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Does this content really belong to hackernews?

giarc 9y ago
Every post starts out at 0. The community decides who to upvote and downvote. So does it deserve to be on hackernews? Hackernews users decided it does.
jacquesm 9y ago
It does, but anonymous accounts questioning what belongs on HN and what does not do not.
JCharante 9y ago
The users who make up hackernews have voted. It do.
- awqrre 9y ago
  moderators sometimes manually take down up-voted stories...
dang 9y ago
Your comment got treated rather harshly, so let me try to explain. The post is on topic for HN because, although the question is a whimsical one, it gratifies intellectual curiosity (please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Whimsical submissions like it have always been welcome here, as long as they're uncorrelated with anything that's appeared recently. (Sometimes people start doing the copycat thing of posting follow-up stories on almost the same topic. Those get old quickly unless they're really interesting, so the bar gets higher superlinearly.) It isn't just a question of the community upvoting it. Plenty of stories get plenty of upvotes yet still don't belong on HN—e.g. most sensational controversies. Many HN users value the diversity of the stories that appear here and don't take well to comments that appear to want to narrow the site down. That might be why your question got flamed.
- gpderetta 9y ago
  also Lego have the hacker nature.
  - dang 9y ago
    Quite.
- rimliu 9y ago
  While my view is that if someone posted it on HN and it was upvoted high enough—it belongs there; there is little in this post that "gratifies intellectual curiosity". Unless we are talking about the child involved, but I doubt she reads HN. There is often a complaint about negativity on HN, but I don't think swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction adds quality. If anything it devalues really interesting content.
  - dang 9y ago
    Intellectual curiosity doesn't only mean studying great work or deep problems. It's closely allied with a playful spirit that likes to do things just because. That playful spirit is vulnerable to being dismissed as unserious, so it needs protecting. We protect it here. Of course opinions will always differ about any given submission, but that's the general approach.
- asketak 9y ago
  Thanks for contructive answer. Got it. I was just curious. I am lurking here for long time and it seems to me, that the ratio of technical posts is really declining over last few months so I was wondering about the guidelines.

Every post starts out at 0. The community decides who to upvote and downvote. So does it deserve to be on hackernews? Hackernews users decided it does.

jacquesm 9y ago

It does, but anonymous accounts questioning what belongs on HN and what does not do not.

JCharante 9y ago

The users who make up hackernews have voted. It do.

awqrre 9y ago
moderators sometimes manually take down up-voted stories...

dang 9y ago

Your comment got treated rather harshly, so let me try to explain. The post is on topic for HN because, although the question is a whimsical one, it gratifies intellectual curiosity (please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Whimsical submissions like it have always been welcome here, as long as they're uncorrelated with anything that's appeared recently. (Sometimes people start doing the copycat thing of posting follow-up stories on almost the same topic. Those get old quickly unless they're really interesting, so the bar gets higher superlinearly.) It isn't just a question of the community upvoting it. Plenty of stories get plenty of upvotes yet still don't belong on HN—e.g. most sensational controversies. Many HN users value the diversity of the stories that appear here and don't take well to comments that appear to want to narrow the site down. That might be why your question got flamed.

gpderetta 9y ago
also Lego have the hacker nature.
- dang 9y ago
  Quite.
rimliu 9y ago
While my view is that if someone posted it on HN and it was upvoted high enough—it belongs there; there is little in this post that "gratifies intellectual curiosity". Unless we are talking about the child involved, but I doubt she reads HN. There is often a complaint about negativity on HN, but I don't think swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction adds quality. If anything it devalues really interesting content.
- dang 9y ago
  Intellectual curiosity doesn't only mean studying great work or deep problems. It's closely allied with a playful spirit that likes to do things just because. That playful spirit is vulnerable to being dismissed as unserious, so it needs protecting. We protect it here. Of course opinions will always differ about any given submission, but that's the general approach.
asketak 9y ago
Thanks for contructive answer. Got it. I was just curious. I am lurking here for long time and it seems to me, that the ratio of technical posts is really declining over last few months so I was wondering about the guidelines.