One of the critical factors in an aggregation site (or in a consulting relationship for that matter) is the ability for participants to step outside the norms. To disagree.
HN has a better record of this than say, reddit. That's why I stay here. There's some opportunity for people with radically different opinions to meet and share. To the extent that the board supports that, I'm a big fan.
But to the OPs point, you can say the same thing different ways and get different results. It's not about information. It's about emotional impact.
So you end up doing this little dance whenever you'd like to correct somebody. There are lots of tactics, but it all boils down to presenting information to somebody they're not going to like in a format that's easily digestible.
To some degree, that's just being civil -- treating people like you would if you were talking to them at a bar. But that's time intensive and most times I know I don't think it's worth the effort. Folks will argue with you ad infinitum anyway, and that's best-case. So you stick to short, catchy, terse comments that mix in a little information goodness. People upvote the comment thinking it's the information, but it's really the emotional impact of the message. It's the presentation, stupid. The content is not nearly as important.
HN has a better record of this than say, reddit. That's why I stay here. There's some opportunity for people with radically different opinions to meet and share. To the extent that the board supports that, I'm a big fan.
But to the OPs point, you can say the same thing different ways and get different results. It's not about information. It's about emotional impact.
So you end up doing this little dance whenever you'd like to correct somebody. There are lots of tactics, but it all boils down to presenting information to somebody they're not going to like in a format that's easily digestible.
To some degree, that's just being civil -- treating people like you would if you were talking to them at a bar. But that's time intensive and most times I know I don't think it's worth the effort. Folks will argue with you ad infinitum anyway, and that's best-case. So you stick to short, catchy, terse comments that mix in a little information goodness. People upvote the comment thinking it's the information, but it's really the emotional impact of the message. It's the presentation, stupid. The content is not nearly as important.