Friends don't let friends get into finance - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/26/friends-don%E2%80%99t-let-friends-get-into-finance/ <comment><USER3> I'm of the opinion this understates the problem.

First, it is an ethical problem. The idea of producing things is not taught in elite colleges, nor is the idea that it is possible to make a positive contribution to society (e.g. rms) without becoming superrich (no offense to those for whom this is their primary motivation).

Second, a lot of the products of which the GDP percentage is based upon simply involve repackaging and selling debt. (e.g. <http://ow.ly/1sf8Rp> ). In other words, a lot of the economy is based upon accounting tricks.

<comment><USER4> Not all ideas can or should be taught in (elite) colleges. The framework to analyze any idea should be and generally is taught at colleges.

Repackaging and selling things is foundational to creating value. The insurance industry is perhaps the quintessential example. They create no direct expected value, and yet they create societal benefit by creating risk- adjusted expected value.

What is manufacturing but repackaging?

<comment><USER5> Insurance creates value, and so do banks. The problem really begins when the banks try to get more revenue than the value they can possibly generate. That's when it goes into bubbles and finally breaks. Insurance has its risks also, but the insurance system doesn't crash every couple years from itself (major natural events, terrorist attacks etc not taken into account).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some career advice for all of you on Hacker News.

This advice may be two years too late, but may help someone just getting in now. The decision to leave a high-paying Wall Street firm is foolhardy and one that you will more than likely live to regret later. It would be much more prudent for you to stick around at a firm for 5-6 years, put away $500K-700K in cash, get some experience, make connections and then make your move. Otherwise, you'll probably end up stuck at a startup that is not really going anywhere anytime soon (maybe it will, but maybe it won't), and it will be too late to go back to Tier-1 firms to make some cash.

So the lesson for you young guys out there: Don't pull the trigger too soon _IF YOU ARE ALREADY IN A MONEY EARNING JOB_.

Wait it out for several years, build a small safety net, and stash away some capital for your entreupreneural endeavors a couple of years later.

<comment><USER7> "Life is what happens to when you are busy making other plans"

No better way to ensure you'll never follow your dreams than set yourself up to be dependent upon a large salary and plan on pursuing them "a couple of years later."

<comment><USER8> pay bulk of your salary into a savings account. get used to living on say, 20% of it. you'll see pretty soon if you're 'following you dream' or getting hooked on cash

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps it's not a problem with finance but a problem with other industries that don't pay their people well. Who is to say that a CDO isn't a valuable economic activity?

If creating a CDO creates more value to the economy than designing an automobile why shouldn't engineers focus on building those?

People forget that prices and money are essentially information about the supply and demand of a good. As we progress in the information age deriving information from price will consume and produce ever more of our GDP. Spending money efficiently and directing it to the right purposes is a VERY valuable thing for a nation to do. Perhaps, dare I say it, more valuable than engineering widgets.

If YC had engineers figuring out algorithms to determine the best startups and they found one that worked it would be a very valuable piece of information. Or more relevantly, what if you had a site that required a lot of bandwidth and you could buy a bandwidth future? If you could buy that sort of thing you could offer 4 year contracts to your customers with out taking on any risk.

How about this instrument, a YC Summer 2014 startup future, it estimates the expected return from S14 and pays you if the return is less than expected. YC could sell them today and gain the advantage of knowing how many startups they could fund in S14. It would allow all sorts of people to pool their knowledge about what the Summer 2014 startup scene is going to be like. You might want to buy one right before the S14 season because you know that some great startup is applying, etc. If you held office space in SOMA you could use this as a hedge against losses incurred due to a poor S14 startup season.

Most complicated financial instruments are actually risk mitigation and/or information pools. The fact that that kind of thing is pricable due to these engineers spreads all sorts of great information to our economy that you can use to make informed decisions about how to conduct your affairs and you don't even need to participate in the market to use it.

Want to know what the best guess as to the price of oil in 6 months? Check the oil futures market. This one number contains the all the information known to man, vetted by experts as to what the supply and demand of oil is going to be in a few months. It also allows anyone with new knowledge to monetize that information and communicate it to all participants almost instantly. Southwest can offer cheaper flights because they use oil and jet fuel futures to buy jet fuel, the brilliant thing is that Exxon also gains knowledge of what Southwest and every other airline expects their passenger load to be in a few months and can make decisions accordingly.

<comment><USER10> The problem isn't the ability to create financial instruments. It's the fact that the people that created and purchased these ill-advised investments were given the resources of those that didn't make bad decisions (through inflation and taxes).

It's easy afford outrageous salaries when your revenue comes from government assisted theft.

<comment><USER9> I definitely agree with you that the bailouts are a huge problem, however, it's not like the alternatives presented for engineers in the article also don't get a sizable portion of their funding from the gov't.

Given that schooling is heavily funded by the gov't it would only seem natural to follow the funding train. They're practically begging people to go to engineering school and become a financier the way they fund things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "They note that the finance sector today produces a greater percentage of GDP than at any time in history."

This is not an effective argument. The computer software industry is also producing a larger than ever percentage of GDP. In other news, the building wooden ships sector is not responsible for much of the GDP in recent years. Is that a problem?

<comment><USER12> It's a problem because unlike other activities finance produces benefits to society only when it well, _finances_ people doing things other than finance. Other activities are valuable in themselves.

<comment><USER13> I still find it hard to parse that as a problem. I mean, power generation only provides a benefit to society when someone uses the electricity to do something.

So what? Infrastructure isn't inherently parasitic. Lots and lots of infrastructure isn't even necessarily bad.

I view finance as infrastructure. The machinery that hooks investors up with investees is fundamentally useful. The machinery that lets people and businesses manage risk, that lets them define very specifically what gains and losses apply to them in what events . . . that's really darn useful stuff. If it's complex sometimes--even incomprehensible--in order to achieve something, so what? So is software. So is engineering in general.

Some people practice finance badly, I don't doubt; some engineers are snake oil salesmen, too, hiding behind the inherent complexity of problem and solution. The government bailed out finance and that's bad, but it bailed out auto, too. That doesn't make car manufacture generally parasitic.

Those are historical specifics, justified complaints against individuals and events. But I don't see anything here justifies the demonization of the industry _in general_.

<comment><USER12> If you see finance as infrastructure to help other businesses grow (as I do), then it's growth should result in the growth of other industries. Instead what we see is finance growing and other industries declining. To me that suggests a _general_ dysfunction in the role of finance. It simply isn't doing the good it's supposed to.

There may be many or even most individuals who are acting in good faith, but the sector as a whole appears to be broken.

This isn't about demonization. It's about pointing out a serious threat to society's continued prosperity.

And as for the auto industry - they shouldn't have been bailed out either - that doesn't somehow make it better that the financial industry was. Also the auto bailout was a rounding error compared to the financial bailout.

<comment><USER14> What industries are declining? As far as I know, virtually every sector of the economy has grown. Manufacturing, medicine, education and technology certainly have.

What industries are declining, and why do you believe that finance has failed them?

<comment><USER12> The private goods-producing sector value added fell 6.4 percent in 2009, after a 4.2 percent decline in 2008. The private services-producing sector declined by 2.1 percent, after a 0.4 percent increase in 2008. The finance and insurance industry grew 6.1 percent in 2009, partially offsetting the widespread economic decline. The increase was primarily driven by the strong recovery of the insurance carriers industry.

That's a quote from a December 2010 report from the government's bureau of economic analysis.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, I didn't realize your comment was limited to a single year of our current recession. You are correct - for a short period, finance has grown while other sectors have shrank.

That's not the general trend, however, that's just a blip caused by the recently ended recession.

<comment><USER12> Ended?

<comment><USER14> According to NBER, the recession ended in June 2009.

<http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html>

That's roughly the point where GDP growth became positive again.

[http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&...](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&s\[1\]\[id\]=GDP&s\[1\]\[transformation\]=pch)

[edit: can't respond to your post, but June 2009 is also the time period when industrial production and retail sales started growing, and when the stock market recovered.

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/INDPRO.txt> <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RSAFS?cid=6> <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/SP500?cid=32255> <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ALTSALES?cid=98> <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/DGORDER?cid=98>

The period Jan 2009-Dec 2009 was bad, but Jun 2009-present was a period of growth for most sectors. ]

<comment><USER12> Funny - according to the very report I just quoted that positive GDP growth in 2009 is due only to growth in the financial industry which makes up for the declines other sectors are still seeing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The report was produced by the Kauffman foundation, a foundation dedicate to improve entrepreneurship. It's not exactly an unbiased piece of research.

Attacking finance is the popular theme of the days, but finance has done a huge amount in supporting global economic growth. From providing debt and capital financing to reducing foreign exchange costs.

<comment><USER12> Presumably this growth that the finance has supported is happening somewhere other than in the US?

<comment><USER15> <http://timetric.com/topic/us-gdp-all-statistics/>

US GDP today is seven times higher today than it was 60 years ago.

At the worst point in the recession US GDP dropped to the same level it was in 2005. Yes, the US GDP grew as much between 2005-2009 as it shrunk during the recession.

<comment><USER12> How much of that GDP growth _is just the financial sector itself inflating?_

<comment><USER14> Some of it, but not the majority of it. Industrial production is up and retail sales are up, for example.

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RSFSXMV>

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Article is totally absent of any substantive suggestions to "fix the problem". The real issue is that if you look at the risk-adjusted reward of doing or working at a startup, it doesn't compare well with working on Wall Street.

And then there are those who say, let me do a few years on Wall St and then I'll pursue the startup thing. What happens during that time is they lose their entrepreneurial edge (they become corporate dull) or they take on a lifestyle (nice house, cars etc = high fixed costs) which makes startup life less feasible.

Of course, in startup land, you have your occasional stellar upside scenarios a la Zuckerberg, but if economics is the main motivator, Wall St is a logical, rational choice esp if you work to live (and not live to work).

I say all of this as an NYC startup who feels this pain at times (although I think it is overblown and more of an excuse). I just don't think bellyaching about it achieves much.

<comment><USER3> The title is a suggestion. Discourage your friends from putting their energies into creating financial products of dubious value and instead encourage them to engage in substantive work that makes a clearly positive contribution.

Yes, yes, I know you want a secure source of income. Well, try think about ethics first, if not only.

<comment><USER16> These generalizations about finance being unethical are misguided and misinformed.

A bank/VC that gives a loan/investment to small business/startup. That's finance. Hardly unethical.

Allowing people to get a car today while paying for it over time (instead of paying upfront). Hardly unethical.

Yes, there are bad actors in finance as there are in every space. Don't the Zyngas and others of the world via their offers engage in "ethically questionable" tactics?

<comment><USER17> A lot of the financial industry though today works so many layers above actual loans it's hard to see how they contribute and even harder to see why they make so much more money than everyone else. I'm not an expert, I'm sure there is some justification, but it's not obvious to most people and that's why, sometimes, we the laypeople wonder.

<comment><USER16> I agree with you to some degree. There is a lot that happens well out of public (and sometimes regulatory) purview. I just think views that "finance is bad" or "startups are the best" are myopic, don't advance the discussion and ultimately fail to realize the inter-related'ness of all these different forces.

Ultimately, we live in a pretty free agent society and if Wall St can pay more (no matter the reason), the rational engineer whose primary motivation is money should take that job. There is nothing wrong with that. The engineer who is motivated by money and other factors (building something valuable, being his/her own boss, etc) also has avenues a la doing a startup.

<comment><USER12> This would be true if the losses from the last crash hadn't been socialized.

If the financial industry had actually had to bear the consequences of the risks they take in the same way that entrepreneurs do, the decisions would be rational. As it is, the finance sector is protected by the government whereas startups are not.

<comment><USER16> When the collapse of Facebook presents systemic risk (or the illusion of system risk depending on your perspective) to the US, I'm sure it will get a "bail out" as well.

<comment><USER12> Seriously? You're saying that it's fine for the financial industry to hold the country hostage when they fail because there's equal opportunity for other industries to do that too if they too can become large enough?

<comment><USER16> Not justifying it, but when people think the whole system could break down, crazya$$ isht happens. The rightness or wrongness of what was done is not what I was getting into.

Merely commenting on your point as to why the "finance sector is protected by the government whereas startups are not".

<comment><USER12> Right - but the finance sector wasn't chosen at random to receive a bailout because of 'craziness'. It was bailed out _because_ it's dysfunctional. And now, people in the financial industry _expect_ it to get bailed out when it screws up, since that's what's happened time after time. Whereas people joining startups have no such expectation.

If you don't seriously expect Facebook to get bailed out it's not a particularly meaningful thing to bring up.

<comment><USER16> I am guessing (and apologies if I'm wrong) that you've not worked in finance else I don't think you wouldn't paint the entire industry with such a broad brush. I don't disagree with you that a lot of stupid, ignorant and misguided things happen in the industry, but in general, I find that the "Wall St is bad" rhetoric is easy to get wrapped up into because it is fashionable and easy to do.

But nevertheless, I'll go back to my original point. If the gov't thought that Facebook (or any startup) presented systemic risk, it'd likely get bailed out. I'll leave it at that.

<comment><USER12> On the topic of straw men, I don't think you'll find me saying anywhere that the financial industry is "stupid, ignorant, or misguided", nor did I say that "wall street is bad". I'm not painting the people in the industry with any kind of brush at all. You make it sound like I'm kicking a puppy.

I believe that there's a systemic problem with the industry and its role in society and that it is damaging our future prosperity.

Yes, any sufficiently powerful institution _could, in principle_ pose such a problem, but why distract ourselves with imaginary problems when we have a real one sitting in front of us?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> the quant finance that takes the best and the brightest (as opposed to the bankers and sales traders), uses informational and computational advantage to make money.

How are internet startups any different?

Also, even the bankers and sales traders are providing a service that apparently people want. If you can judge them as not creating societal value, why can't I say that the Nth photo sharing website is not creating value?

<comment><USER12> Will the government bail out the photo sharing sites when they fail?

<comment><USER18> Photo sharing sites doesn't cripple the entire economy when they fail.

<comment><USER12> So you agree that the financial industry gets to take risks at other people's expense?

This makes your other points about the benefits of the financial industry and your defense of them 'not stealing' seem incoherent at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Only way you compete with Wall Street is you increase the utility of expected payoffs, not just the wage. People who are going to WS have different risk profiles than entrepreneurs. You can have low participation in entrepreneurship as long as participating ones are competitive and innovative. It is better use of talent and time if those who would have failed anyways (because they don't have the guts, etc) go and make themselves useful elsewhere.

<comment><USER20> I think you have it backwards. It's not about max_a U(E(a)), but of max_a E[U(a)]. Otherwise insurance wouldn't work.

Let's illustrate with an example. Suppose you buy theft-insurance, there's 10% chance of being robbed and the cost of robbery is $100000. Then, E[a] = 0.1 * -100000 = -10,000. So you'd be maximizing U(-10000). This is different from maximizing E[U(a)] because in this case it's 0.1 * U(-100000) + 0.9 * U(0).

It's different if you are not completely neutral.

<comment><USER19> You are right

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The real challenge underlying Wadhwa's article is how to incentivise traditional engineering careers to counter the lemming run to investment banks and hedge funds that the best technical minds make these days. Because high finance careers offer lucrative compensation according to market demand for talent, perhaps the demand itself needs to be adjusted.

Another roundabout approach to counter this phenomenon is greater regulation to curb non-transparent / overly risky / exploitative instruments. Arguably, better regulation will help flatten the casino-eque boom (and bust) fortunes that we've been seeing in recent years. In turn, this may eventually translate to more moderate compensations in financial careers and may eventually reduce the outsized finance field demand for engineering talent. The rub is that government regulators are simply no match for the sharp pointy minds and enormous resources high finance firms can muster - the financial regulations of today will be easily be circumvented by the clever finance and accounting tricks of tomorrow.

Were it implementable (fantasy), the people who create and subsequently sell these fancy financial products should be paid with their own products and be required to hold them until maturity.

f.

</comment><comment><USER22> If investment banking is so needless, why did the economy falter when lehmen brothers went bankrupt?

If high frequency trading is so needless, why does the entire market go into shock when the traders panicked and left on may 6th 2010?

Most importantly- if these products are useless and harmful, _why do people keep buying them?_

<comment><USER23> > If high frequency trading is so needless, why does the entire market go into > shock when the traders panicked and left on may 6th 2010?

Because HFTs, who enjoy the privilege of walking away from the market at the worst possible moment, had largely displaced traditional market makers who make expensive commitments not to do that. Nobody specifically chooses to do business with them, they're exploiting flaws in the way trades clear to front- run them and become unwanted middlemen.

<comment><USER14> _...they're exploiting flaws in the way trades clear to front-run them and become unwanted middlemen._

Could you explain the mechanics of how this works?

Near as I can tell, the only way to become a "middleman" is to offer a better price than your competitors or to offer the same price at an earlier time. Is there a "front-run my competitors" FIX command I'm not aware of?

<comment><USER23> [http://blog.themistrading.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/01/tox...](http://blog.themistrading.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/01/toxic-equity-trading-on-wall-street-final.pdf) describes a predatory algorithm deliberately making inconsequential trades solely to discover a buyer's limit, then selling short at that limit only to cover after the dip they themselves caused. This is basically scalping, a strategy designed to steal the surplus value from both the buyer and seller. Such abuses were even more egregious back when most exchanges offered flash orders, which is more like poker with certain players allowed to see your cards.

When a HFT buys and sells with a holding time in milliseconds, they are in no way guiding the correct allocation of our economy's resources, they are merely bleeding those who are. That they can do so profitably is showing us what we should fix about the way trades clear.

<comment><USER14> Huh. So basically, before HFT, the clever institutional trader could use HFT techniques to buy a bunch of shares from less sophisticated retail investors at $20.00 in spite of high demand.

On net, the institutional trader is gaining $0.01 at the expense of retail investors.

Now, in a world with professional HFTs, the institutional investor can't do this as easily and must pay the retail investors $20.01. How horrible!

It's hard to see why you are calling the HFT an "unwanted middleman". I mean sure - the institutional investor would love to keep taking money from the retail investors. But the retail investors want to keep their pennies - <USER2> certainly want the HFT to be present.

As I said, the only way to become a middleman is to offer a better price than your competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Finance firms put 100% of their time and energy into finding ways of making money out of existing money without producing any other value.

Entrepreneurs do a little of this too, but foolishly allow themselves to be distracted by an irrational desire to also make novel and valuable contributions to society.

Eventually the entrepreneurs will learn that a part time effort won't cut it and they can't beat the guys who give it 100%

<comment><USER18> Google. Zynga. Facebook. Intel. eBay. Apple. etc.

All needed bankers to get them access to capital and grow faster, helping them hire more employees and contribute to our economy's growth and standard of living. I'd highly recommend you rely your points on empirical evidence over populist talking points.

<comment><USER12> The evidence is that the finance industry has grown faster than all of the other sectors, proving my point.

I'd highly recommend that you rely your points on empirical evidence than empty claims.

<comment><USER18> What does that even mean? Economic growth has grown consistently. Technology now makes up a large portion of our GDP when it hasn't in the past. Why attack the finance industry when you could also attack the technology industry?

There's more demand. Therefore, there's a larger supply. Simple, basic, very elementary economics.

<comment><USER12> The financial industry makes up a much larger portion of GDP growth. Artificial growth that would have contracted if it hadn't been bailed out. Demand for the financial industry has been produced by force, not through the marketplace, unlike other industries.

Your simple, basic, elementary economics don't apply when an industry is being protected by the government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> paul kennedy. Britain. 1914.</comment>


Can America Invent Its Way Back? - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_38/b4100052741280.htm <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry - initially posted the paginated version by mistake.</comment>


Bigelow Aerospace lays off entire workforce - <AUTHOR> https://spacenews.com/bigelow-aerospace-lays-off-entire-workforce/ <comment><USER2> They were making modules for the ISS.

Can't wait for that money pit to be deorbited.</comment>


Why do books smell the way they do? - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/rn-breakfast-separate-stories/id124116392?mt=2# <comment><USER2> This should have [audio] added to the title. It's from the RN Breakfast - Separate stories podcast</comment>


Analysis of Rails XML Parameter Parsing Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://www.insinuator.net/2013/01/rails-yaml/

<comment> void-star pretty good writeup - miss the days when contrived examples were considered a cop-out though ;)

<comment><USER2> Just go on #rails and try to ask for help with a fake code example.</comment></comment>


Millimetre-scale transceiver boosts ingestible sensors - <AUTHOR> https://physicsworld.com/a/millimetre-scale-transceiver-boosts-ingestible-sensors/ <comment><AUTHOR> "According to the Imec team, the most significant achievement is that the module does not require a crystal-based oscillator. Such oscillators are commonly used to precisely stabilize the frequency of radio signals and network protocol timing, but the Imec researchers instead created an on-chip mechanism that, in effect, uses the wireless network to calibrate itself. The lack of an off-chip crystal device made it possible to achieve the extremely small form factor needed for an ingestible."</comment>


Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2013/09/9-hacker-news-comments-im-tired-of.html <comment><USER3> My personal favorite is "The plural of anecdote is not data".

Correct. The plural of anecdote is _conversation_ , which is exactly the reason we're here.

I think this one comes down to people misunderstanding the reason we're here in the first place. If you start to notice that the discussion here resembles the sort of conversation you'd have around the watercooler, that's probably has to do with the fact that Hacker News is indeed the internet's watercooler.

Complaining that that seems to be the case and asking people to stop having lively conversation is not really helping anybody. As much as some folks want this to be the Royal Society for Correctly And Properly Dismissing The Ideas Of Other People, it's not.

Good thing, too. That place wouldn't be any fun.

<comment><USER4> It's immensely frustrating when someone is discussing a well conducted study showing an interesting result to have another person say "This feels wrong. I had $ANECDOTE, so maybe they researchers are missing $CONCLUSION_FROM_ANECDOTE?", which has been covered in the study and in the HN comments and is just a weird point anyway.

<comment><USER5> Most of the conclusions I find in comments on HN, are rarely _conclusive_. I've always struggled with comments that provide one data point (or better yet, a generalization of data points) that the user declares a conclusion from. I can't tell if I'm just being pessimistic when I detract these poorly thought out conclusions or if they are genuinely good for the discussion.

<comment><USER6> Because comments probably aren't the best place to talk about conclusive anything: it's a discussion. If you've done the leg work to get something solid it can at least get the discussion it deserves if submitted to HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing that really annoys me about HN is how damn contrarian everyone always tries to be. Responses typically take the most absolute narrow and unforgiving interpretation of any point you are trying to make and subsequently use that to spin a counterpoint.

Drives me batty.

<comment><USER8> I see two reasons:

1) If people agree with the idea they'll probably just nod their head, or upvote. If they disagree it is more likely they'll post something rather than just downvote (people feel the need to explain perhaps why they downvoted)

2) Geeks feel the need to say something contrarian to show how smart they are. It is a way to tell everyone they have a bigger intellectual penis than everyone else.

<comment><USER9> This seems about right, but I'd venture it's 80% 2) and 20% 1).

<comment><USER10> I have to disagree. I think it's 80% 1) and 20% 2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> HN sometimes looks like an Asperger's meetup.

I understand this is a place for serious debate and constructive criticism, but sometimes it's more uptight than getting interviewed at a border control.

I visit and get value from it, but this article is spot on. Well, I still think [citation needed] is relevant sometimes, in the case of a legitimate/interesting (or maybe questionable) citation that would produce more value with the citation. (But sometimes it goes like this "The sky is blue"[citation needed])

<comment><USER12> Yes, sometimes you want to see a source, but why would you use that phrasing? The passive form doesn't feel like a conversation. Like the original poster wrote, it comes across as passive-aggressive.

Imagine someone walking into a coffee shop and ordering coffee by saying: "Coffee required" \-- while drawing imaginary square brackets around his head with his fingers.

<comment><USER13> It's a convenient and recognized request for more information.

It's pretty much the equivalent of "RSVP" on an invitation -- a shorthand request that the person it's directed to take an action out of consideration.

Reading it as passive-aggressive strikes me as the attitude of someone who's looking for a social slight. In my experience, that search is rarely unsuccessful.

<comment><USER14> One way to interpret it as passive aggressive is if its merely an attempt to steer the argument in the direction of the fallacy of appeal toward authority. (abortion is wrong) (citation needed?) (my bible) (I'm not Christian) (holy way begins)

Another way is just a psuedo-politeness. (... and applying ohms law aka power = voltage / current ...) (citation needed?) (quick google search results in ...whoops)

It does make perfect sense for situations where the literature is lacking. Yesterdays discussion of ultra minimal RISC architectures is a good example. So, seriously, the linked to paper only has three references? And I've read two and don't have access to the third? In the grand history of bored programmers daydreaming about turing tarpits I'm somehow familiar with 2/3 of all written articles yet never heard of the remaining 1/3 until yesterday? Citation needed. There's got to be more academic articles than listed. Just looking at the turing tarpit section along of various esolang sites...

<comment><USER13> _(abortion is wrong) (citation needed?) (my bible) (I 'm not Christian) (holy way begins)_

Perhaps for some. For me it's clear that I've encountered someone whose worldview is fundamentally transrational and further discussion isn't necessary.

My purpose isn't to _change the person 's mind_ but to _understand it._ And if that understanding leads me to the conclusion that they're not worth wasting time in discussion, so be it. What's frustrating is when someone drops some vaguely provocative hint of something without giving a sense of what underlies it. Knowing the source of the bullshit is helpful.

 _It does make perfect sense for situations where the literature is lacking._

Also for where the person posting has a specific instance or reference in mind but cannot be assed to provide it. Again, my experience is that discussions with such people tend to be pretty unproductive. I only wish H/N had the ability present on, say, Reddit, to tag people as idiots. I've similarly created "idiot", "troll", "denialist", and "libertardian" circles on G+ simply to keep tabs of who's not worth engaging with (or noting to others that their conversation will likely be unproductive).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _[citation needed] - This isn 't Wikipedia, so skip the passive-aggressive comments. If you think something's wrong, explain why._

The reason to post this is not so much thinking the comment is necessarily wrong as that it makes an extraordinary or absolutist claim absent any evidence, which if accepted as fact is going to change the shape of the whole discussion...perhaps appropriately, but the onus is on the person making the claim to support it.

 _A link to a logical fallacy, such as ad hominem or more pretentiously tu quoque - this isn 't a debate team and you don't score points for this._

Considering the requests that if one thinks something is wrong, one should explain why, I'd say that identifying errors in reasoning is quite appropriate; though some of them are so frequent that I just downvote rather than pointing them out yet again. Fallacies of composition are astonishingly frequent, for example.

<comment><USER16> Yes, but on the other hand, fallacious reasoning is rarely the source of disagreement or controversy in a debate. At least in my experience. All you're doing by saying "ad hominem" is shifting the focus to technical delivery of the argument rather than focusing on the real matter of the discussion.

And most people forget that calling something an ad hominem attack does not mean that it's wrong. Most things which get called ad hominem are usually not, in fact -- saying "you are dumb and your arguments is wrong because of X, Y, Z" is different than saying "your argument is wrong because you are dumb" (the latter would be ad hominem, the former is merely an irrelevant statement)

<comment><USER17> _All you 're doing by saying "ad hominem" is shifting the focus to technical delivery of the argument rather than focusing on the real matter of the discussion._

I'm not sure I agree. The use of ad hominem is the shift away from the discussion proper. Calling ad hominem (or any logical fallacy) out is merely a recognition of that shift, and could be considered a (weak?) attempt at getting back on topic. When used correctly, that is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cliches like this are OK. What really annoys me is that the top rated comment is invariably a straight-forward contradiction of the original article's thesis. Like this comment here.

<comment><USER19> Is there already a law for this?

I would love this to be called "Moomin's Law"

<comment><USER20> I personally call it Pwnage Culture. Karma-based sites love it when a user debunks an article or another user's comment.

You get extra points if you start your reply with a cold remark such as "No." "Wrong." "False." And then you put some random citations to Pubmed or Wikipedia at the bottom of your comment.

<comment><USER21> "You get extra points if you start your reply with a cold remark such as "No." "Wrong." "False."

Exactly, I automatically downvote comments like that.

<comment><USER22> That'll teach them! It's fortunate that nerds are psychic.

It's ok, you can downvote this, I know it'll make you feel better about yourself.

<comment><USER21> Yes, it makes me feel better, that's the only reason I do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This.

Just because these comments appear quite frequently it doesn't necessarily mean that they are responsible for making your eyes tired, after all, correlation is not causation. Maybe try to adjust the font on your browser or use one of the popular HN chrome extension. Remember that HN is a free site and if you're not paying for it, you're the product, so try to see how you can improve your comments, thereby improving the product.

Even though Pg has a legal duty to maximize shareholder value for YC [citation needed] changing how people comment would be premature optimization - <USER2> don't we see how the site shakes out after a couple of years. Saying that this is a place for discussion is at best a leaky abstraction, like Playboy magazine, I come here predominately to read the articles. I feel that I understand most of the technical articles posted here, even though some people say I suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect I feel that is just a needless ad hominem.

You can read more about this in a blog post I wrote:

Is the quality of HN discussion falling?

<comment><USER24> Why didn't you write this reply in Haskell/Node.js/Go/Rust? I did a naive implementation (since I am still kinda new to this) of your post in all those languages and here are my benchmark results:

<comment><USER25> Please make sure to follow up with a blog post about how you coped with being on the front page of HN.

<comment><USER26> And somebody please make an unsolicited re-design of that blog post and submit that to HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The HN comment that really bores me is the one that totally denigrates the project described in the link because it's "been done before", "won't work because X" where X is a woolly hypothetical, "doesn't solve Y" where it's blindingly obvious that Y is either incredibly hard or tangential to the point, or "could simply be done with just A, B and C" where A, B and C are some permutation of a raspberry pi, arduino, a kinect, some random combination of open source libraries, emacs and a blender.

There is benefit in new approaches to old problems. Incomplete attempts are still useful. Actually getting a project into a state that more than one person can use it, even if that use is just "Here, read the code. It doesn't work, but you might find it enlightening," is an effort worth respecting.

It's _extremely_ rare that these comments have any worthwhile content in them. They seem to serve to point at the commenter's username and say "Aren't I clever for spotting the problems with your project?" What effect is that supposed to have past your own ego? You can't rewind the universe to a state where the project didn't happen, so why not take 3 minutes instead of 2 and find something positive to highlight rather than a negative to pick on?

<comment><USER28> To put an even finer point on it, one of the worst and most pervasive comments is of this type:

 _" This is a cat, but I like dogs, why isn't this a dog?"_

Once you understand the type you start noticing it everywhere all the time. Any time there is a creative work there will always be someone complaining that it's not the thing they wanted created instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The biggest problem with Hacker News comments -- actually, make that all comments -- is fundamental: the sort of people that leave comments are (more often than not) people that want something, ANYTHING, to say, not people that _have_ something to say.

<comment><USER30> I think the karma system can also be a contributor to this. Any comment you make has the chance to get a few upvotes, regardless of how little it contributes to the conversation. So people just spam comments to get a few points here and there.

This phenomena can be seen in forums without karma also but i think in places with karma it is usually worse, worst offenders being digg and reddit where everybody tries to make a silly joke as those are easy points.

A better algotithm calculating the karma as an average over all your comments maybe could help..

<comment><USER31> >A better algotithm calculating the karma as an average over all your comments maybe could help

The metric I would most like to know is how many votes my comments got divided by the total number of words in my comments.

<comment><USER25> Wouldn't this favour the short smartarsery that's one of the not-done things hereabouts?

<comment><USER32> It would also favour the short and succinct over the long and rambling. Which sounds like a good thing, if you believe that useful information can be distilled losslessly.

<comment><USER25> Pithy wisdom only really works when it lands in a mind on the edge of understanding it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Unfortunately there are too many useful rhetorical devices in the list, devices that serve a purpose. Ironically, the list starts off with "correlation is not causation," an expression that in most cases is raised for very good reasons -- for example, any popular science story that includes the word "linked" but without adequate qualifiers.

If more people were science-literate, these platitudes wouldn't be necessary. But they aren't, so they are.

<comment><USER34> I agree. The author says "If there's some specific reason you think a a study is wrong, describe it". Unfortunately, this is very often precisely the problem: many times not in the study itself but in the way it's reported.

"Correlation is not causation" mistakes are not always obvious. Especially when there's ideological bias. E.g: the claim that owning a gun increases the chances that you will be violently killed by X%.

<comment><USER33> > The author says "If there's some specific reason you think a a study is > wrong, describe it". Unfortunately, this is very often precisely the > problem: many times not in the study itself but in the way it's reported.

Too true. My recent favorite was a popular account of a marijuana study. The popular article was titled "Marijuana causes psychosis" or words to that effect. The popular account went on about how teenagers went crazy after smoking killer weed. The study itself said, "We don't know whether marijuana use sometimes causes psychosis, or psychosis sometimes causes marijuana use. More study is needed."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 100% agree and I'd add other things I hate about HN:

* First comment debunks the article.

* Comments that start with "No." It's worse if the "No." is in its own paragraph.

* Mentioning Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

* General passive-agressivness.

* Lack of humour and light-heartedness.

* People upvote some really shitty stuff. The newest submissions page is sometimes more interesting than the homepage.

* People love to upvote blogposts of some people, e.g daringfireball.net or paulgraham.com, no matter the quality.

<comment><USER35> The humor is why I also browse Slashdot, even though they're generally late (like by days) with the submissions. There's a little bit of serious discussion, a lot of memes, but then some generally humorous discussions based off misinterpretations of comments, articles, and titles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The first 8 points are all totally valid comments and I don't think they can be rejected out-of-hand. The author seems annoyed by a perception that they're thrown into the mix in snarky, passive aggressive or ad hominem ways but that doesn't invalidate their use when they are accurately applied.

Facile, poorly reasoned content is abundant on the internet. Hacker News is a firehose of content – both good and bad – and commenters aim to filter that by tagging the content through comments.

It is not always a good use of your time to make a reasoned argument against blatant logical fallacies, scientific/engineering ignorance and failure to understand modern tech business practices. If you're spending more time discounting vapid content than its idiot author spent creating it, then the world is suffering a net loss.

<comment><USER37> The inevitable comments about Bettridge's law of headlines every time a title ends in a question mark are not helpful. They don't make an argument, as the article is hardly ever arguing for the question. It is just indicating "look at me, I know of this exotic jargon term, and it happens to apply to this article title". Like, this article could have been "would hacker news improve if we stopped posting certain kinds of comments?"; the answer might be "no", but saying "no, due to Bettridge's law of headlines" provides no value or understanding to the reader.

<comment><USER38> Sensationalized, misleading titles are not helpful.

<comment><USER37> This, also, is not useful to point out every time an article title ends in a question mark. I'm not advocating _for_ articles with titles that end in question marks, only that there is no value in reflexively pointing out "this article's title ends in a question mark" every time it happens: Bettridge's law of headlines exists, the point has been made, and even to the people who haven't heard about it, it doesn't give the reader any insight. I maintain that the only use of that particular comment is to make the person writing it feel smart for knowing a jargon term.

<comment><USER38> The use of that comment is to point out and perhaps penalize a form of manipulation which hurts discourse, the sensationalized headline.

This is valid in the same way that it is valid to point out when a headline contains a false and self-serving claim.

I don't think anybody is under the slightest illusion that having heard of Betteridge's law demonstrates any particular intelligence.

<comment><USER37> It does not penalize the article, as even before this concept was given a name it was already clear. The only people it "penalizes" are the people who have to see the comment every single time an article, no matter what the quality level of the content, happens to have such a question-marked title. Think about it this way: the article got voted to some place, and maybe is even on the front page; do you think yelling "Bettridge's law of headlines says 'no'" is changing that vote?

Do you think people reading the comments are going "ah, that is something I had yet to consider about this article; I had previously been curious to know the answer to this deep and burning question, but now that I read this comment, it is clear time that not only am I a fool, but I should down vote this article, all articles like it, and start my own crusade to scream the name of this wonderful law of headlines every time I see such an article".

The best you are getting is "oh, I didn't realize someone had assigned this a funny 'law'... that will be a great trivia item I can being up to demonstrate my epic knowledge of jargon". The result is then just another person in the article comments adding noise. It is nothing more than a way to add mild justification to the seemingly-dying practice of yelling "first": you just need to know, for each article, what bingo terms happen to apply, and then be he first to lay claim to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I was expecting this to contain the inevitable "why didn't you do this in Haskell?" that seems to come and go in waves. I've come to think that there's a non-trivial percentage of HN users that are simply bots (written in Haskell) that insert this into a random percentage of threads. If they're responded to it then brings in a human to continue the conversation.

More seriously, these aren't just gripes, most of these have some kind of remediation step too. Most of the comments here seem to be missing that.

That being said, most of these are still very valid things to be said here, the problem is not that they're being said, but that they _have_ to be said. People in general are lazy and carry around terribly poor models of the world in the heads. 8 of these are really constant, low pressure attempts to correct this problem with the last one just being a cultural issue that this isn't reddit.

<comment><USER40> Given that this comment is also about Haskell, can we assume that one of the bots became sentient?

<comment><USER39> Hello, my name is "bane" how can I further our conversational goals about Haskell and functional programming?

Have you considered the importance of the lambda calculus in your daily life?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > > What comments bother you the most?

"just use bootstrap/heroku/nodejs/techoftheday"

"hn is turning into reddit"

"[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) Anything that good hackers would find interesting."

complaints about: negativity, wrong tone and cursing.

looking for reasons to get offended.

</comment><comment><USER42> Random PG quote I've kept on my clipboard for days looking for the right day to paste it. GOD I HOPE HE SEES.

Copying != stealing, because apparently time stopped about 8 years ago. And this is digg.

IE is hard to develop for even though all the problems it had have been solved for approximately 11 thousand years before anyone alive today was even born.

First they came for [whatever we're talking about] and I said nothing ...

<comment><USER43> I've not read the link yet so I'm curious to see if this is meant as a parody of bad posts or is sincere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is the kind of headline I am tired of seeing.

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, > we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it.

</comment><comment><USER45> While this is true for long time readers, there are new readers on this website every single day. Perhaps someone hasn't learned about the Dunning- Kruger effect and learns something new. Perhaps the point that he wants to make (I think) doesn't come through, he wants comments to be more then short stubs, comments that really make a point.

</comment><comment><USER46> Oh no. Is Hacker News going to start down the ever-descending death spiral of angst that made parts of reddit so unbearable to me (until the angst became a self-fulfilling prophecy)?

Many of these classes of comments are fairly reasonable in many cases (as discussed in the rest of the comments here), and I really hope that we're not about to begin the cycle of "I hate this place, it used to be so much better" that seems to start up when Internet communities mature when I just got here.

<comment><USER25> Yes.

Before HN, Reddit.

Before Reddit, K5.

Before K5, Slashdot.

Before Slashdot, Usenet and Listserv.

Before Usenet and Listserv, every community ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> As the original author of [citation needed], I quite agree. That was designed by myself to originally ensure that Wikipedians sourced their material, not as a way to win arguments!

</comment><comment><USER48> Comments that annoy me most (mostly because they are blatant attempts at fishing for karma):

"I would use this but it's in Javascript, there are better languages like X and Y."

"The web is utterly broken, when are people going to realize this?"

"For all these years I ignored RMS/Assange/etc. but now I know he was right."

Comments with the words "nail" and "hammer".

</comment><comment><USER49> Telling us how ridiculously little time it took you to build something cool. Most of the time I enjoy what you built, but telling me that you did it "over the weekend" cheapens it for me. Are you bragging, trying to excuse it's shortcomings, or lying? All three most likely. Unless you're a team of people in a weekend competition [1], I'd skip the part about only caring to put a couple days into it before showing it off.

[1] [http://garage48.org/blogger/list-of-projects-built-over- week...](http://garage48.org/blogger/list-of-projects-built-over-weekend-in- garage48-helsinki-2011)

</comment><comment><USER50> My least favorite—and all too popular—comment is the classic "How [or Why] did this make the front page of HN?" I have gotten to the point where I almost expect to see it near the top of every comments thread.

In fairness, the HN guidelines are pretty clear about this one:

 _Please don 't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did._

</comment><comment><USER51> Part of the problem here is that any open [web] community will eventually contain more people who've joined after you than people who joined before you. Consequently, stuff you learned long ago is still new and interesting to the majority of the population.

I had a interesting discussion with @ColinWright a few months back about how you might design a forum based separate cohorts for each time period in which people joined, and on scoring each post separately within each cohort - if I had a few months to spare I would love to try building & launching that. Sadly, I don't.

</comment><comment><USER52> In general terms HN manages to maintain a very high signal to noise ratio. This is a credit to pg, the rules he created as well as active HN participants. If you have spent any time at all on USENET you know exactly what I am talking about.

HN is always interesting to read. You can learn a lot from people posting on a variety of subjects while always tending to return to the core tech mission of the site. I enjoy this aspect a lot. And, yes, things go off in tangents sometimes yet HN has proven to self correct.

I don't really understand the focus on these comments.

</comment><comment><USER53> My favorite is the 'most politicians or CEOs are sociopaths'

I think the psychology of sociopath is complicated enough without the need to assume one who made it to the top is a sociopath.

</comment><comment><USER54> Paul Graham (the site founder) has commented on a type of comment that he thinks is very harmful to the community, but hard to identify by a key phrase: the "middlebrow dismissal." He wrote,

"The problem with the middlebrow dismissal is that it's a magnet for upvotes. The 'U R a fag's get downvoted and end up at the bottom of the page where they cause little trouble. But this sort of comment rises to the top. Things have now gotten to the stage where I flinch slightly as I click on the 'comments' link, bracing myself for the dismissive comment I know will be waiting for me at the top of the page."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920)

As other readers have noticed, my idea of an interesting water cooler conversation with colleagues is referring to verifiable facts about the external world while checking the reasoning of a submitted article. The Internet is, indeed, mostly about sharing unsupported opinions, as the article kindly submitted here suggests, but I enjoy having my opinions examined by comparing them to facts in the real world, and I try to extend the same favor to the friends I meet here.

</comment><comment><USER55> Personally, I'm tired of comments complaining about HN commenters (not saying author did so, though, those are helpful and non aggressive recommendations).

HN is by far the place on the internet where I find the most insightful comments.

</comment><comment><USER56> [http://xkcd.com/1053/](http://xkcd.com/1053/)

For each of these irritants, perhaps someone has just recently discovered them and is keen to appear knowledgable the next time the debate comes up.

If I had my way, a comment that matched something like /^This\\./ would result in an immediate hellban. I don't know why this particular habit annoys me so much.

</comment><comment><USER57> It would be nice to have a sort of an "argument" database, so instead of putting the argument in the comment again, you could just link to the database. Then computers could filter these arguments automatically for the people who already know it. Maybe the arguments could be parametrized, to make the connection to the problem at hand more obvious.

Ah well.. a man can only dream.

<comment><USER58> A lot of arguments are repeated endlessly on the Internet, and elsewhere. I've often thought that someone should build a graph database for this. Then maybe we could move past the basic argument and go a little deeper.

<comment><USER57> I agree. There was Debatepedia ([http://dbp.idebate.org](http://dbp.idebate.org)), but it seems dead. Unless the arguments are in sort of machine readable format, any filtering will be difficult. The problem is the format - I believe AI researchers still struggle with that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I used to dislike the "this is why I love Hacker News" comment. It's not so prevalent anymore, but it was very common 3 or 4 years ago.

And while we're on the subject, I dislike the use of the word _sure_ on nerd sites. I say nerd sites because I haven't seen it (ab)used so much on other sites or movies.

Basically, people say "I'm sure" to mean "I think" and "I'm pretty sure" to mean "I kind of think."

I just went to reddit and the fist thread on my front page had 3 instances of "pretty sure." I'm pretty sure it's the most common phrase and it gets posted thousands of times per day in contexts where the user is not sure at all.

<comment><USER27> You don't see either as often here as certain other sites, but two more that are invariably abused: "Most people..." and "You've obviously never..." The former is almost always code for "Most right-thinking people who fit into my personal worldview, which I am terrified of breaking...", while the latter is "I've got some domain knowledge here which on face value contradicts the precise words you've just written. It therefore follows that it's impossible for me to be wrong about..." and is more often than not followed by a demonstration of exactly how wrong it is possible to be.

Any time I see either of these, it's end-of-thread-time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Is this really relevant to Hacker News? What does it have to do with hacking?

</comment><comment><USER60> Another thing that annoys me is people citing articles using numbered references beginning with 0 ([0][1]...)

I can _maybe_ understand the point of using numbered references like this (although honestly it barely affects readability having links inline) but you're not a computer. It just comes across as pretentious when you start counting at 0 as though you're referencing an array of references or something. We get that you Know Computers.

</comment><comment><USER61> Meh. Not so much.

The problem here is the difference between a conversation and a mob of emotional ranters (And I plead guilty to being in the latter category many times). Most of these comments are meant to provide _context_.

The author seems to forget that it's much better to have a reasonable conversation in context than it is to simply wander far afield on whatever the outrage of the day is. Correlation does not equal context. Companies are there to provide shareholder value. Google doesn't owe you anything. And so on. Yes, these can be throwaway catchphrases (bumper stickers), but hell, I'd rather have the usual half-dozen bumper stickers and then talk reasonably about something that try to un-fuck a conversation built of some bullshit fallacy with somebody talking very emotionally about things about which they aren't fully informed.

We make the mistake over and over again of rewarding emotional content, not useful content. I'd argue this post is a prime example of that. The reason the same phrases come back again and again is that we continue to make the same cognitive mistakes again and again. Ignoring that won't make it go away.

</comment><comment><USER62> > What comments bother you the most?

How about you do one for story submissions? #1 on the list can be ones whose titles are link-baiting "N Xs that Y" types.

<comment><USER15> Also smugbait 'Why you will (do something that's likely to become popular)' and the imperious 'Begin/stop doing something right now'. Yes, those headlines do get my attention. In a way that makes me wish to slap the writer for their lack of manners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> What comments am I tired of seeing, you ask?

This one:

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

If you want to argue against surveillance, please do it with your words instead of just going "Well Benjamin Franklin said..."

I'm not saying don't quote him or use his arguments in yours, but simply quoting a man who has been dead for hundreds is not an argument.

<comment><USER64> I think that's perfectly valid. Sometimes a dead guy can make an argument better than I can and it's better to quote him than rephrase it in my own words and pretend I'm insightful. This does however mean that I'm supposed to respond to criticism of the content of the quote since I agree with it.

<comment><USER63> I agree with it too, and yes it's insightful. I think the key thing missing though is anything more to explain why you feel that way - as you say, you need to respond to criticism of the content of the quote :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I'll go with people who read your full paragraph, find the not quite 100% perfect analogy in the 5th most important point, and worry it like a terrier with a chew toy

These people should be shot in the face with a double barrel shotgun.

(You may now commence to argue over whether or not both barrels are really necessary )

</comment><comment><USER66> Definitely sick of seeing [citation needed]

Sometimes discussion boards need to have opinions on them and not just facts, IMO!

</comment><comment><USER67> 'Leaky abstractions': I think its the wrong question if an abstraction leaks or not; any abstraction is leaky by definition, an abstraction is created by omitting details that are not relevant to the analysis, with the wish to extract the essence; The right question is if the abstraction is relevant or not.

Wikipedia says:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction) "Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying essence of a mathematical concept, removing any dependence on real world objects with which it might originally have been connected, and generalizing it so that it has wider applications or matching among other abstract descriptions of equivalent phenomena."

</comment><comment><USER68> Just another example of the overzealous moderation on Stack Overflow to close any and every question ever asked because it in some way managed to be useful to anyone but their narrow minded view of what constitutes a programming question that didn't fit their formula of Q&A.

</comment><comment><USER4> > "If you're not paying for it, you're the product"

This also sometimes misses the point. EG, when YouTubers complain about being cut off from monetising they're not the customer, nor the product. Google is the customer, choosing whether to buy the product or not.

</comment><comment><USER69> If you start getting annoyed enough to post about it it's usually a sign to take a break.

<comment><USER70> How about a new site to rekindle the nostalgia when HN was small..?

<comment><USER71> Let's make /r/TrueHackerNews on reddit!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> This would be the kind of comment the author hates...but isn't "If you're not paying for it, you're the product" a fallacy as well ? Paying for something is orthogonal to being a part of what's sold to to someone else. For instance newspapers/magazines cost a price but still "sell" their audience to advertisers.

And yes, I love communities nitpicking news items, because it's not as if the internet is in lack of discussion boards, and seeing different approaches on the same items is so interesting.

<comment><USER73> That statement is not a fallacy. Assuming a product is made by a business that hopes to become profitable, if the users aren't paying for it then what other business reason can there be to having users at all?

Your example doesn't support the argument since it just states that if users pay for something it doesn't mean that they aren't also the product.

So it is possible to pay for something and be part of the product, to pay for something and not be a part of the product, and to not pay something and be a part of the product but not possible to not pay for something and not be a part of the product.

<comment><USER72> > _but not possible to not pay for something and not be a part of the > product._

I'll reuse a newspaper example fo simplicity. An ad company might pay to reach some portion of the audience (for instance the female worker segment between 18 and 30). But you don't control who will actually accesses the paper, and the 5 years old boy using it to craft paper boats is not in the target and just happens to use the product.

A company doesn't have to monetize 100% of their user base, and it might not want to for any reason. There is no binding forcing a user of something to be on some side of a product/not product fence. It can be neither, ot can be both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> This.

<comment><USER75> +1

<comment><USER47> The above two comments need to be added to his list.

<comment><USER76> they are already in his list :)

<comment><USER47> Oops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> What about "this is not redit" or "who changed the title?" (shouldn't someone change this title to just "Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing"?)

</comment><comment><USER78> Good summary: This article sums up some of the comments that annoy me too, but not because the comments is wrong or inherently annoying, but because the comment is simply incomplete. For example, "Correlation is not causation" is one of my more favourite sayings, but one should explain what was wrong in that case too.

I, also, get annoyed with comments that are far too long for the point being made - go write an article in response if you want. Expletives are also a no go.

</comment><comment><USER79> Razors. Don't made vague references to some obscure razor you looked up on wikipedia and force me to do the same. Use the words in your head to explain what you mean.

</comment><comment><USER80> So we should eliminate any methodolgy which ensures accurate communication and the burden should be placed on anyone who wishes to challenge an assertion? At least it's evident this isn't an academic forum, however any forum can be thought of as a "debate team".

People ought to be held to some standard of rigor if they decide to make an assertion. For me, that standard starts with the original assertion, not with someone who decides to question it.

</comment><comment><USER81> Comments that focus on a single ambiguous phrasing or definition, then begins a giant chain of people pedantically arguing about technicalities.

Can we please discuss ideas and concepts?

</comment><comment><USER82> The comment that gets my anal beads in a knot the most: "Citation please" or "Can you link to a study that.." etc.

Sometimes people (myself included) just like to comment. Fart out a completely subjective opinion without worrying about the little army of pedantic party poopers coming along to spoil the fun.

It's just a discussion board after all. Must everything be quite so serious. all. the. time. ?

<comment><USER38> Is it necessary to make groundless claims all the time? The reaction you are seeing has a context of serious subject matter. If you want silly disposable comments, try Reddit

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Of all the cliches, I've hated "This" ever since I started seeing it on other forums years ago.

The only one that bugs me more is "tl;dr". People have become terrified of writing long text, so they apologize beforehand. Either stand by your long text or shorten it so it's not long. I skip every "tl;dr" summary. It adds nothing.

</comment><comment><USER84> The one comment I truly get tired of seeing, is those that bring back the old flame wars over the definition of the word "free", and if one license is "free'er" than the other. Of all the classic flame wars, this one still lurks around and makes noise once every few months, and is equally boring each time.

</comment><comment><USER85> I know this is off topic, but is anyone else annoyed that JavaScript is required for this page, or that the text is too small, or that the color scheme clashes, or that it requires Facebook connect, or any other surface level detail that provides a soap box for me to rant about the personal axe I have to grind?

</comment><comment><USER86> I upvoted this because I agree but the tone of the OP is another thing I don't want to see in the comments.

</comment><comment><USER87> One thing that I really love about HN is how damn contrarian everyone always tries to be. This is always good when you can keep low the number of trolls.

If you don't like other people opinions then you can always do Mathematics. The paradise where other people opinions don't care.

</comment><comment><USER88> This is not criticism, but just an idea I had while ago while writing similar articles: Maybe only people read this who only consider the gain you get from reading their comment. Probably people who don't care about the other users at all will not read it.

</comment><comment><USER89> Explaining a company's actions by "the legal duty to maximize shareholder value" \- Since this can be used to explain any action by a company, it explains nothing. Not to mention the validity of statement is controversial.

</comment><comment><USER90> I'm actually quite happy that the list contains these items. Yes, when overused they are annoying (like everything else) but by itself they are all (except the "general internet comment") valid.

</comment><comment><USER91> Wrong. Correlation is premature optimization, this is just a anecdotal strawman hominen Dunning-Kruger headline that needs citation. By the way you should have done it in Go.js on Arduino.

</comment><comment><USER13> On balance I disagree with most of Ken's observations, though not always or in all cases.

 _A useful comment is one which moves the conversation forward. A non-useful comment is one which serves NO useful purpose._

 _Correlation is not causation._ This is useful where a naive correlation is shown without causal mechanism. It's _not_ useful when a correlation is shown _and_ there's a strong causal link known. [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=552:_Correla...](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=552:_Correlation)

 _If you 're not paying for it, you're the product._ I disagree that that this is useless, though it's not necessary to point it out without some justification.

 _" the legal duty to maximize shareholder value"_ Agree. Companies have numerous stakeholders. The "shareholder value" proposition was birthed by Milton Friedman and given a solid kick into the public eye by Jack Welch, who later called it "the world's dumbest idea": [http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/06/26/the- orig...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/06/26/the-origin-of- the-worlds-dumbest-idea-milton-friedman/)

 _[citation needed]_ Appropriate when someone makes an extraordinary, unsubstantiated, and difficult-to-source claim. No, this isn't Wikipedia, but it _is_ a high quality, high s/n discussion site. Not appropriate where source is trivially confirmed or when intent is strictly snarky.

 _Premature optimization_ Depends on technical context. If substantiated, it's a fair gripe.

 _Dunning-Kruger effect_ Sadly, far too often appropriate, IMO.

 _Betteridge 's law of headlines_ This is most often a meta-commentary: the story posted is vague and poorly conceived, it really shouldn't have made the front page. Increasingly I'm flagging such items (but not the Betteridge comments on them).

 _Logical fallacies_ As with "citation needed": the quality of discourse is served when people _don 't_ take cheap shots or rhetorical evasions. If you're trying to make a point and you're committing obvious logical fallacies, you deserve to be called on it.

 _Cue ... FTFY ..._ Cue: [http://i3.kym- cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/406/282/2b8...](http://i3.kym- cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/406/282/2b8.jpg)

<comment><USER92> "If you're not paying for it, you're the product."

I have to say that I disagree with this meme in general. Google does not sell me (yet, at least) to its advertisers. It sells screen real estate and placed links. Sure, the links are very targeted, and more specific than much (probably not all) advertising that preceded it.

I know that this meme is trying to make a general point, i.e. "there's a hidden cost to using this service", but I think it's overly-general and unnecessarily negative. Many people enjoy newspapers and TV that rely primarily on advertising for their revenue. I actually find Google's sponsored links on their search results to be very helpful on occasion, and at other times I find advertising a problem. Why the tendency to be so dismissive and over-simplify?

I also think that this meme is part of a general trend of finding pithy ways to sound smart without acknowledging that most issues, such as the way web services should be funded, are actually quite complicated.

<comment><USER13> _I have to say that I disagree with this meme in general._

In a broader sense, "if you're not paying for it" falls under the broader rhubric of "understand the philosophy driving the tools you use".

One of the key advantages of using Free Software is that, fundamentally, the development model aligns the interests of the developer with the user. Not perfectly and not always, but in general. Some projects make this explicit, and the Debian Project is among the best-known examples, having a Philosophy, a Constitution, and a Policy, all as explicitly stated documents, detailing what the goals, concerns, and specific actions and rules of the project are.

Contrast with the proprietary software world in which the goal generally is profit maximization, often with short-term interests, and often sacrificing user experience in the process. Some companies avoid the pitfalls of this focus to a greater extent -- Apple has long placed end-user experience above all else, and, though I'm not a particular fan of the result, I can see its appeal especially for less-technical users.

Microsoft, by contrast, has from its beginning a winner-takes-all dominance strategy and had as its key customers OEMs and large businesses. I as an individual user (or developer, or administrator) am well down the priority list. Oracle would be another company whose alignment is often at odds with mine -- and extends to its stewardship of its free software projects (the core of which has largely migrated elsewhere, somewhat predictably). And yes, other free software companies can get confounded missions -- I'd classify much of the issues I encounter with Red Hat and GNOME as being fundamental to the mission and goals of the projects.

In the Web space, there are a relative handful of successful models:

\- Amateur hour: not in the sense of "unpolished and crude", but literally "a work of love". Something done by an individual (or sometimes small group) out of passion. Often surprisingly good, but intrinsically limited in both scope and technical capability absent some larger base of support or organization.

\- Propaganda: Whether it's selling a specific good (as opposed to mass advertising) or a philosophy, this is _somebody with a message_. H/N falls somewhat under this category.

\- Public service: Sites such as Wikipedia. Often donor or sponsor supported. One way of scaling amateur hour.

\- Commerce: Directly selling some good or product. Can still lead to a significant informational / conversational role, e.g., Craigslist or Amazon forums.

\- Advertising: An aggregator of eyeballs. In which case, the particulars of the user base are of interest to the site (and its advertisers). And there's also often a very conscious effort to water down content to appeal to the greatest number. Both of these can set up perverse incentives which tend to drive down the ultimate value and quality of the site. Google has historically balanced the interests of its users (e.g., the product) and its customers (the advertisers), though I'm seeing a bit of a drift lately. Among the challenges: advertising and marketing teams increase in prominence within the company, chasing out the technical and user-focused talent (e.g., Marissa Meyer). Though she's landed at a company which is much, much further down the "provide benefit to advertisers" scale.

Then there's the additional issue that state surveillance (and hacker communities) have a significant interest in such data troves.

One of the advantages to being pithy is that there's an implicitly referenced and much longer argument which takes too long to type.

So, include above by default in "If you're not paying for it, you're the product."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Can someone rewrite this article in Go?

</comment><comment><USER94> The temptation to reply with one of those was great. But I resisted. Nice Post :)

</comment><comment><USER95> No need to read this -- just another Buzzfeed post.

</comment><comment><USER96> What grates me is people that use "order of magnitude" for everything. It's fine if you're talking about different kinds of memory access or the acidity of some lake due to acid rain. But writing phrases like "Ever since I started biking to work, I feel an order of magnitude better" just makes you look pretentious, to me.

Of course this is more of an aesthetic gripe rather than a gripe with some rhetorical device.

</comment><comment><USER97> I'm tired of seeing the errors that prompt most of those comments. The comments themselves are often very much legitimate.

</comment><comment><USER98> > "What comments bother you the most?"

Mindless evangelism of proprietary technologies, disguised as an attempt at an insightful comment (microsoft's mvps and evangelists are particularly guilty of this).

<comment><USER27> Emphasis on the "mindless". I'm horribly spoilt in that I'm always hideously disappointed when cool tech comes along that's not open source, but there's some _very_ interesting work going on behind closed doors that is worth evangelising.

<comment><USER38> Such work is not worth _evangelizing._ It is worth technical discussion. There is a difference.

<comment><USER27> If the work's going on behind closed doors, the technical discussion won't happen without some kind of evangelism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> I have _never_ seen the 7 of 9 of those comments here. "FTFY" stuff is from reddit.

<comment><USER4> Wait, what?

You're the product ([https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22you're+the+...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22you're+the+product%22&start=0))

Betteridge ([https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22betteridge%...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22betteridge%22&start=0))

Correlation is not causation ([https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22correlation...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22correlation+is+not+causation%22&start=0))

Maximise shareholder value is trickier, but here are three (and there are many mnay more) ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5001366](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5001366)) ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262187](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262187)) ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6045044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6045044))

Citation needed (scroll through the list a bit) ([https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22citation+ne...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22citation+needed%22&start=0))

Dunning Kruger ([https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=dunning+k...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=dunning+kruger&start=0))

FTFY ([https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=ftfy&star...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=ftfy&start=0))</comment></comment>