"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
I'd much rather read from film critics about which films are good to see, rather than bloody myself and waste my time seeing five terrible films to find the one good one.
Folks have too narrow a view of what critics do. Critics critique. That can be a hugely beneficial thing. Ever had anyone proofread something for you? That's criticism. Ever had a mentor or an advisor? That involves criticism. And contrary to Roosevelt's comment, criticism can be a very worthy thing.
'Criticism' is not synonymous with 'disparagement'.
Film critics almost never do what online pseudonymous posters do; invariably, in every thread on HN, the top comment shits on the article. Film critics love film- they try to get others to go watch the films they love (or at least read their articles). The HN top comment just functions to show how smart the poster is.
I disagree. Frequently the top comment on HN is continuing the conversation. Often that involves some disagreement, but that's not the same as shitting on the article.
Looking at the first ten articles on the front page right now:
Streem: "I am glad that someone is working on a new stream processing language, it is a very interesting paradigm. "
Margaret Hamilton: "What a truly inspiring human being. I can only dream of aspiring to her levels of contribution."
Sony Hack: "This is the angle on the Sony hack that I find most interesting/troubling/etc. "
DeepDive: "It does probabilistic inference![1]"
Youth metabolism: "I don't really understand the comments here, and especially on the article itself, deriding this research because "people should just get off their butts and exercise" or similar."
Other Money Problem: "One of his essays from a couple of months ago [shows philosophical opposition from essays from 10 years ago]"
Irregular Verbs: "As Steven Pinker points out in this very interesting article... [discussion of verbs]"
LLVM developers meeting: "For those who are curious, Part 1 of Chandler Carruth's Pass Manager talk is avaliable here:"
Overhaul law enforcement: "I'm getting to the point where I can't stand local law enforcement."
Prismatic Android app: "As someone who is rapidly becoming an old-timer, I have to say I miss the old days of Make."
One of the comments disagrees with the article (the last one). One of the comments is questioning the quality of other comments. All of the comments are contributing to the conversation, and none of them can be characterised to be shitting on the article.
The trends continue on with the following articles, but I couldn't be bothered setting up the quoting - this is left as an exercise for the reader.
The irony I saw is that I was responding to a point made by kansface, rebutting a misconception that really isn't true. In doing so, I provided evidence to that, pulling in quotes and citing my methods. I created content. Yes, it's not a prize essay, but it took some minor effort, and more importantly it added information to the conversation. It also wasn't derogatory - I didn't imply kansface was a fool, I only discussed the misconception itself.
Then, despite your earlier protestations of people tearing down instead of creating, you just dismissed what I did out of hand with a mere "we're not talking about that". You added nothing to the conversation with that comment, and tried to stifle a conversation branch in process.
While the greater conversation is about more than HN, a specific point on HN was made, and the same specific point was rebutted. Cutting off that conversation is doing exactly what you were complaining about originally.
"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so..." - Anton Ego
