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Comment by petercooper | Hacker News Reader

I'd cut it right back to people merely being weird and antagonistic for no reason. It's easier to realize sometimes you're just the latest random target of a touchy, unstable human animal and drive away as if in a safari park.

We had a woman come up to us on vacation and say our 2 year old daughter was an "evil little thing" merely for chattering away while eating lunch. I said nothing and just grinned at her until she popped a vein and stormed off. There are plenty of antagonistic oddballs out there, just grin at 'em (or don't reply to their e-mails) until they go away or start being civil and rational.

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First off, what happened to you and your daughter is just disturbing. It's a great example of offensively manipulative and disagreeable people, as well as how to deal with them effectively. People like that actually do exist, and knowing how to deal with them is beneficial.

The less obvious but much larger problem is simply miscommunication. It happens all the time, and the limitations of written text only compound the problem. When you think about the tiny fraction of a percent of the human population that qualifies as "great writers" over history, and the fact that they often rewrote their best works multiple times before publication, it's easy to see how our quick text writing (like this discussion forum) is pretty much doomed to constant miscommunication and increased hostility until things spiral out of control.

I don't claim to know you, but for years I've read the thing you've posted here on HN, and you've always seem like a good and reasonable person to me. None the less, I can think of a time when you and I interacted, and some strange miscommunication took place. It was regarding the decor of the Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo. If you and I had been discussing it over a beer, I'm sure the miscommunication would have never taken place. I'm certain topic doesn't matter that much to either of us, and in person, we'd mostly agree on it, or at worse, agree to disagree in a friendly manner. That exchange of ours has stayed with me; it's a personal reminder to try being more clear in the things I write.

None the less, I see the same sort of thing constantly on HN and everywhere else. A poorly worded statement, misinterpreted out of context, spiraling the discussion out of control in some pointless, heated, and in some ways harmful direction.

Miscommunication happens to all of us, even when we're good people with good intentions. For the record, I'm sorry we disagreed about the decor of some hotel, but looking back at it, it's hilarious and it's a good lesson in how one poorly worded statement can make a pointless mess.

None the less, I can think of a time when you and I interacted, and some strange miscommunication took place. It was regarding the decor of the Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo. If you and I had been discussing it over a beer, I'm sure the miscommunication would have never taken place.

I surely wasn't implying I have a total lack of crazy ;-)

Crucially, it was a brief disagreement and not one either of us wanted to spur on. You're right, miscommunication happens. Backing away from trivial misunderstandings, as we did, is the smart move IMHO. Sometimes explaining one's motivations or responses can cause a cascade of miscommunications that makes things worse.

The sad part comes when this natural bump and grind of discourse spirals, as you say, into lengthy, heated grudge matches that result in lasting antagonism (although without this, I doubt Usenet would have lasted so long ;-)). That is what's really worth avoiding. The natural bump and grind of textual discourse? It keeps things interesting, if we let it.

Everybody has their moments, myself included. Even the "public" types who always try to carefully word everything have their moments.

I agree with you about how the presentation of differing views is what keeps things interesting, but the ability to realize a discussion has gone off the rails and ought to be dropped (rather than a "clarification" that makes the situation worse), is often in short supply.

Pre-web Usenet (1980's and early 90's) along with open mailing lists and BBS's were interesting and a lot can be learned from the interactions. Initially, there was a barrier to entry, namely it took some technical skill just to connect and participate, so there was a degree of self selection happening. As things progressed, the barrier to entry decreased (the earliest being university students gaining access), and discussions changed accordingly. The ever receding barrier to entry to text communication enabling the masses (for the most part) to take part in discussions has continued to change the nature of discussions. The only people left out of discussions these days are the poor, since having a computer and connection really are privileges of the comparatively wealthier people/nations on the planet.

Like yourself, I've been watching the gradual changes for decades, and I think they are just fascinating. As always, we've got to take the good with the bad, and not all of the changes are good, but it does remain interesting.

I don't interact much with others, so possibly, I'm too indifferent, but over time I've learned how my own opinion isn't particularly important, and I can live happily without voicing it. Like your strategy of just grinning in silence, I'm perfectly content without "winning" a confrontational disagreement. The tougher question is, would discussions still be interesting if there were more people like you and me around? The people who quickly say, "this is going all wrong, let's drop it and move on." --As you mentioned, part of the "fun" of Usenet was watching others have it out.

From the stuff I've read of his over the last decade, PG has put a whole lot of thought into the matter of discussions, and has done his best to formulate HN so the discussions here are beneficial. In spite of the growth in popularity of this site, it still mostly works as intended. Though I've also thought about it for a long time, I've come to the conclusion that I may not be smart enough to design a "better" forum.

As much as I hate to admit it, a "better" forum might be a whole lot less entertaining.

You bring back memories. There was a fellow associated with Dartmouth who called himself Archimedes Plutonium and would hijack many of the mail groups with what most classified as bizarre and off topic posts. IMHO, his posts never generated useful discussion (they were always off-topic) but instead caused a lot of spam in the newsgroups. It was about this time that the term "don't feed the trolls" became popular :)

I see the same sort of thing constantly on HN and everywhere else. A poorly worded statement, misinterpreted out of context, spiraling the discussion out of control in some pointless, heated, and in some ways harmful direction.

This is why the last few months I just stopped commenting here on HN, and quit a lot of other forums/communities. My communication skills just don't seem to be solid enough to help me avoid unintended conflict.

It isn't your communication skills. There's no natural filter or limiting in online forums.

People who would normally be reigned in socially, or simply excluded from conversations have nothing stopping them from spiralling conversations out of control. This is not an easy problem to solve - we've been trying to solve it for the last 30 or so years.

>This is why the last few months I just stopped commenting here on HN, and quit a lot of other forums/communities. My communication skills just don't seem to be solid enough to help me avoid unintended conflict.

What the fuck do you mean? Do you imply that all of us are ignorant buffoons that cannot read the actual intent behind your poorly worded (for lack of communication skills) comments?

I've never been that much insulted in my entire life!!!

(/s)

Chris, I don't know how old you are or how many decades of experience you have with open discussions, particularly open technical discussions, but my advice is still simple, "Don't let it bother you because it doesn't really matter."

Technical discussions can often be contentious, but often, they are contentious for the "right" reason, people care. When people actually care about building the "best" possible code, emotions run high, even though such unrestrained enthusiasm has substantial drawbacks. As you already know far too well, many thrive on the competition and conflict as much as they thrive on getting things right.

As Peter wonderfully points out, none of us can claim "A total lack of crazy," or for that matter, "A total lack of asshole." On top of these all too human failings, we also have our moments when we just get it all wrong. It happens. Roll with it. Let it go, but learn from it.

Good communication takes practice. Ask grellas sometime about the effort he put into learning to write well. It shows. He wasn't born the skill he has. He learned it. If you stop communicating, you're robbing yourself of a chance to practice.

As for me, I rarely post on HN due to my health not being very good. I deal with chronic pain, and often it hurts too much to type. As you might imagine, when I'm hurting a lot, I can often be less than pleasant company, and it's best for everyone for me to just remain silent. For me, typing comes at a cost. It means I'll be more sore by the end of the day. The cost has taught me something important; the things I say should make a difference, but often, my opinions don't really matter.

Treebeard: "You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say." -- J.R.R. Tolkien

> &but often, they are contentious for the "right" reason, people care.

Perhaps. There's also the fact that people are communicating via typed messages, which are signal-deficient. People may be using a language which is not their first language.

People do not follow Postel's Law: "be conservative in what you send, liberal in what you accept" - saving that flaming response to draft and sending a few hours later would help.

Some online communities have been entirely too content with flaming and have done little to stop it.

And, I say this gently, some people just don't have the social communication skills they need.

Sorry to hear about painful typing - that sucks.

Thank you so much for taking the time to type that.

"None of us can claim a total lack of crazy or total lack of asshole" really hit the nail on the head.

And I'll remember "If you stop communicating, you're robbing yourself of a chance to practice." for the rest of my life.

We end to judge people by our own standards, and exptect them to be like us. This is something I've been dealing with a lot, and have noticed other programmers dealing with it, too.

I always have a problem with smiling. I smile a lot, and am generally a happy person. People hate that. They want me to look down, be depressed, and generally be a party-pooper. But I just cant do it. Have even been called names a work because of that.

My daughter is also like that, and usually gets the same treament yours got. And I'd like to apologize for that lady. Don't let that get in the way of having a great time. Fact is, the most fun I have is when I'm out with my girls (wife and daughter) and we just start having fun with whatever is in front of us. Last time we went to fly kites I found two broken kites, and used both to build one. Everyone was looking a me like I'm a nutjob, and even made some comments. But you know what? I gave my daughter that kite and it was he highest flying kite in the whole park!

Like the internet says: "Haters gonna hate". To which I add: "Let them hate while I have a great time, mate."

Some advice from an old journalism professor of mine: no matter what anyone else says or does, just smile and says "Thanks for letting me know how you feel!" It's a difficult person disarming tactic.

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