more you have people who will attempt to abuse them pedantically (see reddit for so many examples). They will also become rules, rather than guidelines. I think the idea may be that they want the community to use these as guidelines and interpret them as appropriate to keep the site mature and pointed in the right direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is just a terrible idea. Will I have this comment flagged for expressing this?

A thought experiment. If you and some others are in a car, and it's just driven off a cliff, and as you are falling you say to the other occupants, "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here!" is that gratuitous negativity? No, it's the truth.

Most people, in this car, don't want to hear the truth. As they say, ignorance is bliss. Stop being so negative! Saying we've driven off a cliff is getting me down! So shutup!

The thing is, reality is not all sunshine and rainbows. There are some very hard realities unfolding in the world right now. Remove the ability to make negative comments and now you can't criticise things. The car driving off the cliff is a metaphor for our society which now openly tortures, wages a never ending false war on terror, and is a government of wolves that's using incrementalism to roll out a police state. We double tap drone strike weddings, we snoop on every communication on the planet. And when it's found out, absolutely nothing changes, because we are already captured. We are already prisoners.

This is not negativity. This is reality. This is the truth. Some people, when faced with this, want to shake people, wake them up and say 'lets fix this'. But most want to bury their head in the sand. They want to gag the words. They want to shoot the messenger. And then go back to sleep in their ivory tower, hoping that they will die of old age before the consequences really come home to roost.

For a group of supposedly smart people, this is incredibly dumb. I've just finished reading Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" to try and get a better understanding of the societal structure of prisons and punishment to better understand the times I live in. And most of what's in that book would be deemed by a lot of people here as 'gratuitous negativity'. And yet Foucault was one of the great minds of our time. Under this guideline his ideas are no longer welcome. And so it goes.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." ― George Orwell

<comment><USER36> Please correct me if I am wrong, but the way I read the OP was that negativity without reason is one part of the issue.

In your case of the car falling off a cliff, perhaps it is gratuitous negativity to say "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here!" but it's not gratuitous negativity to say "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here because this car is falling towards the ground at high speed due to gravity and motion and we're all about to die!"

I think if there is at least some reasoning shown with the negativity, the argument is more clear and others can learn from it.

Again, I could have misunderstood both the OP and your comment, if so I apologize.

<comment><USER35> In my experience, even when you describe the gravity and the impending impact, you are still seen as being negative. I think it has less to do with logic, and more to do with evolutionary biases. Mainly in-group/out-group bias (for instance nationality, or brand allegiance) or avoiding cognitive dissonance (If I accept your point, that means I have to change my view of the world to a more uncomfortable position).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> You know what, I think this is a good idea. I definitely get into "I'm the world's biggest asshole today" mode too frequently. Maybe if I get called out on it more it'll help make me a better person. I know the rest of the civil discourse rules here on HN have helped me become more thoughtful in other modes of interaction.

<comment><USER38> > I definitely get into "I'm the world's biggest asshole today" mode too > frequently.

No you don't.

<comment><USER37> Well, at least we can always kaizen our way to betterment?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I suppose adding the guideline can't hurt, because it might at least make people more strongly consider their comments before posting them. Unfortunately, reasonable people can disagree about where the threshold is between appropriate skepticism/criticism and gratuitous negativity. Since "gratuitous" means unjustified or inappropriate, it _by definition_ should be avoided. The trick is figuring out which things are inappropriate. Hopefully most of you judge this comment to be on the good side of the fence. :)

<comment><USER5> From the OP:

 _Negativity isn 't the problem--gratuitous negativity is. By that we mean negativity that adds nothing of substance to a comment. This includes all forms of meanness._

That's enough for reasonable people to get the idea. Trying to force precision here would take us down a rabbit hole.

<comment><USER39> I think reasonable people can disagree about what adds substance to a comment.

<comment><USER5> Oh, no question. But by "getting the idea" I mean the intent. Reasonable people are always going to differ on the precise meaning of these terms. That doesn't need to be a problem. If everyone makes a good-faith effort to avoid gratuitous negativity however they best understand that, HN will be fine.

<comment><USER16> >But by "getting the idea" I mean the intent.

I'm suspicious of the intent. That's why I want a more formal criteria.

<comment><USER5> I don't know of any way to formalize things like this and am skeptical that it's doable. Simple principles, plus a request to the community to do its sincere best with them, seem likely to produce the best outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> There is nothing to worry about. I do think it is indicative of a certain kind of new diversity friendly, "safe space", slightly censorious attitude which is rooted in normal human group psychology, keeping the tribe safe and secure and also swayed by whatever flavour of popular radical politics is operating at the time. It's nothing new. I wouldn't worry about this affecting Hacker News but if it does, we will notice the discussions becoming stilted, people will self-censor and there will emerge other places where people can feel more comfortable with their own voices. We are far from that day. That day might not ever come, HN is too small in my opinion.

I wonder though - how (if we take it to unlikely worst case scenario) would it affect how the behaviour of certain well known personalities such as Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds is viewed in the future where any form of negativity is censored against?

<comment><USER41> Does that even follow, though? HN's community has traditionally (thankfully!) flatly rejected the "safe space" PC game whenever it's attempted to be played here, either in the comments or the submissions.

Remember that the guideline is against "gratuitous negativity", not "negativity" in general. HN will still be a place where actual crap gets called crap, but hopefully this means that we'll see less middlebrow criticism and more actually substantive comments.

<comment><USER42> > HN will still be a place where actual crap gets called crap

I daresay that this is the problem. When one has the option to say "I think this isn't good from perspective X, because of thing Y", and one says "this is crap", one is being unconstructive and mean.

To say that something that someone did or thought is "crap" or "rubbish", the way I see it, is just needlessly inflammatory. I think a lot of people conflate being inflammatory with being frank and straightforward. "Look at how non-PC I am, I told it like it is!!"

The truth is option A above is just as frank, but much more civil, and isn't creating enmity when there isn't cause for any.

<comment><USER41> I was purposefully using "crap" as shorthand, there :)

In detail, I don't see HN ever being a place where legitimate (in other words, well articulated) criticism gets deflected or discouraged on the grounds of being mean or unfriendly. At the end of the day, if you have learned something factual about what you've done, it should not be discarded just because the usual social niceties were not provided.

Think of a Show HN post for an obviously slapdash and insecure web service of some kind. I'd fully expect the comments to contain almost nothing but proclamations of how the author is doing it wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Feels like the conflict of interest of a general news forum being run by an investment firm with PR interests is beginning to rear its ugly head.

<comment><USER44> This isn't a general news forum. The history of this board is not one of general news but items of specific interest and relevance to startups.

<comment><USER27> You may be describing what the board /should/ be, or what it set out to be, but judging by the threads actually being upvoted by users, you are incorrect. We've seen everything from tech pieces to startup culture threads to general interesting news being upvoted to the main page.

<comment><USER5> One needn't look far to find out exactly what HN set out to be: [https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html). It's interesting how much of that language was copied into the current guidelines wholesale, and has stayed there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Given the fact that people get points for their answers, there is already bias towards positive and encouraging comments in hacker news. Notice how the comments start positive and later slowly add the information just to be "safe". Of course not in all cases. From my experience: if I give shallow positive comment I am more likely to get positive points, but strict negative and often deeper comment is down voted. This rule can further increase this bias.

<comment><USER46> That sounds like a good thing.

<comment><USER47> It may sound like it on the surface, but I don't think it is a good thing in the long run.

There's a fine line between making a community and making a herd. Upvoting / downvoting encourages both, the problem being trying to have enough to encourage the first without enough of the second to lose the community you've built.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's not just a good idea for HN. It's a good practice to apply in one's everyday life, generally.

<comment><USER45> There is a good reason to be negative a priory in real live. Consider you start a thorough discussion on any problem that you encounter during the day. You wouldn't be doing anything else and die of hunger. In my opinion, people must be negative and quickly reject stuff that does not make sense to them. Forcing them to discuss about stuff that don't make sense to them is waste of time for both sites. For this reasons I would simply ignore negative comments and not ban them.

<comment><USER49> Dismissing things that don't make sense probably isn't a good idea. Some of the most interesting things I've learned have been from working hard to discuss and understand something that didn't make sense to me at the time.

Also, there are often cases when someone has an idea or thought that isn't necessarily framed with the right wording. That doesn't make the idea invalid and it is often worth exploring to understand what they were trying to express.

These things is a 'waste of time', in my opinion. In fact, it is often the direct opposite: A wonderful use of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Great change.

I second the request for examples -- "gratuitous" is subjective, and until better moderation tools exist, it would be nice if the community has some standards around who to issue "gentle reminders" to.

It would also be nice to have the guidelines be in a more prominent spot than the bottom of the page -- it's hard to notice them as is.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is the worst idea ever. I'm generally a pretty negative person for a reason. Negative feedback is necessary for anything to actually get better.

And who or what decides what is "gratuitous". This is a recipe for despotism and censorship.

<comment><USER52> I agree. This reminiscent of a manager that wants to make a mark by creating arbitrary, vague rules out of the blue.

This a community. Was there a "we think we may have a gratuitous negativity problem" discussion?

Thin end of the wedge, perhaps. I hope not.

(From the article) "Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb."

If negative, anonymous feedback here disuades and disenchants them, what hope is there?

Are we going to have a Safe Place section of the site, to protect applicants from all bad things?

Bad things happen. Mean people will say mean things on the Internet. Life is hard.

<comment><USER53> > If negative, anonymous feedback here disuades and disenchants them, what > hope is there?

Absolutely. See Dropbox's Show HN, the slashdot iPod announcement, and every other worthwhile product ever. As a community we're pretty bad at picking successes.

<comment><USER54> People are also erroneously overrating things all the time. The problem with our predictions isn't a skew to negativity, just the normal inability to predict the future due to lack of knowledge.

<comment><USER53> There's also a definite survivorship bias (and an equally strong failure bias) to remember only the outliers. Most ideas fall squarely in the middle and we promptly forget about them.

(obligatory xkcd [https://xkcd.com/1497/](https://xkcd.com/1497/))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Great to see this. Fortunately those sorts of comments usually get downvoted here. Also this is one reason I stopped following so much of the developer community on Twitter. So much of it is full of snark and piling on others mistakes for a quick retweet.

</comment><comment><USER56> My comments (depending on my mood) will often include "Snark" while still making a point. I suspect I'm going to get down-voted much more often if the community decides that down-votes are the way to enforce this. I don't mind being down-voted occasionally but I'd rather not be hell-banned - I think I still contribute to the community overall.

I (previously) used the average karma/contribution on my profile page to self- police by trying to maintain an average around at least 3. Any idea why it was removed? Will it be coming back in some form? Any ideas on other ways to make sure I'm staying positive on here?

<comment><USER5> If worried, you can always email us at firstname.lastname@example.com to get a reading on what's going on (not that we always know). But really, don't worry about it. Of course you're a positive contributor. Truly negative contributors, by the way, never worry about this.

We got rid of average because (a) after looking extensively at the data we didn't see any value in it, (b) we had evidence of people gaming the metric, (c) its implementation was complicated, and most importantly (d) we think upvotes are wrong thing to optimize for. Optimize for saying substantive things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> > To support this, Daniel and the HN team are working on another new idea I'm > very excited about--code-named "Modnesty"\--to turn more moderation power > over to the community. We'll be sharing more on that in the coming months.

That sounds really interesting. I'm curious what kind of additional moderation capabilities this potentially includes. In particular, personally I'm less interested in the moderation ability to more heavily bury or downvote awful comments or stories, and more interested in the ability to "rescue" something that's been excessively flagged/downvoted.

<comment><USER5> Yes, that's what we're working on. It turned out to be tricky for technical reasons, but we're getting there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Wow, this post has some hard core moralizing in it. The whole concept that a mean comment is going to prevent the next AirBnB. That may be the case, but it's unfalsifiable and straight up passing more judgement. I can do without that, personally. I mean, you seriously won't let Linus Torvalds post on HN?

<comment><USER59> Not only that, but overly positive, glass always half full comments for the sake of guidelines might prevent the next AirBnB too.

Perhaps for those people seeking feedback who want brutally raw, might-hurt-a- bit honesty, a special flag can be set inviting all manner of such comments. I know I'd elect for that, and would be disappointed with anything less. Spicy internet discussion can flush out the pipes of a concept and invigorate thoughtful discussion quite efficiently. It can also derail, but it's worth the risk IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> being a cynic with startups and new tech is an easy way to appear wise and correct since ~90% fail, so it is no surprise many take it up as a position as you can appear a genius while offering no actual insight, base it on little actual understanding and it doesn't require much thought.

<comment><USER5> It's such an important point, and I think it applies to new ideas and projects as well as it does to startups. You can maintain a high correctness percentage simply by negating everything, but this is guaranteed to destroy expected value.

One psychological aspect of this is the need to feel that one is right. Smart technical people can become addicted to this, but it's the wrong thing to optimize for if you care about curiosity, which it kills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I do not agree with this.

I agree with the principle, but in practice, it is too subjective. Reasonable people can - and will - disagree as to what is warranted and what they consider justifiable.

Now, if it was well-defined, that would be something else. But I don't see any way of doing so, humanity being such as it is.

</comment><comment><USER61> Great move! HN is in dire need of this guideline. Someone could post the most amazing new project that they have worked months/years on, and the comments section would inevitably have comments like "this is rubbish, completely unusable, security flaws here and there" etc etc

<comment><USER62> People saying it is useless are useful, however, because you can see why it is useless to them and either accept it isn't part of your target market or change the product to include them. People just saying great things when they aren't allowed to be negative is kind of meaningless and unhelpful.

<comment><USER7> > People saying it is useless are useful, however, because you can see why it > is useless to them

No, people saying _why_ it is useless (which is grounded, not gratuitous, negativity at worst) are useful for that reason. People _merely_ saying _that_ it is useless are not useful.

> People just saying great things when they aren't allowed to be negative is > kind of meaningless and unhelpful.

A community guideline against gratuitous negativity cannot reasonably be expected to result in "people saying great things when they aren't allowed to be negative" because people are still allowed to be negative, and, in any case, people saying positive things _with explanations_ are just as useful as people saying negative things with explanations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm glad they finally stepped in to try to deal with this problem.

HN has long ago become something of a joke to the rest of the English-speaking internet at large. When a great many people you know and respect "can't be bothered with that site", you should be concerned.

For those of you thinking this is somehow unnecessary, let me remind you that genius will only take you so far. Good social skills get you the rest of the way. Look at this as an opportunity for self-improvement where you may not recognize that you need some.

</comment><comment><USER64> Random idea:

How about an extra pair of vote-buttons to classify a comment as "positive/negative" (karma-neutral)?

I often find the karma-system frustratingly one-dimensional.

Experiments in that direction are of course a slippery slope, but what place other than a hacker forum could be a better petri dish?

<comment><USER65> If we have extra buttons, let's have them be toggles like flag/unflag and name them something like "mean", "inane" and "misleading".

<comment><USER64> Yes, that's actually the direction I was aiming for, a little bit like the Slashdot system.

I just think it's very hard to choose meaningful adjectives/dimensions (the slashdot set also quickly feels limiting). That's why I'd start with the most basic sentiment(s) first (positive|negative, agree|disagree, ...), see how that goes, and possibly extend from there.

<comment><USER66> What do adjectives have to do with commenting?

<comment><USER64> Not with commenting but with classifying the comments.

As maxerickson said we'd have additional votes for adjectives like e.g. "mean", "interesting", "funny" and others, but the hard part would be to choose a meaningful set.

I think almost any set would probably feel arbitrary and limiting quickly, so I'd rather stick with very few, very basic ones and see how that goes.

<comment><USER65> I think the bigger problem is what to do with the extra information.

In that light, something like "too far off topic" is probably more useful (I think the too far is good there, as a reminder that things probably ought to range a bit).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Some tips:

If you write a response, before sending it go back through and edit it, think about removing unneeded negativity now that you have a fully fleshed post.

If your post starts with "No." or "You're wrong." consider removing those and just letting your argument stand on its own.

Consider using softer and more charitable words like "mistaken" instead of "wrong". Usually that's what is meant in most cases anyway.

Avoid the backdoor route to building a strawman, don't add unspecified details or intensity to a post that isn't there. Doing so makes it easier to get on a high horse, but usually that isn't warranted. Get used to having a genial exchange of views with a slight difference of opinion, it's not necessary for every "argument" to be a fight to the death.

Try to read posts by others more charitably, and take the time to apologize for mistakes you've made or times you've let your emotions get the better of your reason.

Upvote comments you disagree with that are well made and lead to a good discussion.

<comment><USER68> These are good tips. I will be using them.

Do you have advice how to figure out if someone is responding in bad faith, and what to do in those situations ?

EDIT: > Avoid the backdoor route to building a strawman, don't add unspecified details or intensity to a post that isn't there.

What if you must add details to clarify what the context of the post is ? ex .Water is liquid. I reply But Water is solid when below freezing.

<comment><USER67> If someone is responding in bad faith, then usually you just want to curtail talking to them. If you think it's still necessary to continue the thread due to the "audience", then concentrate on facts and sources and just make the strongest argument you can then just leave it alone. Avoid trying to get the last word or being goaded into responding just because someone said something that makes you upset.

In regards to clarification, that's easy, ask questions, ask for clarification. Just don't assume.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person and wouldn't be allowed to post here for very long before he was hell banned.

Maybe the issue isn't so much _negativity_ as it is _sensitivity_.

<comment><USER7> > Using HN guidelines Linus Torvalds is a terrible person

HN guidelines do not address whether a person is good or bad (or "terrible").

> and wouldn't be allowed to post here for very long before he was hell > banned.

You assume that Torvalds, if he choose to participate in HN, would apply the same mode of interaction he applies in different contexts with different expectations.

While, certainly, there are people who are unable to adjust their mode of interaction based on what is appropriate in different contexts, I don't see that it is clear that Torvalds is among them.

> Maybe the issue isn't so much negativity as it is sensitivity.

Or maybe the issue is that what lots of people want out of HN isn't the same kind of environment in which the actions of Torvalds to which you are obliquely referring occur.

<comment><USER33> >Or maybe the issue is that what lots of people want out of HN isn't the same kind of environment in which the actions of Torvalds to which you are obliquely referring occur.

The actions of Torvalds, though brash, are respected not because of his accomplishments, but because his assertions are usually quite valid. Many of us can learn from not discarding useful counterpoints simply because of how colorfully or insultingly they are delivered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> One issue with this regulation is that hacker news is an international community and there are strong cultural differences in what is perceived as being too negative. In the US, people have a very low threshold and there is always a high pressure to be positive and supportive. People from Europe perceive this as phony and they tend to be more direct with their criticism. I lived in both cultures and observed that in the US there is a strong emphasis on presenting criticism in a considerate and toned-down way, whereas in Europe people are better at dealing with open criticism. There are merits to both approaches and I don't think it's a good idea to force the American way of doing things on this community. Hacker news needs to evolve a composite of the two ways to deal with criticism in an organic fashion.

<comment><USER5> This is an important point and one reason why we have no interest in overdoing this. HN already is a composite of the kind you're talking about. It's not perfect—there is cross-cultural friction—but it is workable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I think I agree with the spirit of this guideline, but I have serious doubts that it can work. Here's why: I joined HN a year or two ago. I didn't go back and read any posts written before I joined. Anyone joining after today will have no idea that this is the way things are supposed to be.

Further, I suspect (though I hope I'm wrong) that a rule like this could end up causing the same issues that people here complain about with Stack Overflow. Namely, we'll end up with a brigade of people who feel it's their job to keep the "gratuitous negativity" to a minimum. The only problem is that everyone will have a different idea of what constitutes "gratuitous". But I hope to be proven wrong!

<comment><USER5> > I think I agree with the spirit of this guideline, but I have serious doubts > that it can work.

Let's see. HN is experimental, and this is just another experiment. If it works, it will be because community members help shift the culture in a higher-quality direction.

That, by the way, is also how newcomers find out about these things. Rules don't communicate themselves, but culture does.

<comment><USER72> Dang, what's the percentage of active / new users who visit the guidelines page? Can you measure this in the website analytics?

> Rules don't communicate themselves, but culture does.

At this point, you should really just copy the methods that Producthunt used to shape their community culture. Their strategy was perfect. In PH's case, it wasn't some intangible culture persuading people how to act, it was the founders directly telling people that being supportive and friendly is absolutely required, or else you'll be banned from commenting. See their 3 great recent videos on this precise topic:

[https://courses.platzi.com/classes/build-grow-online- communi...](https://courses.platzi.com/classes/build-grow-online- communities/concepto/how-to-build-and-grow-online-communities-by- produc/product-hunt-live-class-part-1/material/)

<comment><USER5> I think that would be going too far. There are many ways to comment substantively and civilly. Being supportive and friendly isn't absolutely required.

<comment><USER72> Interesting choice of metrics. I'll just point out this community culture difference:

\- Mods on sites like PH tend to measure quality by the results of how the comments are likely to affect the post's creator. E.g. Could a comment contribute to preventing the next AirBnB from happening. No metrics that can be gamed to get around that.

\- HN mods seem to be measuring quality through simple crude metrics like civility and substantiveness. Is HN really that unwilling to consider how the comments emotionally affect the creators? Trying to put this in the nicest way, the HN mods come across as autistic and emotionally detached. It's actually very easy for a regular person to understand whether a comment will be inclined to making someone want to quit working on the creation they've shared, no matter how civil or substantively it's written

<comment><USER5> > Trying to put this in the nicest way, the HN mods come across as autistic > and emotionally detached

The _nicest_ way? :)

Assumptions that work at one scale stop working at the next, which is one reason this stuff is hard. You're making assumptions about "regular persons" and what's "very easy" that aren't true of the HN community as a whole. We couldn't enforce those by decree even if we wanted to.

<comment><USER72> I can see what you mean about the scaling problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Must comments be soothing and agreeable to be appreciated at all? Is it okay to be caustic if you're also making a good point?

For example, I often say intentionally chaotic things in relation to Microsoft stories because we have a history and this reflects my current impression of that company.

That said, I find a lot of their recent changes, open source contributions, and future plans very agreeable and sometimes amazing and I try to point that out.

So, is it ok to dredge up their past transgressions if I can simultaneously make positive observations regarding MSFT's future?

Even though I tinge towards the negative/chaos, I notice that I can 'score' better with people whenever I put effort into the quality of my writing.

<comment><USER46> No, they merely need to be substantive.

<comment><USER74> This is a sensible policy only until you have to define what is and isn't substantive.

Since "substantive" tends to evaluate to "it changed my mind or I don't believe it to be completely wrong," it becomes a subjective game very quickly.

Arguing something that many people disagree with outright is inherently going to look negative no matter how 'substantive' it turns out to be.

<comment><USER46> The post we're commenting on addresses this: this concern is why the guideline is enforced only as a community norm, not with code.

<comment><USER74> In other words, it's a policy with no teeth, a simple admonishment?

I mean, I don't disagree: I think this changes absolutely nothing. If anything it's a renewal of the old guidelines, not an addition to them.

I suppose I think there's _some_ ambiguity into what is intended, and there's therefore some investigation into HN's relationship with negativity going on.

There's a kneejerk reaction to view this as an attempt to prevent people like me from spouting their usual hostility towards the tech scene, and I demand the right to be booed off stage!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> A lot of us (I'm at the top of the list) are occasionally hasty to be negative on the hottest new social media startups. As SA says, it's human nature to feel jealousy and sour grapes. "Damn these kids and their stupid chat apps that I could have made in 3 days when I was 16... and now they're raising 10 million dollars???". That's how most of us grinding it out at big companies likely feel when we read post after post of it, but it's not constructive to either ourselves or the community. Instead, I think there are some things to learn about markets, trends and even of how to conquer our own defeating psychosis from these stories.

<comment><USER5> This is precisely the kind of self-reflection that, in my experience, helps one resist the temptation to negativity that Sam wrote about in his post. It isn't easy and one invariably lapses, but it's profoundly worth doing. Thanks for giving us an admirable example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I don't think negativity is intrinsicly bad or harmful.

Obviously there's a line where a comment becomes predominantly mean.

The only concern I have is that one day it takes too much cognitive overhead to post an insightful comment that happens to be negative.

</comment><comment><USER77> This sucks, just trying to pretend everything is wine and roses and everyone is happy, happy, happy all the time.

Couldn't help it.

</comment><comment><USER78> Well, at the risk of adding "gratuitous negativity" to this comment thread, I'll say this: sounds like another way for people to rationalize downvoting posts they merely dislike or disagree with.

</comment><comment><USER79> Excited about this. I would love for this to be implemented all over the internet.

It is fairly easy to be negative. In fact, the cynical approach is the easiest point of view you can take. I have been working on this myself, and I encourage everyone to try and go the whole day/week/month practicing the opposite.

I think this has to do with how we are taught. Critical thinking somewhere down the line gave justification to being 'gratuitously negative'. I went my whole life thinking that I was being helpful when in reality I was just hurting people.

</comment><comment><USER80> It isn't so much the negative comments that bug me as much as the downvoting with no explanation.

<comment><USER81> I wondered the same the other day. Best explanation I could come up with is that an explanatory comment would expose the downvoter to being downvoted (in retaliation or otherwise).

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> I read this and immediately thought "I hope I never actually did this myself"

Looking through my comment history, I have a few times previously. We're all fallible, but at the same time this sort of negativity can come through without intending it. I'm really caring and optimistic, so to see some of my comments become unintentionally overly negative is kind of humbling.

Let's all remember how easy this is to do and keep an eye on ourselves. It matters.

</comment><comment><USER83> good idea. perhaps we should abolish downvoting too- isn't that the very definition of gratuitous negativity?

</comment><comment><USER17> It would be interesting to run a six month exercise in which HN users could tag HN posts with single keywords that identify the tone of the post.

</comment><comment><USER84> I have an idea related to this guideline.

Good tools already exist to do automated sentiment analysis. It would be extremely interesting to build forum software for HN that detects when a commenter is going too far with negativity and then gently guides that person to tone it down a bit while the comment is still being composed.

Maybe a few gentle prompts at the right moment is all it really takes.

<comment><USER5> I'd love to be wrong about this, but believe that the sentiment tools are too crude to rely on. They tend to get the nuances of conversation wrong, and those are the life blood of HN threads.

We do intend to try it, though, when we have the cycles. It might be useful as a supplement, or if nothing else a fun experiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> This might work if enforcement had any chance whatsoever of being enforced fairly, and not just another club the staff and the already-karma-rich can use to harass people who don't see the world as they do. Is it gratuitously negative for me to point out that, in the entire history of moderation systems on forums like these, that has never happened? Here's what I really expect will happen, based on thirty-plus years' experience online.

* Comments that are insightful and informative overall, and recognized by the community for being so, will still get dinged for one poor choice of phrase.

* Comments that are critical of anything outside the already-obvious zeitgeist, but worded passive-aggressively enough that their _actual_ gratuitous negativity and chilling effect can be explained away, will get a pass.

This will have less of an effect on negativity than on diversity of opinion.

</comment><comment><USER86> Could anyone develop some arguments for "gratuitous negativity". An attempt would focus on the adjective "gratuitous" which contains a lot of subjective bias and could be interpreted this way or that way depending who rules the domain.

Moreover one can claim "gratuitous positivity" is the bigger danger.

</comment><comment><USER87> I think this is an effective idea for building community, but it is not rational or scientific if carried to far. An important principal in science is falsification. Actively attacking an idea provides a critically important perspective and those who avoid that perspective are doomed to failure.

</comment><comment><USER88> I've seen reference to this and other HN guidelines in the past, but the only reason that I know what some of these guidelines are (or even about their existence) is because of occasional mention in discussions. Is there a single source for the guidelines that I should be following?

<comment><USER89> There is a link in the footer to [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> > Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing > of value to the community.

That's a comparison of apples and oranges. Critical thinking is something you do, i.e. an action. Cynicism is an attribute of a person.

This essentially tells that a cynic, i.e. the person as a whole, should not contribute in the case he/she is shallow. Whatever 'shallow' means in the context of a point of view developed from years of experience.

So even if such a 'shallow cynic' is critically thinking he/she is excluded as per that statement.

I'd rephrase that statement using a word like sarcasm (that is actually an action and not a statement about a person) since the guidelines should not criticize persons but their actions, which is – by the way – the right way to phrase negative feedback.

</comment><comment><USER91> Correctly interpreting online communication is difficult. What one person considers constructive feedback another person may interpret as negativity.

Reminds me of that Key & Peele skit: [https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo](https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo)

</comment><comment><USER92> I like this policy. I think it'll help encourage positivity in a field which can often receive harsh critique. Bullying, especially cyber-bullying has never been an easier, faceless crime that we have to unite to stand up against. Good on you Y-Combinator for leading the efforts.

Mr Zuckerberg and his team must have had similar conversations at Facebook when people keep asking him about whether or not to add a 'dis-like' button. He said publicly that although he did not agree with a thumbs down button, he did see a need for another button which would acknowledge a post.

Say for example, if someone posts about bereaving a lost loved one. Others may not want to hit a 'like' button in that context but would love to hit an alternative 'acknowledge / agree' button.

</comment><comment><USER93> "Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb."

This is melodrama. Ignoring the negativity in comments on an internet message board has got to rank as one of the smallest possible challenges a startup can face.

</comment><comment><USER94> While on this subject, I would like to see less downvoting for comments you don't agree with but are otherwise ok. Downvoting should be reserved for factually incorrect comments, trolling, meanness and other undesirable properties, not for a difference of opinion.

</comment><comment><USER95> Request for a special case: if we are the original author or it's a ShowHN, can we allow gratuitous negativity by declaration?

I've had some people talk some mad shit about intercooler.js and yet, after engaging them a bit, I learned some very useful things.

<comment><USER5> I don't think that violates the spirit of the guidelines, so why not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> Negative comments based on reason are the reason why I keep checking HN comments. Those comments are valuable because trade offs are rarely shown than benefits. However those interesting comments are often downvoted with spinal reflex.

</comment><comment><USER97> I find the "gratuitous negativity" a bit vague; i think thats poor wording choice, and something more descriptive should be developed. But I agree the principle is is good.

Its ok for people to be dumb, and for ideas or products to be shit. They exist / will keep coming. But if you want to actually contribute to the discussion, ask questions instead of belittling them. Try to steer them in the right direction instead of trying to get them to jump off the tracks entirely. Building stuff is hard, presenting things to your peers is nerve wrecking. Armchairs are comfy to speak from, but they don't move anything forward.

</comment><comment><USER98> Please remove the ability to download. Downvotes are the first step towards meanness.

<comment><USER99> <3 I missed your comment!i I felt that way too for [https://whatwouldempathydo.reddit.com](https://whatwouldempathydo.reddit.com). It was the first measure I took.

#Meanreal. #Votereal. #Censereal. #Sensereal. #Centreal. . #Traumareal. #Painreal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The guideline has some vaguely politically correct overtones, which seems to be putting people off a little, but I think this is unwarranted.

Good comments seem to me to have the same characteristics - insight, good will, lessons from experience, novelty, thoughtfulness. Strongly held, polarising and poorly explained opinions aren't one of those characteristics.

I myself have written comments which start with a negative comment, and then through fleshing it out arrive at a more moderate position at the end... at which point I go back and change the first sentence. Don't just write the first sentence...

</comment><comment><USER100> Getting downvoted on this board can sometimes be a mark of distinction. And anybody who complains about golang not having generics is a wimpy whiner, IMO. And as has been said before on this board, Hail Satan.

</comment><comment><USER101> Sorta feel like there needs to be more teeth to this than simply guidelines based.

@SamA what more "severe" approaches did you consider and why did you decide they wouldn't work? This is a difficult challenge.

<comment><USER102> There's a good chance this will be sufficient. If HN discourse doesn't improve I'm sure sama and others will try something else (perhaps with more teeth, perhaps a software change).

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> "How are we going to enforce this? By asking the community to do so. Gentle reminders by peers are the best way we know to make the culture better." I like this approach because this, itself, is a gentle reminder to the community. Perhaps the best way is to avoid active censorship and encourage us to reflect upon ourselves. However; I do fear that this will, at least on some threads, lead to a passive aggressive string of comments that's no more helpful than what we are trying to avoid in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER104> I'm sometimes bothered by the unhelpful cynicism that pops up here and elsewhere, but if I'm bothered more often than I used to be, it's probably more the effect of me getting old than any objective change. Unhelpful cynicism was probably more common in my own comments from five years ago.

Arguing politely (read: effectively) is a skill that takes a long time to learn. These uncultured kids will show up every year, and it would be quite a leap to attribute it to anything but the steady passage of time.

</comment><comment><USER105> When criticizing a post/article, either commenting about the subject of the article and/or the writer of the article, my rule of thumb is to put myself in their shoes. What if I was the person being written about? Or what if I was the author of the article?

Some comments would (and do) have a negative impact on me. Other more objective comments or advice, though still sometimes hard to take when it is criticism, should be expressed freely.

</comment><comment><USER106> One of the main ways gratuitous negativity is found here is in downvoting of comments for anything other than trolling. There are many well-meaning comments that are downvoted that should not be. It makes the membership of this site look ugly (those that do the downvoting, anyway). It is bad enough in some cases that I have taken it as a badge of honor; to my mind that means it's not really serving its purpose.

</comment><comment><USER107> It's a common trend I see, not just here, but in all online forums as they grow. I'm glad to see you guys calling it out.

</comment><comment><USER108> Great work!

It's amazing just how many arguments reduce to nothing if you discard those that don't apply the principle of charity.

</comment><comment><USER109> While I understand the reasons behind the article, I don't think it's a real issue on HN. If someone uses gratuitous negativity, other users generally will comment and refute the fallacious claim. As logic and respect are usually kept, users will rarely feel terrible like other communities and forums.

</comment><comment><USER110> I was thinking that the only possible effect that this policy could have is the complete removal of outsiders (I consider myself one, rarely chiming in on HN), and eventually even insiders will simply migrate elsewhere for meaningful discussion that is not happening on this website.

<comment><USER5> Why would you think that? We're very concerned with not excluding outsiders. One of the great strengths of the internet is the potential for anyone to make a substantive contribution. Indeed, making substantive contributions should be _the_ way to become an insider (or the healthy equivalent of that concept) on Hacker News.

There are some fair criticisms to be made of HN being a little insular and exclusive. (The leader board, for example—not that we emphasize it or even like it—moves in geological time.) We plan eventually to work on that to encourage more up-and-comers. But how a guideline against gratuitous negativity could discourage any outsiders except trolls is beyond me. It's dismaying that anyone would think so, so please let us know your concerns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> How about doubleplusunpositivity?

In all seriousness, the line between a valuable piece of criticism and gratuitous negativity seems like a fine line, and one of the things I like about HN is that there is usually intelligent criticism in the comments. This seems like it goes against that...

</comment><comment><USER112> This is great, my only (unconstructive) complain is why you didn't start with this before :)

</comment><comment><USER113> I hope this doesn't affect the unique pragmatism you find around here. I've seen a lot of ego-stroking back-patting around here recently which don't add substance to conversations, should we have a guideline around gratuitous positivity too?

</comment><comment><USER114> Gratuitous negativity is a given when it is possible for users to downvote others anonymously for no good reason. My recent posts are a testament to that; thus, a call to avoiding it would necessitate the abolition of downvoting, which will never happen.

</comment><comment><USER115> The question alot of HNers ask themselves before commenting.."What can I say that makes me sound clever and better than the original poster?". The easy, lazy approach is just to find something to criticize. Alot of insecure people on HN.

</comment><comment><USER116> Also, one should never take anything too personal. Even if the critique is somewhat mean, try to extract what the critique is about and move along.

You will learn to grow a thick skin, but also, to absorb any useful feedback from whatever source it might come from.

</comment><comment><USER117> related matter:

1\. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related hacking or engineering projects is not beneficial unless it's very detailed or insightful. If you don't like it, move on. Don't give your two cents if it's critique.

2\. Negativity or skepticism against announcements related to science should be default (unless they come from top notch publications like Nature or Science). The quality of science news and press releases related to science is abysmal. People consume science hype almost like religious people listen sermons about heaven and don't even realize it. Popularized science posted in HN is 99% rubbish.

</comment><comment><USER118> "The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."

– Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, 1930

</comment><comment><USER119> Unfortunately Sam did not give any examples, so it's hard to understand what exactly he means by "Gratuitous Negativity".

In particular, it's not clear where constructive criticism ends and gratuitous negativity starts.

</comment><comment><USER120> This is great. I hope the community rally around this and make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER54> I find the broadness of this guideline really worrisome and likely to exacerbate bad traits HN has developed. It's going to be extremely easy, I invite you to watch for this, to broadly apply it to whatever is against the prevailing groupthink, and selectively exclude the prevailing groupthink. For example, "shallow cynicism" about favorites like Wikileaks will be mercilessly punished, as already happens by downvote, but by contrast "shallow cynicism" about enemies like the US Government is de rigueur here, so pointing out that it is shallow cynicism will be mercilessly punished - now with additional reinforcement from staff due to the "negativity" guideline.

</comment><comment><USER121> In other words, don't be a big meanie. If you don't see the value in someone else's idea for an invention, ask questions. Maybe you're missing something.

</comment><comment><USER122> _" Modnesty --to turn more moderation power over to the community."_

Q. Does everyone get equal access to moderation? If so, will equal access cause a skew in moderation?

<comment><USER5> As equal as the current access is to flagging, unless we see evidence that that won't work.

<comment><USER122> thx Dan

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of this rule, but I think the better policy is to ban low-effort comments. Either way, glad to see the HN team doing something.

</comment><comment><USER124> I agree that we should try to reduce "this is a stupid idea" comments, but does that include "this doesn't belong on HN" comments?

<comment><USER125> These were already against the guidelines:

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate > for the site.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Even when it's for technical stuff, it's getting condescending pretty quickly. You'll feel bad for being wrong.

<comment><USER127> And then you should get over it and learn something to correct it.

<comment><USER126> maybe the blog post about "avoiding gratuitous negativity" is kinda about avoiding the hurting of people's feelings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER128> HN moderation is total crap, too much control will kill the openness of this platform.

</comment><comment><USER129> It would be interesting if we all agreed to vote up gratuitously negative and dismissive comments in a Geroge-Costanza-The-Opposite way in response to this (and only this!) post, just to illuminate how much of that goes around.

</comment><comment><USER130> Can we extend this to the rest of Silicon Valley?

</comment><comment><USER131> +1. Yes, please.

</comment><comment><USER132> This is a good step, but I think just the increase in overly political postings vs. tech oriented content has been a major contributor to the negativity.

<comment><USER133> For better or worse, many "tech oriented" topics these days _are_ politics.

Many people in the engineering and related fields often wish to ignore the political discussions and stay focused on the technology. This is an understandable desire. Technology is is often complicated leading to a general hatred of having to context switch into other topics. Experience teaches that it is a usually easier to achieve reliable results with technology you can logically prove or verify that with emotional, capricious, untrustworthy humans.

Unfortunately, technology brought us products such as "smart TV" that bring up serious questions about surveillance and evidence, cheap network clients that allow ubiquitous access to incredible amounts of knowledge that is certain to affect education and testing/grading, and self-driving cars that will require a serious refactoring of many aspects of society.

More importantly, I think it is important to remember that escaping the political side of anything simply cedes any disagreement to those that _are_ addressing politics. I think JMS said it best in the closing lines of Babylon 5: "we had to create the future, or others will do it for us". Technology experts need to address these things, or important decisions will be left to those that are not qualified.

Now, that said, neither technology nor political discussions excuse rudeness, personal attacks, or generally disruptive behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER134> It is part of life lesson to distinguish bull shits from constructive criticism.

If you haven't learned it elsewhere, HN is good place to start.

</comment><comment><USER135> Sam Altman's response to all the criticism received on his article "Bubble talk."

</comment><comment><USER136> No. No no no no no no no.

</comment><comment><USER137> Good luck with that

<comment><USER137> HN could use a better sense of irony

</comment></comment><comment> bra-ket what a stupid idea

</comment><comment><USER138> Rah Rah Rah! If your startup is not winning, just pivot, and be positive enough, and you will inevitably win. Selection bias doesn't exist and was made up by negative Nancys.

Seriously though, stick a fork in HN. It's over. Enjoy the echo chamber that this place will inevitably become.

<comment><USER139> There are echo chamber aspects of HN... Especially Sam's AMA, which I was hoping would be a discussion of Sam's life, philosophies, interesting anecdotes, etc. like it is over on Reddit, but instead was predominantly questions about how to get into YC :(.

Even so I'll take the good with the bad, you still get great insights on technology. It just morphs for the worse when YC companies post, or the topic turn to getting into YC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER140> This measure is bullshit.

<comment><USER141> I scrolled to the bottom of the comments because I knew some people would have made jokes and been downvoted for it. Just thought I'd let you know that _I_ laughed, so thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER142> "Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds nothing of value to the community."

I will assure you that my very _deep cynicism_ was reached through long and arduous resistance to such, but critical thinking, logic, rationality, and truth rank higher than happiness in my book. I will continue to be as negative as I see fit, without being _constantly_ "gratuitously negative".

</comment><comment><USER143> Hah! This is excellent and exactly what I see happening out in the real world. People don't like the unpleasantness and turmoil of disagreeable ideas and people with those ideas, and so the solution is not to burst the comfortable down-pillow bubble of their existence, but to pad it further by "eliminating" "negativity". Even better considering who gets to decide what constitutes "negativity". Fantastic job, guys. Bravo.

Edit: There are some salient points here about downvoting and how it's affected the community, and I am extremely interested in how "to turn more moderation power over to the community" is going to compound the problem of incentivizing positive-only feedback, id est if and how this "community moderation" mechanism will couple with downvoting to make disagreeing even more hazardous.

</comment><comment><USER144> "New work and new ideas are fragile. Too much gratuitous negativity might be the difference between someone giving up on a crazy idea and building the next Airbnb. Obviously, we want Hacker News to help startups and people doing new work, not hurt them. Building stuff is hard, and you'll always need a thick skin. But we see no need for Hacker News to make the problem worse."

I see it different way. I think many times, people with terrible startup ideas get led along too far because they haven't been told enough it's not a very good idea. The result can be very harmful: life savings lost, dropping out of college, investors money lost (which could be friends and family).

"The human trait of being unhappy with other people's success is something we've all felt and should all try to avoid"

I don't think the negative comments is an example of this. Most of the negative comments I have seen are before a person is successful, not after.

Even so, they are just words. If overly negative comments discourage you from starting a company, maybe you shouldn't be starting a company. You just aren't ready. Negative comments, unless constructive, are meaningless. I just wish more people stopped taking these comments so personally and seriously.

Is this new policy also going to apply to the negative comments I see every day toward opposing political and ideological views?

Many communities have started this policy online, but I have found it's a tool used to silence critics and opposing viewpoints. I just hope this doesn't also happen to the HN community.

</comment><comment><USER25> This appears to be prompted (EDIT: related to) by my discussion in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9317028) .

As I mentioned there, it may be helpful to explicitly differatiate negativity vs. gratuitous negativity in that case. (Most examples of gratuitous negativity I've seen are low effort "this site sucks" comments, which are downvoted for reasons unrelated to negativity, and ad hominem attacks are already covered in the guidelines.)

<comment><USER5> This wasn't prompted by any recent discussion. It has been a long, long time coming.

<comment><USER145> so says the censor, so it must be true.

<comment><USER146> I was struggling to define exactly what is meant by "gratuitous negativity", so thank you for giving what I think is a perfect example. It'd be great if you could answer the following questions about your comment to I think really get to the heart of the matter:

What were you trying to accomplish with your comment?

In what way does your comment move the conversation forward?

What are possible useful responses to your comment?

<comment><USER145> Interesting that you perceive this as "gratuitous negativity" as that was not my intention. answers to your questions:

1) pointing out that you shouldn't always believe those in positions of power, especially when they are attempting to control the narrative. you may not know this, but dang works for HN and his job is literally to censor comments and articles to ensure they follow the guidelines.

2) by reminding everyone who reads it that they should think critically, not only about the words being said, but also the context in which they are said and who is saying the words.

3) there probably aren't many as it isnt meant to be responded to, so much as to be a reminder to consider who is speaking, and to take all things with a grain of salt. although your response certainly engendered me to reply. but just because it is difficult to respond doesn't mean it isn't a useful contribution.

<comment><USER146> I have two choices in how to take this most recent reply. I can be the cynic and "think critically" and think you're just trying to come up with justifications for your snide remark after the fact. OR I can be charitable and believe that you're being honest, and really were trying to not be negative/overly cynical and instead acting as a reminder.

What you'll notice is that in your original comment you were not charitable to dang. He made a very clear statement that this change was not a reply to a specific comment. And your reply to that is effectively "you're not trustworthy". You are reinforcing this last point in your most recent reply by reiterating that dang's "job is to censor comments ...". Inferring that someone is untrustworthy is the opposite of being charitable, and falls squarely into "negative" territory.

You may feel that "calling someone out" and thus reminding people to "think critically" justifies the negativity of calling someone untrustworthy, but it doesn't. If you can't demonstrate how dang has shown himself to be untrustworthy, then all you're doing is slinging mud. If you know of an incident where he's been untrustworthy, then the constructive thing would be to say "Unfortunately I don't really believe you dang because you've proven yourself to be untrustworthy [here, here and here]."

And if your base reason for adding the comment is to remind people to "think critically" how patronizing is that to everyone that reads that? Why are you making the assumption that we're not thinking critically? Why do you feel it's your role to make sure that us readers are thinking critically?

Do you see the inherent arrogance in your comment, and thus how that adds to its negativity?

I think a corollary to the "don't be gratuitously negative" guideline, is "don't write as if you know better than everybody else"

<comment><USER145> I didn't realize it before, but this new guideline is probably targeting people exactly like myself. likely why I only have 40 some karma after however many years I've been on here.

so I guess I'll go back to lurking, since I'm not a member of the portion of the population that knows how to comment properly. does this make me bitter? yeah. but I'm human and I'm allowed to have emotions, no matter how irrational. is it for the "greater good" of the HN community? apparently everyone seems to think so.

y'all can go fuck yourselves :)

<comment><USER5> You don't have to go back to lurking if you don't want to. What we're asking for can very much be learned. Like a lot of people here, I started out as a caustic commenter. I thought that was a good thing to do, for a bunch of reasons, and it took me a long time to realize that it was a net negative.

There's a lot of learning behind these guidelines and some of us learned it the hard way. You don't have to. Your fellow community members will give you amazingly thoughtful and practical feedback if you show any sign of wanting sincerely to improve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER147> I don't like this. This is akin to censorship.

</comment><comment><USER148> But now Bitcoin haters will have nothing to say!

</comment><comment><USER99> One of the most passive-aggressive habits is avoiding negativity experiences and emotional developments to feel positively correct.

Maturity realizing empathy seconds, that line numbers need to grow exponentially for any form of -logy, requires a deeper stance for tense problem solving pain points.

<comment><USER11> I agree with the avoiding negativity, but can you elaborate on an example of avoiding "emotional developments to feel positively correct"

<comment><USER99> Sometimes it hurts to make sense and that is okay.

An example being voted from hell to heaven and back and forth again and again is making your question triggering, meaning being nice is just a command and control like with linux top. I rarely resolve my (social(emotional)) system issues by just id removing and killing task.

(Intergenerational traumas as much and as well as intergenerative gramma(r) traumma [sic].

Aethic-apathic-empathic determination to make an example of singular social commentary is disturbing (but healthy too, if you can actually solve the problem long-term enough to granulate -logy.))

<comment><USER74> What the heck is a fluidic writer doing in this haunt of logic? Wonderful to stumble across your ologies; keep churning, spurning, turning the logos as you see fit, my friend.

<comment><USER99> logologicalities* u mean? =))

=∫∫ Hurting here :/ Neighborhood webwatchers still pitchforking to make odd ends meet, even though we can also log and filter listening memercy with that tool memery, hunting predates and predominates gathering emotional- intelligence memresistors.

<comment><USER74> I hope it helps to remember that this is a non-topic: it's not going to change anything, and so this thread is almost a ritual, about making appearances, saying our piece, and moving on. Gotta love community-as-immanent-voice maintenance!

<comment><USER99> The legal-rational-emotional ritual is a product of confession made rote war.

#Logy/moderation logy means we realistically have time and space (<3) )) ) for ontologically scoping deeper classes and customs freeing your from repeating isolation.

Self-determination made a ritual of goal-scoring and approval-seeking is really remixing and remaking research, experiences, expression, and development, dangerous because undeterminable if means proof war minus modus log.

I just want community-as-permanent-voice vs. superadmin gatekeeping ve. record-keeping. Sadly combinators for emotional structure are negated at admission for being pathos ve. pleasure, said by men who feel it is best to hotwire perfection immediately as racial capital biteracy static object- relational role model mapping works wonders to make cryscistable (crisis crypto?) structures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> Downvoting negativity is the definition of gratuitous: "given or done free of charge." We logact as-if removing parts of speech of sense of logic is going to change history, without commiting a full transactional analysis.

</comment><comment><USER149> Whatever. [waiting]

<comment><USER149> Push harder, folks, I'd like to see this one at the very bottom :)

<comment><USER99> I∫ will race you. =∫∫ ∫og will race log.

Maybe empathy karma will come around. Empathy comes and goes, money comes and goes, karma comes and goes.

Sadly it hurts when it is accellerated by force of will to determine a ruler and winner to feel good versus bad about.

Fog of war is very real for hacked news logy, where edit change commit revision history is basic needs remorse remotely administrated by the "unsayable trauma of hidden language" rulers.

<comment><USER149> How true :/

<comment><USER99> til True. :∫

One day we can log til.

Maybe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER150> This is a horrible idea. The Panglossianism that will result from this is indicative of the bubble hype which will destroy Silicon Valley, Y-Combinator and Hacker News. In fact, this is the worst idea I ever heard in my life.

So continues the descent of HN...

<comment><USER55> The guidelines aren't asking you to behave like Pangloss and think everything is perfect. It asks if you do have criticism then address it respectfully and constructively.

<comment><USER151> According to what moral framework are you precisely defining "respectfully" and "constructively"?

There are plenty of examples in the world where bringing up logical, concise, and polite criticism invokes the wrath of a cabal of power-holders and social media demagogues, especially in a world that promotes the postmodern idea of "interpretation, not intent, is reality"

<comment><USER120> If it helps you can take respectfully to mean "the recipient will not feel angry or attacked due to the message tone" and constructively to mean "the recipient will finish reading the message feeling positive with ways to improve their work or actions".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER152> This post was unpleasant to read and distracted me from actual work

<comment><USER153> Why? Your opinion is worth nothing of itself; the reasons for your opinion are a different matter. But here you give none so why comment?

</comment></comment><comment><USER154> It is with great joy and positive vibrations that I receive this real world implementation of a few worthy ideas from the amazing Psycho-Pass[1] anime series. Cynicism is not conducive to peaceful productivity and it should be gracefully eliminated. Preferably by silencing gratuitously negative voices, for the common good of the cheerfully desperate community of Silicon Valley and by extension - the world.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho- Pass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass)

<comment><USER99> Psycho-Pass-Words!i

(I missed your social-emotional commentary because, well, hacker news lacks and blocks access and permission to basic data open filters needs sadly.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Quite frankly, I don't think this place has the capability to discern constructive "positive" negativity from truly pointless garbage.

Meanwhile the cloaked negativity where you're _thinking_ cutting criticism but maintain a polite facade runs rampant. That's the toxicity I worry about.

When negativity becomes forbidden, it is only those with power whose negativity gets heard. They (read: you, Sam) only have to sit through negativity that's phrased appropriate to their 'position.'

This is a non-rule anyway. Suggestions aren't going to make the next gender hellhole thread any less toxic.

> Gentle reminders by peers are the best way we know to make the culture > better.

Consider this a gentle reminder that you're trying to control the tone of conversations that can't be both polite and honest; it won't work, but that doesn't make you less of a meddling, controlling asshole for trying.

</comment><comment><USER155> "The human trait of being unhappy with other people's success is something we've all felt and should all try to avoid."

The problem is one man's success is another man's failure? Success is a very subjective term. I agree with the post, but not with what I feel is the author's view of success.

In my world, it's not about how much money you have; it's how you got that money, or what you do with it once you accumulated vast amounts.

To any wealthy person. Wealth has many different heads. You can have good genes--great wealth. You can have a kind heart--better wealth. You can have a great intelect--great wealth. You can have Morals--maybe the best success? And yes, you can have financial wealth, but that financial wealth will always be scrutinized because so many times it was made in unscrupulous ways.

Personally, I am not sure airbnb is a sucess, or even legal in most counties in the U.S.? I will fight for it if I ever see it helping out with Homelessness though?

Let me get my Uber out. Their latest commercial, "I don't need a special car to drive for Uber?" Yes--you need a special car to drive for Uber. It must be 2008 or newer. It must be four door. If you drive in NY, it must be on that list.(A list I can't figure out. It doesn't have anything to do with safety, but about aesthetics?)

I know Paul Graham is going after the multiple negative comments that occur too frequently when someone introduces their new app. This site has become more than just a Programmer's site though. Some discussions are going to get heated.

</comment><comment><USER99> Trauma-erasure. It is empathy-violating when classified moderators without logs claim emotional authorities to tone police by calling their efforts psychological.

Triggering. Why do psychotechnological toolers resist persistent "shrinks for startups?"[1] versus recreating private wars by demanding forward- looking(-locking) statements and then having our data disappear at trauma random.

[1] [http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608](http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608)

</comment><comment><USER156> The musical version:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp- IvX8VM8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp-IvX8VM8)

</comment><comment><USER157> pg's essay on "How to disagree" ([http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html)) also serves as a useful guideline.

grep 'u r a fag' | rm;

</comment><comment><USER158> This just totally completely sucks!!</comment>