>Is something happening to the quality of this community lately? And if so, is there anything we can or should do about it?
Yup. No way to collect data to back it up, however. I do see more comments down-voted to the very bottom of threads lately.
I don't think calling PG an ass is indicative of a loss in quality, however. It is indicative of abrasiveness. Is he an ass? What was the reason for calling him an ass? Was there evidence given that could substantiate the claim? I mean, maybe there is a good reason to call him an ass. The internet is kind of abrasive, people are more opinionated and bigger jerks than they are in real life. I don't think this is a bad thing, it helps to stimulate discussion.
What we can do, as a community, is go through a checklist:
What is the claim made?
Is it a ridiculous claim?
If it isn't ridiculous, is well substantiated?
If it isn't substantiated, is it purposefully inflammatory?
(The difference between stupid and malicious).
Down-vote or up-vote accordingly.
Anecdotally, I just read an entire thread about whether 'nice guys' finish first or last. No clue whether it would have happened 3 years ago, but it is a very shallow topic.
I think the bigger issue is a proliferation of shallow discussions.
Reading this thread for the first time, it looks to me like (1) everybody is fairly well behaved by the standards of an online forum and (2) Chris is probably using more inflammatory language than anybody else.
So maybe one the problems is that at this point, he's no longer getting the deference from other community members that he feels he's still owed?
There are enough voices on the net these days that we don't have to put up with this kind of attitude anymore. This sort of stuff was "just the way things were" when we were teenagers visiting forums ran by teenagers. I don't know if the guy is right or wrong, I've just got better things to do than to sift through all the vitriol to get to whatever point he is trying to make.
You all are involved in like a 100 comment thread about his tone rather than the content, so that should maybe suggest that he didn’t get his point across well.
I think he made a valid contribution. He is pushing that we keep comments civil and useful. The comments he mentioned do neither and drag down the discussion and promote discord in the community.
I'm not sure why his comment warrants such a hostile reaction when it is in the interest of the community that people engage in self-moderation and policing to keep it healthy.
Additionally, even if the attacks on Pogue's personality granted it credence, I personally feel it doesn't belong here and isn't useful for any of us to spend our time as if we're judges in a tech scene popularity contest.
The more interesting discussion is about how this could be relevant to Yahoo and their attempt to change direction. Or if this type of move is a harmful trend for the Times, such as how they lost Nate Silver.
Yes, it is elitist, but judging someone as being not up to the standards of a community is not the same as calling them subhuman.
As for the conclusion, the argument he's making is that he has seen evidence of a bias against making these harsh judgements, and it has led to the destruction of valuable internet communities.
You could have made an awesome point but you ruined it. I agree that there's been a decline but the examples you pull out to support it don't help you much. The comments on the young girl who died were deplorable but I think that's a very rare case and I wouldn't say that happens often around here. But even that doesn't hurt your point as much as going after Dextorious like you did. You make a good case for him being a great example of the problem but this article comes off as you being disgruntled by him and going off on a personal attack. I don't think it's right to name names like that unless the person being named has a certain degree of notoriety. You could have left his name out of this, still used the quotes, maybe pull out some more quotes from other users exhibiting the same pattern and then this article would look far more like the commentary I'm sure you meant it to be rather than Mr. Siegler getting pissed off at and attacking someone. I'm disappointed. I'm not disappointed in your opinion, because there's a lot of truth to it but I'm disappointed in the way you approached it. Hopefully most of us will see past the flaws and really dig deeper into your real point. Other than that, I thought you were right on.
Wow, his second response is really demeaning. Or maybe it's just a shock to me after hanging out in really friendly communities (Elixir etc.) for a while...
Can't speak for OP, but that's probably it. After the whole cluster that blew up around him the community seems very split in their opinion of him now.
You are taking comments made by a few people and claiming the entire community makes them. There were eight other responses to your comment excluding mine, all disagreeing with you in some way and doing so politely and largely dispassionately, but you focus on the single simplistic one that called him scum. One person could be described as hating him as you suggested, the other eight are hardly that passionate (nine, including me).
So yes, you are putting words in peoples' mouths by describing the community as being voiced by the one instead of the many.
> But kindly don't burn the community down on your way out, with self-serving proclamations
This is him complaining about what the community is doing. The community is free to do what it wants, and he is making some sort of statement as if he owns the community in some way, and therefore can decide what is or is not "burning it down".
Convincing other people to leave the closure community (IE, burning it down) is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if there really are problems with it.
Complaining about what the community is doing, is him making the same mistake that he is complaining about other people doing.
how egotistical is this guy to assume that we should play by his rules, because he doesn't like the outcome of the game.
First its with people leaving his company so obviously its our fault, now its with people that comment on his blog. Its simple if you don't want criticism don't write anything, or if you do want to write controversial things then grow a thicker skin. Lets be real for a minute. People are attacking him because he is saying something controversial and he can't take it.
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