6 ms·

Pretty cool, but why is this being submitted here? (Not that it shouldn't be - just curious why.)

by whatnotests 9y ago

swampthinker 9y ago
HN isn't just limited to technical and startup discussion. Sometimes you just want to share something cool :)
- devmunchies 9y ago
  So you're saying that hacker news is no longer for hacker-related news? The whole world wants to "share something cool". I come here so that I only get the cool tech stuff. My 2 cents.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    You might want to read the guidelines, linked in the footer. The very first section deals with your assumption as to what's on-topic here.
  - galeaspablo 9y ago
    If you want to save yourself a click... 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 I would say the content fits this description.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      I figured that they might benefit from reading the rest of the guidelines, too.
      - galeaspablo 9y ago
        Team work. You point to the full guidelines. I cover the people in a rush who want a ;TLDR. ;)
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > no longer other people have pointed out the guidelines. I wanted to point out that something similar has existed for many years. https://web.archive.org/web/20080616133301/http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080616133301/http://ycombinato... You might want to read dang's reply here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10605253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10605253
  - Bjartr 9y ago
    >I come here so that I only get the cool tech stuff. Then, honestly, this is the wrong place. Yeah, a good portion of it is cool tech stuff, but it's not (and has never been) exclusively that.
    - kwhitefoot 9y ago
      This is cool tech stuff! It's just not explicitly related to computing. How much techier can you get than the language used to communicate all the other tech stuff?
whatnotests 9y ago
Wow...I was simply asking "why" is this here? Is it the change in the English language over time? The types of things that were on the list, compared to what's considered normal today? Is it the fact that it just shows the month + year, vs YYYY-MM-DD-HH-mm-SS.XXTZ like we must have now? Is it the idea of what appeared to be a letter that might have been posted via mail to some other place in advance of the courier which would retrieve the goods requested? --- My point is that there are a number of reasons why this could have been posted here on HN, but no indication of any of those was given. So I was wondering. Sheesh.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  No idea why you were downvoted. I think the reason you haven't got a good answer is because samclemens isn't answering and the rest of us don't know his (or her, or its) reasons.
- Semiapies 9y ago
  Because when the question asked is, "Why is this story on HN?", there's no way to tell whether you're asking "Why is this non-technical, non-belonging story here?", which is highly disfavored, and "What precisely interested the submitter about this story?", which is, well, not terribly important.

Pretty cool, but why is this being submitted here? (Not that it shouldn't be - just curious why.)

swampthinker 9y ago

HN isn't just limited to technical and startup discussion. Sometimes you just want to share something cool :)

devmunchies 9y ago
So you're saying that hacker news is no longer for hacker-related news? The whole world wants to "share something cool". I come here so that I only get the cool tech stuff. My 2 cents.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  You might want to read the guidelines, linked in the footer. The very first section deals with your assumption as to what's on-topic here.
- galeaspablo 9y ago
  If you want to save yourself a click... 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 I would say the content fits this description.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    I figured that they might benefit from reading the rest of the guidelines, too.
    - galeaspablo 9y ago
      Team work. You point to the full guidelines. I cover the people in a rush who want a ;TLDR. ;)
- DanBC 9y ago
  > no longer other people have pointed out the guidelines. I wanted to point out that something similar has existed for many years. https://web.archive.org/web/20080616133301/http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080616133301/http://ycombinato... You might want to read dang's reply here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10605253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10605253
- Bjartr 9y ago
  >I come here so that I only get the cool tech stuff. Then, honestly, this is the wrong place. Yeah, a good portion of it is cool tech stuff, but it's not (and has never been) exclusively that.
  - kwhitefoot 9y ago
    This is cool tech stuff! It's just not explicitly related to computing. How much techier can you get than the language used to communicate all the other tech stuff?

whatnotests 9y ago

Wow...I was simply asking "why" is this here? Is it the change in the English language over time? The types of things that were on the list, compared to what's considered normal today? Is it the fact that it just shows the month + year, vs YYYY-MM-DD-HH-mm-SS.XXTZ like we must have now? Is it the idea of what appeared to be a letter that might have been posted via mail to some other place in advance of the courier which would retrieve the goods requested? --- My point is that there are a number of reasons why this could have been posted here on HN, but no indication of any of those was given. So I was wondering. Sheesh.

kwhitefoot 9y ago
No idea why you were downvoted. I think the reason you haven't got a good answer is because samclemens isn't answering and the rest of us don't know his (or her, or its) reasons.
Semiapies 9y ago
Because when the question asked is, "Why is this story on HN?", there's no way to tell whether you're asking "Why is this non-technical, non-belonging story here?", which is highly disfavored, and "What precisely interested the submitter about this story?", which is, well, not terribly important.