[robomartin]

It's really interesting to see something like this down-voted. There's nothing pedantic about this. It's offered with nothing but respect. Perhaps the comment writer isn't a native speaker and this was an honest point of confusion. What is wrong with trying to be helpful?

It is a common mistake I see all the time here on HN (along with "your" vs. "you're" vs. "you are"). Why is it that is offensive to the point of deserving a down-vote? Please help me understand.

[DanBC]

I didn't downvote.

People downvote corrections because they're usually noise. When someone makes a typo - and homophones are usually slips equivalent to typos - it's noise to point it out.

[robomartin]

It's only noise if it has no value. A post such as mine would not have to appear too frequently for HN readers who might be having difficulties with such words to understand the problem and correct their writing. Not going after perfect English, few of us could approach that. But I see a few common patterns on HN all the time and nobody takes a second to say "hey buddy, just in case this wasn't clear to you, here's a helpful tip". Some of these are confusing to non-native speakers. When trying to be helpful is frowned-upon what are you left with?

This comment needed to be left alone. No down vote, perhaps an up-vote by the comment writer if s/he found it helpful and that's it.

One of the things that continues to disturb me the most about HN is how thin skinned the community seems to be. It is impossible to consistently offer a contrasting point of view here without down-vote attacks that make your point of view virtually disappear. Mind you, this particular post isn't that. It just reminds me that HN is really weird.

I get down voted a lot despite the fact that I am a successful entrepreneur since age 15 who has built several companies and continues to do so. My perspective, however, seems seldom welcome here (based on how often I am down-voted) because I don't tow the line of the 20-somethings that are the bulk of this audience. Instead of learning they choose to pound what they don't like out of existence. Weird.

[DanBC]

> But I see a few common patterns on HN all the time

> A post such as mine would not have to appear too frequently

Which is it? All the time or not too frequently?

And while you might only make rare posts some people would point out every error and mistake and difference in style. People downvote your post to dissuade those other posts.

About your downvotes: I'm guessing they're for your incredible arrogance.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443553

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8440762

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8440847

People see that level of arrogance as ugly. You might want to either change your posting style or stop complaining about the downvotes.

[robomartin]

It's easy to make someone sound arrogant by (a) taking comments completely out of context and (b) not bothering to understand the frame of reference by at least asking the question.

HN only does well with well defined technical discussion. On everything else it has degraded to almost what happened to every USENET list in the past. USENET did not have any voting mechanism to make opposing views disappear. In that case those who wanted command of the list and felt ownership of it simply resorted to brutal flaming attacks. Some lists were really horrible places for anyone to say "I disagree".

HN can be like that, in a different way, if you are not a 20-something drinking from the same koolaid bowl. To the point of someone taking the time to take something out of context and then using it to call someone arrogant.

So, come to HN to agree with the herd or risk being called arrogant for presenting a different point of view. Brilliant.

[pessimizer]

I agree with you 100% about the English correction, but you do an awful lot of complaining about the field rather than admitting that there was something wrong with your play, and occasionally some thinking that you know the demographics of the person you're taking to, and disqualifying of that person's participation in the discussion based on that fiction.

Notice that your correction is in the black, but these complaints are in the grey.

Unpopular opinions do have a lot of trouble on HN, but I think that dang's efforts with algorithms and intervention have improved the situation, and at least show good intent.

I attract downvotes like honey attracts flies, but I deserve them. I really disagree, and am happy to repeat myself. I double-down on my most downvoted comments; people may not know quite how much they disagree with me unless I expand on what I said.

>risk being called arrogant

Not very high risk then? Sounds like a very safe place.

[robomartin]

I'll admit that being silenced through down votes simply for presenting alternative points of view does not sit well with me and this might lead to less constructive conversations from time to time.

The huge difference I see on HN between someone like me and the HN "crowd" boils down to: life and business experience. I too was an idealist at 22 years of age. And I too thought and said a ton of dumb things for most of my twenties.

I was VERY lucky in that my first job in technology had me working within a team of engineers that were at least 10 years older than me. I was 19 years old when I got hired as a junior engineer. I hadn't finished college yet but I was able to convince the VP of Engineering that I had what it took. And I did. Not being arrogant at all. By 19 I had already designed and built (from raw chips) at least two computers and had presented a paper at an ACM conference.

Anyhow, the education I got from the "elders" was priceless. I am not talking about technology. Yes that was invaluable. No, I am talking about how to be a man rather than a child. How to think instead of reacting. How to question what amounted to indoctrination being dished out by some of the professors at school. How not to come of as a 20-something ignorant moron.

We often had pretty deep discussions about business, politics, ethics and all manner of subjects. I stayed at that job for ten years. It was an education I didn't know I needed. Over the ten years I was there I noticed how my mental process was growing apart from that of my friends. They were growing through their 20's without the benefit of a team of "elders" applying corrections and providing advice on a daily basis. I was in an environment where I had to behave like an adult and think like an adult in a serious organization. To this day I run into circumstances where some of those lessons come back to the forefront.

Surveys set the bulk of the HN audience somewhere in the mid 20's in terms of age. It has been my experience through hiring dozens of engineers and engineering students that kids today are not benefiting from the same level of interaction with adults. Yes, a 20-something man is still a kid. Women tend to grow up a lot faster than we do. Unless the kids have a strong family social group to guide them they can get to their mid twenties and still be complete juvenile morons. I've seen it in more than one occasion.

Culturally the US presents a case where kids are "kicked out of the house" at 18 or thereabouts and go off into the wild to become men and women. In other cultures the family unit stays far more connected and provides a regulating mechanism. For example, the drunken orgies around Spring Break are a uniquely American phenomenon. In other parts of the world no 20-something would even think of behaving like that and then have to answer to their family for the failed moral choices made during that time.

Kids who behave like that have no common sense or manners yet if you spoke to them at any other time (or here on HN) they'd probably tell you that they are perfectly sensible people. Kids like that go to school on their own and suck in all the crap dished out by an educational system permeated with far left extremists in some cases. It isn't my intent to turn this into a political discussion. It is a well known fact that some of our universities have, perhaps by accident, turned themselves into left wing indoctrination centers. And the kids take this shit and make it their own belief system without even making an attempt to question any of it because, well, "lord of the flies" is their environment, self regulation is hard at that age.

Long way to say that if you are an older engineer with more life and business experience posting on HN it is almost assured that the kids are going to pummel you with down votes because, well, they think they know better and are not open to considering any other ideas. On matters of technology they do well because it is often very clear cut. On matters involving life or business experience they just don't have a clue yet they think they do. Instead of taking the opportunity to learn they engage in confirming each other's biases and push back hard on anyone who is not drinking from their koolaid.

[SamReidHughes]

> and nobody takes a second to say "hey buddy, just in case this wasn't clear to you, here's a helpful tip".

"hey" should be capitalized, it's at the beginning of a complete sentence. Also, a comma should be before the quotation.

> No down vote, perhaps an up-vote

down-vote and up-vote should at least be hyphenated consistently.

> One of the things that continues to disturb me the most about HN is how thin skinned the community seems to be. It is impossible to consistently offer a contrasting point of view here without down-vote attacks that make your point of view virtually disappear. Mind you, this particular post isn't that. It just reminds me that HN is really weird.

Likewise, down-vote should be hyphenated consistently with the previous use.

> I get down voted a lot despite the fact that I am a successful entrepreneur since age 15 who has built several companies and continues to do so. My perspective, however, seems seldom welcome here (based on how often I am down-voted) because I don't tow the line of the 20-somethings that are the bulk of this audience. Instead of learning they choose to pound what they don't like out of existence. Weird.

I don't get what kind of prank you're trying to pull here. Is it "down voted" or "down-voted"???

Just being helpful!!

[robomartin]

Let me guess. You are 15 years old and just ditched school to screw around on HN. Right?

The difference, in case you did not understand that. Is that my earlier comment was purely constructive in nature.

Your comment was a juvenile "I'll show him. I'll rip his writing apart and put him to shame".

One is an adult constructive post. The other is what I would not allow from my eight year old kid.

[thathonkey]

This is true but typos/misspellings/etc still reflect poorly on the author in most situations. After all, isn't the subject of this post a rather critical typo?

[robomartin]

Misspellings don't tend to bother me as much these days because of, well, the iPad. Seriously, I hate typing on that thing with a vengeance. The problem is exacerbated in my case (and those of others) because I have to turn off auto-correction. Why?

Because I communicate in multiple languages and auto-correction/completion makes it very difficult. Switching the keyboard back and forth doesn't help either because it isn't uncommon to use more than one language within a single email or comment (in other words, mixing languages).

My little post was about pointing out a mistake in usage that isn't a spelling problem but rather using the wrong words altogether. I see this A LOT in technical websites, writing, job posts and resume's.

Look around and see how many job positions are asking for a "Principle Engineer" instead of a "Principal Engineer". The first is some kind of a moral cop position within the company, I guess, the second is an engineer in charge of a project or department.

But, yes, you are right. If I know that someone is a native English speaker and they have bad typos, misspellings and generally can't communicate well in written form it does reflect poorly. If they are not native it is a matter of their position. I would expect someone with a university degree to not confuse "principle" with "principal" or "your" with "you're" (and other such examples).

[thathonkey]

Exactly. Totally agreed on all counts :)

Btw that is why I use the somewhat pretentious sounding "Written on my tablet" or "Written on my phone" in email signatures on devices like that in hopes that people will re-attribute typos that might otherwise reflect poorly. But it is still a good idea to proof read written communication of any significant value...

[robomartin]

Yes! It's down-right embarrassing in business communications. My signature says "Please excuse any spelling errors or strange words. This was typed on an iPhone which is a terrible text entry device."

I never had to worry about this when I had a Blackberry with a physical keyboard. In fact, to this day I have never understood why Blackberry didn't create a campaign of really funny TV ads with people sending hilarious or out-of-place text messages because of the issues with screen based typing. The ad would end with some kind of a catch phrase pointing out that this won't happen to your on a Blackberry.

Ditto for other smart phones. The easiest way to compete with the iPhone is to offer what I will call a "true business smart phone" with an fold-out keyboard for accurate text entry. You could drive that point with ads until everyone is blue in the face. Typing on a touch screen is a horrible experience.

[not_kurt_godel]

> resume's