Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Well, that one's news to me, thanks for pointing it out. Huh. I feel... mildly targeted, actually! We only want positive thoughts now, I guess.

I changed my mind. The speech is great. New graduates should totally listen to it and follow it's extremely relevant advice.



> We only want positive thoughts now, I guess.

Not so! Check out the next sentence: "Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm sorry you felt targeted and promise you it's nothing personal. It's that we're trying for curious conversation, which the rigid-and-generic sort of negativity annihilates. There's not much room for curious response when a comment insists that the world is nothing but a "dog eat dog slugfest".

Btw, I believe that the deeper problem is that it's hard to tell how one's comments are going to come across. Most people underestimate the negativity they're contributing by a good 10x or so, which leads to quite a skew in perception. That could explain, for example, why you felt like I must be telling you to only do happytalk.


OK. The tribe has spoken. No more gloom and doom. I suppose there are other message boards for that. I appreciate the intentional and purposeful moderation here, even if I sometimes strongly disagree with the intent behind it.


I think the more accurate conclusion would be 'make your doom and gloom more interesting'. You can beat just about any of the local rules with interestingness, people do it all the time.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: