Open-letter: Did hackernews become hateboard?

48 points

14 years ago

Anytime I come to hackernews, reading about a new startup, a new programming language (e.g. go), or a new concept (e.g. dotsies) to name a few, all i see is negative comments. We got our fair shares of them for our startup too.

I came to this conclusion, let me know if it makes any sense.

When there is something new, haters comment on it almost immediately. Sometimes, if you look at the time of the entry, you know, it's almost impossible to form any kind of opinion in that little time that the hater hated the whole thing already.

Sad part is, (inserting my analysis) if anyone actually has a few good things to say, they pass,

1) because then they would also be attacked by the same folks who just hated the original content. Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish kind of thing.

2) (scientific/logical/rational) quality of hating content is so low (sometimes downright ridiculous), it makes smart ones refuse to take part in such thread. You know this, when that weird dude comments on your facebook status, makes everyone else dissipate.

This situation makes hackernews a place where everything is mostly hated, not renowned or embraced. A few years back, hackernews was definitely not a hateboard - it was a great source of high-quality information.

These days I come here saying to myself "let's see how much sh*t this will receive on hackernews". It makes me sad, seeing one more platform that I respect, is taken away from me.

Do you agree? Or did I happen to see the bad ones? (http://d.pr/1wCv http://d.pr/j614) If yes, how do you think this can change ? Not asking for how we can fight against, "i know it all" guy, "every new thing is worse than what i know" dude; if what I'm saying is true, there are ways that system can fight to balance negatives and positives, maybe like stackoverflow does.

What do you think?

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