[542458]

The Dropbox launch post is a great example of why you shouldn’t take (particularly dismissive) comments here too seriously. (This isn’t to dunk on any of the contributors there - but just a reminder that we’re all fallible and have biases)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

On that note, PG coining “middlebrow dismissal” isn’t a very elaborate comment, but is a term that has entered a few people’s lexicon.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4726248

Both the article and the comments here have some good life info (“I Thought I Would Have Accomplished More Today and Also Before I Was 35”)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24316725

Also, check out the top posts all time, and top comments all time.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[herodotus]

The algolia results are not that accurate unfortunately

[dang]

Correct—those 'top comments' search results are many years out of date because we stopped publishing comment scores many years ago.

We should probably ask Algolia to stop offering that search option for comments.

[542458]

Could you consider showing comment scores once comments are a certain number of days old? Being able to see highly ranked comments across all posts is interesting.

[herodotus]

Thanks for the response, dang. I wish I could list my own comments/submissions ranked by score.

[dang]

If you email [e-mail] I can look it up for you.

[scrollaway]

The parent comment is the one coining the term, not pg.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4726218

[dang]

It was pg's coinage, but I don't know where he first used it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 was the first time on HN, a few weeks before the link you mention. I think he might have introduced it in an essay before that, though.

We use the term 'shallow dismissal' in HN moderation instead—arguably a bit of a euphemistic move, but for moderation purposes it's a lot better to talk about the post than about the person. The word 'shallow' makes that clearer than the word 'middlebrow' does.

[giancarlostoro]

I mean I saw a lot of people saying they can use FTP and this and that but people moved on from FTP to hosting files on other sites back then like RapidShare, MegaUpload and so on. I know I used to share code and projects on RapidShare before it disappeared.

I do agree there are biases and sometimes people miss that they are commenting not from the perspective of the general population. Its nice you can setup ftp and this and that, but the common man has no time or interest for that. They want easy to use. Look at Facebook, the top way to share family photos and even holiday cards. I can only imagine without Facebook we would see way more holiday cards.

[wongarsu]

My top filesharing utility is WhatsApp, or maybe Telegram, both for sending stuff to others and myself. Sure I know how to use an FTP server, operate multiple HTTP servers I can upload to, and have accounts at Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. But for low-risk one-to-one communication the quick solution wins. Back then that might have been Dropbox.

[giancarlostoro]

I’m talking about before WhatsApp existed when they were pitching Dropbox.

[Traster]

I took a look through the Dropbox launch comments. I understand that there's a meme of someone creating something, everyone responding by being dismissive and then it being a massive success. However, reading that comments section, I think it's really quite positive and constructive. Sure, someone says "I could do the same with XYZ" but if you look at all the comments, or even all of the comment of the person providing the alternative, it's an overwhelmingly positive response. If you post your project on HN and someone goes "this is great but how are you going to cope if 10,000 users sign up tomorrow" I think you should be pretty happy.

[PragmaticPulp]

> The Dropbox launch post is a great example of why you shouldn’t take (particularly dismissive) comments here too seriously

This mentality is still thriving on HN

Just yesterday someone complained that Clearview AI would only honor removal requests for California or EU residents.

So of course someone responded that they should just buy some property in California, establish residency, and then they’d be able to complete the request.

[rsync]

"This mentality is still thriving on HN"

Good!

"So of course someone responded that they should just buy some property in California, establish residency, and then they’d be able to complete the request."

I am looking at the name of this website and I see that the name of this website is "hacker news".