写作与思考2016pchiusano.github.io
互联网让我们都成了防御性写作者
The internet has made defensive writers of us all
导读
这篇文章讨论互联网上的敌意评论如何让写作者变得“防御性”：为了不被抓把柄而不断加限定、绕开可能出错的说法，结果写作的首要目标从“交流与探索”变成了“别出错”。对写作者来说，它提醒我们警惕这种自我审查，并思考如何在坦诚表达与谨慎措辞之间取得平衡。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
写之前先想清楚这篇是“探索性”还是“定论性”，探索性文章可明确声明不确定性，而不是靠堆砌限定语来自保。
- 02
精确度要随场合校准：专业文书必须严谨，网络随笔可以粗略，但两者都不该沦为糊弄。
- 03
用比喻、概括或假设推演时，主动提示读者不要逐字抠字眼，为讨论留出空间。
- 04
警惕把“避免说错”当成写作的首要目标——那会让文章失去交流与探索的价值。
HN 评论精选
用“置信度标签”把观点与作者本人分开，能解放探索性写作。
文章里有句话很精彩：“防御性写作风格还助长另一种丑陋：'避免说错话'成了写作的首要目标，而不是交流或探索作者自己也没把握的想法。”Gwern Branwen 写作的一大好处是每篇文章都带“信念标签”，可以说明“这篇是探索性的，我不太确信它普遍为真”。把观点与个人分开，能让人自由地抛出反主流想法、引发讨论以求真，而不怕人身攻击。我认为健康公司文化的一部分就是：可以批评观点，而不让提出观点的人觉得被批评。
kornish查看英文原文
A great quote from the article: "The defensive writing style also encourages another sort of ugliness, which is that “avoiding saying something wrong” becomes a primary focus of the writing, rather than communicating or exploring ideas which the author might himself be unsure of." One thing that's great about Gwern Branwen's writing is that Gwern's essays are accompanied by a "belief tag". That tag gives the ability to say "This essay is exploratory; I don't have a high degree of confidence that it's canonically true." Details here: http://www.gwern.net/About#belief-tags Having the option to dissociate ideas from one's person can give a lot of freedom to put contrarian ideas out there and spark debate in search of the Truth without fearing personal attack. Indeed, one of the things that I consider to make a healthy company culture is that ideas can be criticized without the people behind the ideas feeling criticized themselves.
精确度应随场合校准：专业写作要严谨，网络随笔可粗略，但都不能糊弄。
我觉得网络写作自有一种刺激，正因为它是一种随手写，不需要达到专业标准那样的精确。在法律行业，即便正式场合，律师也常在书状里糊弄，但那是低于标准的执业；要做好工作，必须分析扎实、事实陈述严谨、法律适用得当，给客户写邮件也一样——客户未必看得出细节，但保持职业自豪感很重要，糊弄就是糊弄。而在网上写作当然也要避免糊弄，但表达观点所需的精确度低得多：你谈一个法律观点，语境本身就暗示你可能没那么精确、在简化、在概括，或只是在发泄一个法律未必支持的意见。
grellas查看英文原文
I find internet writing to be stimulating in its own way precisely because it is a sort of dash-off writing that does not need to be as precise or exact as would be needed if you were seeking to meet professional standards. To wit, in law, even in formal contexts, lawyers dish off all sorts of slop in legal briefs, etc. but this really is sub-standard lawyering. To do your job right, you need to meet standards of excellence in making sure you have sound analysis, careful factual recitation, and skilled application of law to facts as you make arguments or seek to achieve some other professional writing goal. This is true as well in less formal professional settings such as writing emails/letters to clients. It may not absolutely matter what you say in terms of precision if a client is not likely to pick up the fine points but it really does matter in terms of maintaining a consistent pride in your professional work. Slop is slop and, when people will evaluate you by how well you are representing a client, it is critical not to be slipshod in your writing. When writing on the internet, in contrast, you of course want to avoid putting out slop there as well but a lot less precision is needed to make your points. If you make a legal point, it is implied by context that you are making a statement that may not be accurate down to the finest level of detail, that you may be simplifying, or generalizing, or simply venting an opinion that the law may or may not support. Law in itself will vary, even greatly, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and this means that much of what you may be saying is really setting forth broad principles while avoiding a specific application to a given case. For these purposes, there is no need to be defensive, not in the slightest. And I certainly try not to be. Am I ever wrong? Of course, on occasion, yes - I have had a doozie or two in my time, perhaps a number of them. But you try to feel secure about such lapses, knowing that we all err occasionally, and try as a whole to conform to an overall solid record of being as accurate and insightful as possible. While you get the occasional harsh attack, for the most part I have found that people will be charitable knowing that you may have spent no more than 10 or 15 minutes trying to address a sometimes complex topic. Better to give people the benefit of your insights if it is an area where you can do so than it is to leave something in the internet conversion that is wrong or off simply hanging out there. That is a great benefit of the internet. Back in the day, you had to dig deep to find out what people with expertise in their field were thinking and access to this was severely limited. The internet has changed all that. There may be a lot of slop out there but there are also many gems that are there for the taking. As writers, we should be ready to share, if not gems, at least our best thoughts on topics where people might find them helpful. If I were to stray from my professional topics, then maybe I would be more defensive as well. But the author of this piece emphasizes how the internet may hinder academic writing and I see legal writing as at least broadly similar. So, my experience differs pretty markedly. Just my two cents.
把话按字面死抠，是攻击异见观点的常见手段。
人们攻击自己不认同的观点时，常用的一招就是把文字照字面理解。这很像工会的“照章工作”式抗议、按“法律字面”而非“法律精神”办事，以及各种“零容忍”政策。
WalterBright查看英文原文
One of the common methods people use to attack posts with ideas they don't agree with is to take the prose literally. This is much like the "work to rule" form of protest that unions use, and the "letter of the law" rather than the spirit of it, and of course all those "zero tolerance" policies.
读者应学会多层次理解，写作者也需要比喻式表达的空间。
我刚来 Hacker News，不幸正好在这个论坛上撞上了这个问题，很破坏体验。用比喻、象征来沟通是有价值的；创造性解决问题、寻找趋势、凭空提出假设时，往往最好避开具体细节。我认为，一个人若不能在多层次上理解和回应他人的话，会限制自己的上升空间。
OvidStavrica查看英文原文
I am fairly new to Y-Combinators Hacker News. Unfortunately, I've run head-long into this very issue on this forum. It ruins the experience. There is value in communicating figuratively and/or with metaphors. When creatively solving problems, looking for trends or drawing a hypothesis out of the ether, it is often desirable to avoid specifics. In my opinion, one's inability to comprehend and respond to any given statement at multiple levels limits their upward mobility.
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