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"I just posted "Nerdy Cute Girls. In T-Shirts" and it was deleted within minutes." This is as it should be imo. (No I didn't flag that post - didn't see it eve

"I just posted "Nerdy Cute Girls. In T-Shirts" and it was deleted within minutes." This is as it should be imo. (No I didn't flag that post - didn't see it even but if I had seen I would have flagged it. ) "the post wasn't controversial or off-topic" Of course it is offtopic. Read the guidelines. Why would anyone come to HackerNews to see "cute girls" in T shirts with "funny" jokes on them? "Can we share jokes and light-heartedness every now and then as long as we identify in the title what it is?" Please, please, please don't. Plenty of options out there for people who want these things. If there aren't and you think there is a need, create one. (Hey startup idea?) The answer to "I'm just thinking that I've become much less happy over the last two years, and hanging out in a joke-free zone with a bunch of Mr. Spock wannabes might be part of that." might be to hang out in other forums dedicated to posting jokes with no "Spock like" [1] people, or even better, meet non "Spock like"people who make you laugh in the real world. I have plenty of idiots sending me lame jokes and they don't make me laugh. Laughter in my life comes from interacting with funny/humorous people in the real world. The last thing this HN user wants to see is to see "[Joke] blah" posts here. I for one will mercilessly flag any of these. I have filters for idiots who send me jokes by email. If I can get filters for HN, i.e, if I can make specific posts/users/topics "dispappear" in my view I wouldn't mind so much. Just my personal opinion but you did ask "What do you guys think?" [1] I don't think of HN users as "Spock like" at all fwiw.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I have filters for idiots who send me jokes by email * I don't think of HN users as "Spock like" at all fwiw* Ah, the irony.
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  "I have filters for idiots who send me jokes by email Ah, the irony." Not really. Let me try again emphasizing some words. I don't like ---> idiots <---- mailing me lame jokes . Your "nerd girls in funny t-shirts" is ultra lame, for e.g. but there are some people who email such things to me without me ever asking for them, and in spite of requests not to send them to me. "Oh but this is so funny you have to read it .." I do have filters for such people and posts. They get to send cheesy stuff , I get to ignore cheesy stuff, everyone is happy. I know and interact with a lot of humorous people in real life and face to face. Being (genuinely) funny in real life (vs sending of something scraped off the Internet to a few dozen email addresses) takes some doing, or at least genuine insight. Is "avoiding cheesy jokes in email and HackerNews" such a strange concept? I think you interpret "Spock like" to mean "people not like Daniel Markham", the lone human in a world of Vulcans ;-). You might like getting lame jokes (sometimes with pretty girls wearing TShirts) in your email. Nothing wrong with that. Other people don't. Nothing wrong with that either. But if that makes them "Spock like" in your world view, then so be it. :-)
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    I'm not feeling the love here, Plink. There is a principal-agent problem that I just described with Ed. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1367176 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1367176 I am sure you are a very funny person and have lots of interesting friends that send you good jokes. Hopefully I'm not on your idiot list. There was no commentary intended towards HN'ers except we have a tendency sometimes to be overly-analytical when lightening up a bit might be better. That's not "you guys" that's "us guys" The question was a variation on "to what degree is that useful on HN?" So apologies if I offended anybody. I interpret Spock-like as the well-meaning and useful application of the maximum amount of brainpower and logical thinking possible to solve problems. Which is the amazing part of this community. All good things, however, have not-so-good aspects about them.
    - plinkplonk 16y ago
      Your "principal-agent problem" seems to reduce to (emphasis mine) "But once it became a place to hang out, my goals and the site's goals diverged." The P_A problem is a little different. [wikipedia] "In political science and economics, the principal–agent problem or agency dilemma treats the difficulties that arise under conditions of incomplete and asymmetric information when a principal hires an agent, such as the problem that the two may not have the same interests, while the principal is, presumably, hiring the agent to pursue the interests of the former." The key word is "hire" or "employ". If you enjoy a site (or a book or a movie) at certain age say, and your outlook changes for whatever reason, that isn't really a "Principal Agent problem". Your tastes changed. That's all. Happens to all of us. So anyway, after your post got deleted, you asked HN if it was ok to post "cute nerds girls with T shirts with jokes printed thereon" and you specifically asked "what do you guys think?". Now you are getting an answer from various people including me. I (and I don't speak for anyone else) don't expect HN to change continuously to meet my changing expectations. If my tastes change so I value a life full of mystery and danger should HN follow suit and become more mysterious and dangerous? What about the other HN user whose tastes changed to valuing a life of extreme clarity and certainty? HN has a focus which is of value to me today. If it changes to some kind of lame humour, look-at-pretty-women site I will leave (and others will no doubt continue or join). If I suffer some brain damage/undergo a radical personality change etc and decide to give up on hacking startups and focus on butterfly collecting, say, I would not spend time on HN. Sure I can ask it to change I guess. Fwiw, I am not insulted by "Spock like". I was just amused with your interpolating it with someone setting a filter for lame jokes and calling it "irony".
- fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
  correct. the comparison to Spock is highly...logical.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I have filters for idiots who send me jokes by email * I don't think of HN users as "Spock like" at all fwiw* Ah, the irony.

plinkplonk 16y ago
"I have filters for idiots who send me jokes by email Ah, the irony." Not really. Let me try again emphasizing some words. I don't like ---> idiots <---- mailing me lame jokes . Your "nerd girls in funny t-shirts" is ultra lame, for e.g. but there are some people who email such things to me without me ever asking for them, and in spite of requests not to send them to me. "Oh but this is so funny you have to read it .." I do have filters for such people and posts. They get to send cheesy stuff , I get to ignore cheesy stuff, everyone is happy. I know and interact with a lot of humorous people in real life and face to face. Being (genuinely) funny in real life (vs sending of something scraped off the Internet to a few dozen email addresses) takes some doing, or at least genuine insight. Is "avoiding cheesy jokes in email and HackerNews" such a strange concept? I think you interpret "Spock like" to mean "people not like Daniel Markham", the lone human in a world of Vulcans ;-). You might like getting lame jokes (sometimes with pretty girls wearing TShirts) in your email. Nothing wrong with that. Other people don't. Nothing wrong with that either. But if that makes them "Spock like" in your world view, then so be it. :-)
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  I'm not feeling the love here, Plink. There is a principal-agent problem that I just described with Ed. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1367176 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1367176 I am sure you are a very funny person and have lots of interesting friends that send you good jokes. Hopefully I'm not on your idiot list. There was no commentary intended towards HN'ers except we have a tendency sometimes to be overly-analytical when lightening up a bit might be better. That's not "you guys" that's "us guys" The question was a variation on "to what degree is that useful on HN?" So apologies if I offended anybody. I interpret Spock-like as the well-meaning and useful application of the maximum amount of brainpower and logical thinking possible to solve problems. Which is the amazing part of this community. All good things, however, have not-so-good aspects about them.
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    Your "principal-agent problem" seems to reduce to (emphasis mine) "But once it became a place to hang out, my goals and the site's goals diverged." The P_A problem is a little different. [wikipedia] "In political science and economics, the principal–agent problem or agency dilemma treats the difficulties that arise under conditions of incomplete and asymmetric information when a principal hires an agent, such as the problem that the two may not have the same interests, while the principal is, presumably, hiring the agent to pursue the interests of the former." The key word is "hire" or "employ". If you enjoy a site (or a book or a movie) at certain age say, and your outlook changes for whatever reason, that isn't really a "Principal Agent problem". Your tastes changed. That's all. Happens to all of us. So anyway, after your post got deleted, you asked HN if it was ok to post "cute nerds girls with T shirts with jokes printed thereon" and you specifically asked "what do you guys think?". Now you are getting an answer from various people including me. I (and I don't speak for anyone else) don't expect HN to change continuously to meet my changing expectations. If my tastes change so I value a life full of mystery and danger should HN follow suit and become more mysterious and dangerous? What about the other HN user whose tastes changed to valuing a life of extreme clarity and certainty? HN has a focus which is of value to me today. If it changes to some kind of lame humour, look-at-pretty-women site I will leave (and others will no doubt continue or join). If I suffer some brain damage/undergo a radical personality change etc and decide to give up on hacking startups and focus on butterfly collecting, say, I would not spend time on HN. Sure I can ask it to change I guess. Fwiw, I am not insulted by "Spock like". I was just amused with your interpolating it with someone setting a filter for lame jokes and calling it "irony".
fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
correct. the comparison to Spock is highly...logical.