4 ms·

While a cool and nicely illustrated article, I fail to see how it's relevant to HN.

by xsace 11y ago

josephpmay 11y ago
The HN guidelines allow for articles of general interest to the community, which this falls under.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
DanBC 11y ago
Just out of interest: what do you think is on-topic for HN? Also, from the guidelines. > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- xsace 11y ago
  Well you just said it: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting" and not "Anything that anyone would find interesting".
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - delinka 11y ago
    And how does one determine whether the upvote button was pressed by "a good hacker" rather than "anyone?"
  - DanBC 11y ago
    What's the difference?
    - xsace 11y ago
      The difference is the audience. While I found this article interesting in itself, it's something that can be interesting to anyone, regardless of its background. While harmless at first look, this can be an issue if too many content fall into this category. Then you end up with a reddit clone instead of HackerNews. I'm here to see hacker news, not interesting stuff for anyone.
      - krapp 11y ago
        "good hacker" is a subjective term and an obvious True Scotsman. It might as well mean nothing more than "your interests correspond to the interests of the moderators."
  - Bulk70 11y ago
    I'm a hacker, and I found this interesting. What now?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - asifjamil 11y ago
    If only there was a way people could vote on certain stories based on if they felt the article was interesting or not. Oh wait.. /s
    - xsace 11y ago
      Read again, I said it IS interesting ... to anyone. You see the content drive the audience and then the audience drive the content. Too much broad interesting articles and it's not Hacker News anymore.
      - kenbellows 11y ago
        I think you're misunderstanding the point of the guideline. In set theoretic terms, "good hackers" are a subset of "anyone". Thus, something that's interesting to anyone is by definition interesting to good hackers as well, and is therefore fine. The problem arises when there are too many submissions that are not interesting to good hackers. That's what keeps this community from becoming just another StumbleUpon or Digg or /r/news. If it's not interesting to most "good hackers", it's off topic. If it's interesting to "anyone", to include "good hackers", then it's fine.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
IanDrake 11y ago
For me HN is about keeping up with the present and seeing into the future. The future is a trend line drawn from the past through the present and projected forward in time. Now look at this article again and project the role of Islamic power and culture into the future. Scary shit if you ask me.

While a cool and nicely illustrated article, I fail to see how it's relevant to HN.

by xsace 11y ago

While a cool and nicely illustrated article, I fail to see how it's relevant to HN.

josephpmay 11y ago

The HN guidelines allow for articles of general interest to the community, which this falls under.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

DanBC 11y ago

Just out of interest: what do you think is on-topic for HN? Also, from the guidelines. > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

xsace 11y ago
Well you just said it: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting" and not "Anything that anyone would find interesting".
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- delinka 11y ago
  And how does one determine whether the upvote button was pressed by "a good hacker" rather than "anyone?"
- DanBC 11y ago
  What's the difference?
  - xsace 11y ago
    The difference is the audience. While I found this article interesting in itself, it's something that can be interesting to anyone, regardless of its background. While harmless at first look, this can be an issue if too many content fall into this category. Then you end up with a reddit clone instead of HackerNews. I'm here to see hacker news, not interesting stuff for anyone.
    - krapp 11y ago
      "good hacker" is a subjective term and an obvious True Scotsman. It might as well mean nothing more than "your interests correspond to the interests of the moderators."
- Bulk70 11y ago
  I'm a hacker, and I found this interesting. What now?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- asifjamil 11y ago
  If only there was a way people could vote on certain stories based on if they felt the article was interesting or not. Oh wait.. /s
  - xsace 11y ago
    Read again, I said it IS interesting ... to anyone. You see the content drive the audience and then the audience drive the content. Too much broad interesting articles and it's not Hacker News anymore.
    - kenbellows 11y ago
      I think you're misunderstanding the point of the guideline. In set theoretic terms, "good hackers" are a subset of "anyone". Thus, something that's interesting to anyone is by definition interesting to good hackers as well, and is therefore fine. The problem arises when there are too many submissions that are not interesting to good hackers. That's what keeps this community from becoming just another StumbleUpon or Digg or /r/news. If it's not interesting to most "good hackers", it's off topic. If it's interesting to "anyone", to include "good hackers", then it's fine.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

IanDrake 11y ago

For me HN is about keeping up with the present and seeing into the future. The future is a trend line drawn from the past through the present and projected forward in time. Now look at this article again and project the role of Islamic power and culture into the future. Scary shit if you ask me.