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"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 <---- mai

"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".
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    Thanks for the answer. We have no disagreement. You are not sharing me with anything that I do not already know. I do not expect HN to change to meet my expectations, I understand the value of focus, and I appreciate the feedback. It's all good. As far as the Spock thing, happy to amuse you, if you are truly amused. For some reason, your comments sounded angry. It sounded like you were more interested in talking about what my goals or reasons were than in the question about humor, technology, and social sites in general. I don't mind explaining -- in fact I'm happy to especially if you thought I was slamming the readers here, which I most definitely wasn't doing. But I didn't get a counter-thesis, suggestions, or much of anything useful in our chat. Perhaps I missed something. I'm glad HN is topical and self-policing. I hope it stays that way. Long-term use may have unintentional side-effects. What's your opinion on that and suggestions for other readers? (repeating the topic)

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".
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  Thanks for the answer. We have no disagreement. You are not sharing me with anything that I do not already know. I do not expect HN to change to meet my expectations, I understand the value of focus, and I appreciate the feedback. It's all good. As far as the Spock thing, happy to amuse you, if you are truly amused. For some reason, your comments sounded angry. It sounded like you were more interested in talking about what my goals or reasons were than in the question about humor, technology, and social sites in general. I don't mind explaining -- in fact I'm happy to especially if you thought I was slamming the readers here, which I most definitely wasn't doing. But I didn't get a counter-thesis, suggestions, or much of anything useful in our chat. Perhaps I missed something. I'm glad HN is topical and self-policing. I hope it stays that way. Long-term use may have unintentional side-effects. What's your opinion on that and suggestions for other readers? (repeating the topic)