[nabla9]

I'm really baffled about this. Maybe I'm from older hacker generation (and I'm also a Finn). I just did not see personal insults going on. I would like to see more neutral discussion about cultural differences (between hackers and nations) and not opinions and own cultural biases stated as normative.

Here is my personal cultural bias:

1. Insulting people personally is not same thing as insulting their ideas or their actions. If someone insults my actions or my ideas, I may get emotional, but I don't take it as an insult. For me it means that I'm being challenged.

2. Cursing is not unprofessional or insulting in itself. Cursing is to be used for emphasis and to get people involved emotionally (good thing). Cursing has its place to signal frustration and get trough people. Too much cursing is like underlining everything.

3. (Anglo American) business culture is not necessarily something to be emulated. Being overly polite invites all kinds of side stepping, passive aggressive behavior and ineffectiveness. I feel that "being professional" is used here as thought terminating cliche.

4. Some hacker cultures can be both fiercely competitive and cooperative at the same time. Being heavily criticized and challenged is part of that process. Kernel hackers compete to get their ideas incorporated into the same codebase. Javascript hackers borrow snippets from each other and do their own things (no need to be as competitive as forking is easier). This might lead to different hacker cultures. What is accepted in one culture is not accepted in other.

5. Management by perkele[1] is management strategy that can be very effective with the 'Shut Up and Show Them the Code' hacker culture.

6. Pacabel may have a point. Younger generations may no be used to their work or behavior being harshly criticized and take it as personal insult. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8089706

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele#Examples...

[aninhumer]

>If someone insults my actions or my ideas, I may get emotional, but I don't take it as an insult.

The fact that people get emotional in response is exactly the problem. Knowing that an insult wasn't technically directed at them doesn't stop them feeling shitty, and being unproductive as a result.

>Younger generations may no be used to their work or behavior being harshly criticized

Younger generations are used to their work being criticised constructively and dispassionately.

[nabla9]

>Knowing that an insult wasn't technically directed at them doesn't stop them feeling shitty, and being unproductive as a result.

Again, this is not culturally universal reaction. In some people and cultures it gets your blood flowing and it encourages you to work harder.

>Younger generations are used to their work being criticised constructively and dispassionately.

Is dispassionate interaction something you should automatically want? I also don't agree that with the constructive criticism and passionate delivery are somehow exclusive.

I don't personally use the language that Linus uses, but I strive in the environment where people are very competitive and compete against each others by engaging personally (both negatively and positively). It's inevitable that we associate some part of our ego into our ideas and work and feel a sting when it's criticized. I love it when I'm right and others are wrong and little hurt when I'm wrong and and get called for it. I assume others feel the same. This does not mean that I am personally attacking or hating people. If someone can't cope with it, I have to find other way to communicate with them of course. But if I'm in good competitive alpha-team where nobody is taking it personally I feel that we should be able to keep our culture and not change just like very PC and non-emotional "professional" team culture should not change if they feel they are in good and productive place.

[kghose]

I think that the overly critical culture of many European nations prevents younger people from trying out or voicing ideas because humans are human and don't like being humiliated , especially in public. This is something I think we should not emulate.

[nabla9]

>overly critical culture of many European nations prevents younger people from trying out or voicing ideas

I don't think this is what is happening here.

>humans are human and don't like being humiliated , especially in public.

This is just the cultural difference I'm talking about. Someone criticizing your work or behavior does not universally signal humiliating you as a person. I acknowledge that this may be so for you personally or in your culture.

[kghose]

Hi nabla9,

I read the bug report thread and that was as professional as I would expect from grownups. I was responding to your statement about anglo-american culture.

I have observed this "it's OK to be direct" motto from some parts of modern Europe and, interestingly for me, Israel.

Everything we interpret depends on our training, but my observation is that this motto is very commonly interpreted to allow rude, condescending and arrogant behavior. I spent a lot of time in India. In this respect correct behavior (as taught to us by our parents) aligns with the Anglo-American view of politeness in many respects.

I have come to believe that the directness championed by some current European cultures may perhaps be a modern phenomenon, not so common before the 1940s in those countries?

I agree that too much politeness can be perverted into passive aggressive behavior but so can (and I think is) this "Let's be direct" attitude.

There has been much talk on HN and everywhere else of how to develop a code of conduct that allows honest exchange but maintain civility. I think politeness and respect is a central part of this code.

People are not computers. You can not kick them when their output does not please you. You can not kick them when you think you are better than them.

Well, perhaps you can. Perhaps being rude and arrogant leads to a better world.

I would like, however to live in a world where everyone tries to respect each other and show that respect.

Best

[kghose]

nabla9 -> I have a technical question about HM comments. I see two interesting things about your reply

1. I can not see a down-vote button (To clarify I personally never down-vote anything, just upvote things) 2. I don't see a reply link to your comment.

This does not seem to be a nesting limit (I can see a reply link for other comments elsewhere here)

What is this - is there some option one picks when responding to a comment?

Thanks -Kaushik

[jdbernard]

Regarding the missing down vote button: only users with 500 points of karma or more can down vote.

Regarding the reply limit: I believe there is a timer involved. A comment has to have a certain age (5 minutes?) before some one can reply to it.

[kghose]

Ah, yes, I see the time-limit. However, for me the presence or absence of a down vote button seems to be somewhat arbitrary.

[nkurz]

The downvote button (and presumably the ability to downvote) is removed for direct replies to comments you have authored. It is also removed for top level comments on articles you have submitted.

[yohanatan]

Cursing is the symptom of a small vocabulary and little self-restraint.