Sometimes I really wonder about how some commenters on Hacker News extrapolate things like this. My guess is that someone feels badly for the wrongly accused (which is quite understandable), and wants to do anything in his/her power to defend him, like bringing down comments like yours that may reveal any wrongdoing or mistakes on the website creator's part.
What do you think is the goal of the commenter's behavior on hackernews? Is the platform big enough to be target of low-effort karma farming, and does karma matter enough here to be sold?
Wow! Thanks for replying. I have already been down-voted once for what I posted and was beginning to think my comment was a huge mistake.
As hackers we get trained to look at details. So I was hoping others on "Hacker News" would understand where I was coming from. It's not about right or wrong. It's not about ego. I just thought I could help.
Thanks for responding. I actually made the account because I haven't commented on hacker news before though I read it all the time. I just feel strongly about it so I had to write a response.
the "community" on hacker news has said limor (ladyada) fried is not a "real engineer" or she has help and doesn't really do engineering, or she is not a real person, or she is just a marketer, or it's not really her code, amongst other attacks anytime her work appears here on hacker news.
the same attacks on hacker news on naomi wu have been said to other women who make things, share their projects, and are online, including limor, on hacker news.
before you hit "add comment" - what is the goal here hacker news community?
Really, because of resentment? Really, sometimes I think people read way too much into people's commentary. How do these petty war of words make it to the top of Hacker News anyway.
Not long ago, there was an alleged sexual assault at a tech conference. Rather than going to the police, the alleged victim blogged about it, including the alleged perpetrator's name in the post, which hit the top of HN before being removed. The same pattern was visible there -- most of the highest-point comments were along the lines of "this is serious if true, so go to the police, not the internet" and "let's wait for an investigation before destroying the guy's reputation".
On the other hand, when a magazine was shown to have lifted content and then told the original author she should be grateful for the portfolio assist, HN did pile on. In that case, the evidence of wrongdoing was clear and widespread: an admission by the publisher that she'd lifted content, links to the original which was clearly older, and links to content lifted from other publications. This led to the opposite pattern in comments, with evidence being highly upvoted and "let's not jump to conclusions" sitting at only a few points.
I don't think "sympathy for small business" is the driving force. I think it's a focus on evidence rather than narrative (which happens to help us avoid that particular cognitive bias.) We are, after all, Hacker News, and the hacker ethos is one of making stuff that works, A/B testing, and following the evidence.
Why has this relatively minor youtube feature change dredged up such significant vitriol and conspiracy-adjacent rhetoric in the hacker news comments?
Skimming all the comments here I'm seeing lots of flaming and hand-wringing. I don't have any actual measures, but to me it feels like significantly more than normal even for an article about a high-profile site/company.
Not the originator, addressing only your question, the hacker news commenting system is a form social media. People are free to comment as they see fit and for reasons that make sense to them, within certain guidelines that don’t appear to apply here. My impression is your comment, and previously theirs, is an airing of grievance. Which is common and par for the course in social media spaces. My intention in commenting is to give a voice to what is typically an unspoken understanding.
Personally, when I see a comment like this I make a mental note about the commenter. I generally avoid them in the future. Yes, the OP did in fact cause some drama, but it also tells me the commenter reacts irrationally. When I do business, I like to do business with those companies that you don't here [sic] about, acting rationally or irrationally. They don't comment about how someone was stirring up drama. And I just realized this was a comment on Hacker News, but hey guess what, that's enough for me.
I don't want to flag stories like this when they don't actually violate the terms of use. But IMHO, there should be some way for users to express the popular "Why is this on Hacker News?" sentiment without cluttering up the comment thread.
Otherwise, we'll just end up with upvoting cabals, and I'd argue that this story is likely to be a prime example of such.
Your post clearly enforces my suspicion that comments on hackernews have increasingly become infected with users who do not know of what they speak, and do not clearly think before they type.
> "The people in Hacker News comments scare me to death..."
Please leave sentiments like this out of your comments. Hacker News is a community you choose to participate in: you are "people in Hacker News comments". Make Hacker News the type of place you want it to be. Post good, substantial comments. Submit articles you think are worth discussing. Leave generalizations of the community out of it.
And again, on a comment asking for someone to actually explain why they're doing this? This is really disappointing, Hacker News is usually a lot more well-behaved than this.
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