4 ms·

Care to imagine an alternative explanation?

pvg 9y ago
It's regular news which is already listed as offtopic and worse, it's big, controversial political news which, for whatever reason, generates poor-quality discussion here. You don't have to believe HN is only for 'tech news' to think that.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  >>It's regular news which is already listed as offtopic Um, no. the guidelines define "on-topic" as "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." The fact that so many people upvoted the stories means there is an overwhelming desire to talk about them.
  - pvg 9y ago
    You're quoting half the guidelines. Right after they say "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." There are a zillion posts by moderators that go into great detail why 'lots of people upvoted it' is not a criterion for something being a good fit for the site.
    - enraged_camel 9y ago
      Yes, it says MOST stories about politics. Not all.
      - pvg 9y ago
        Yep, it's a little subjective. What I'm trying to tell you is that loudly berating people whose subjective views are different from your subjective views is a singularly ineffective way to convince them to see things your way.
  - dang 9y ago
    > The fact that so many people upvoted the stories HN doesn't run on upvotes alone, so this argument doesn't prove anything. It's a constitutional democracy, with plenty of checks and balances to try to keep the system from running overheated. In this case the story fell squarely in the "most" of "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics"—why? because there's too little information in it to count as intellectually interesting. Indeed, if a story's entire information content fits in its title, that's a bad sign for HN suitability.

pvg 9y ago

It's regular news which is already listed as offtopic and worse, it's big, controversial political news which, for whatever reason, generates poor-quality discussion here. You don't have to believe HN is only for 'tech news' to think that.

enraged_camel 9y ago
>>It's regular news which is already listed as offtopic Um, no. the guidelines define "on-topic" as "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." The fact that so many people upvoted the stories means there is an overwhelming desire to talk about them.
- pvg 9y ago
  You're quoting half the guidelines. Right after they say "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." There are a zillion posts by moderators that go into great detail why 'lots of people upvoted it' is not a criterion for something being a good fit for the site.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    Yes, it says MOST stories about politics. Not all.
    - pvg 9y ago
      Yep, it's a little subjective. What I'm trying to tell you is that loudly berating people whose subjective views are different from your subjective views is a singularly ineffective way to convince them to see things your way.
- dang 9y ago
  > The fact that so many people upvoted the stories HN doesn't run on upvotes alone, so this argument doesn't prove anything. It's a constitutional democracy, with plenty of checks and balances to try to keep the system from running overheated. In this case the story fell squarely in the "most" of "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics"—why? because there's too little information in it to count as intellectually interesting. Indeed, if a story's entire information content fits in its title, that's a bad sign for HN suitability.