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It certainly does seem that HN has become increasingly more political in recent days. Yes, I can understand a post on body-scanner technology and it's applicati

by amelim 16y ago

It certainly does seem that HN has become increasingly more political in recent days. Yes, I can understand a post on body-scanner technology and it's applications to travel security, but do we really need to see blog posts about how person n opted out, or how person x experienced an unusual pat-down? Yes, for Americans (and non-Americans alike), these are important issues, but HN does not need to become an aggregate site for stories such as these. There is a strong commitment by the community to prevent the site becoming like digg, reddit, or slashdot. Losing focus on the topics that brought us here in the first place (technology, startup culture, and programming) is the first step on that path in my opinion. All I can ask is please, try not to submit/vote up stories which are not particularly related to tech. It's not what I'm interested in discussing in this particular venue. Or maybe I'm just in the minority. I guess time will tell. P.S. Just because you put the word "Hacker" in your article/title, doesn't mean it belongs here.

TomOfTTB 16y ago
The problem is the community can't really do anything about it. Without the ability to downvote a topic all you can do is watch and hope others don't upvote a story like that. Which itself is a problem because the threshold is so low. By even the most conservative estimates there are thousands of people visiting the site every day yet it only takes a handful or so to get an item to the front page. So even if 99.5% of the people here make a "strong commitment" as you put it the front page will still be flooded with all those TSA stories
- gloob 16y ago
  Flag them. Flag them all.
  - NathanKP 16y ago
    Does anyone know how many flags it takes before an article is automatically deleted? I'm just curious as to what percentage of the hacker news ecosystem would have to flag something to remove it from the front page.
    - die_sekte 16y ago
      I think an article is deleted when it reaches 10 flags (could be less, not sure) before reaching 10 votes. After 10 votes, it can't be flagged to death anymore.
- rlpb 16y ago
  How about permitting downvotes to everyone after a submission has had a certain number of upvotes (say 10 or 20)? As you say, currently there's no way to say "there's nothing interesting on the front page" even if a majority think that.
lwhi 16y ago
It would be completely ridiculous to try to remove political discussion from HN. Politics is involved with _everything_ the world has to offer; and more specifically, politics is fundamentally bound to technology. The fact that people like making 'cool stuff', will always have a flip-side. We need to be able to talk about the way that technology is utilised and that (necessarily) involves political discussion. Without this kind of discussion, people involved in the tech industry are destined to become unthinking drones .. consideration of ethics and politics is essential if technology stands any chance of making the world a better place.
- Charuru 16y ago
  Any way you slice it, discussion on ways to bypass scanners is not that relevant to technology. More importantly, there are a large number of sites where 'politics' can be discussed, don't infest a hacker site with it.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    It's entirely relevant to technology. Whether you like it or not, technology doesn't happen in a vacuum. Technology relates to people and society in a big way. When usage of a device (like the millimetre wave scanner) is misguided and unappreciated by a large number of people, why on earth _shouldn't_ it be discussed on a tech forum? It's not enough to take the view that 'I just make the stuff .. other people can choose whether it's a good idea'. We all have a responsibility to consider whether what we create is going to result in anything 'good' and what 'good' actually means.
    - Pahalial 16y ago
      That's bypassing the point. Discussed once, absolutely; discussed in hundreds of posts, maybe not so much. http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+intitle%3ATSA http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+i...
    - Charuru 16y ago
      What you're talking about are your opinions and your personal philosophical beliefs of only tangential relevance to technology. Discussing them is not what I signed up here for. You wanna talk about it? I have a reddit account, you know?
The_Igor 16y ago
I disagree that everything that is submitted should be related to tech. Opposite is also true, just cause it is related to tech, does not mean it is appropriate. In any case, here is the official NH policy: "What to Submit On-Topic: 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."
malbiniak 16y ago
All I can ask is please, try not to submit/vote up stories which are not particularly related to tech. It's not what I'm interested in discussing in this particular venue. As a community, is that true, or is it "submit/vote up stories which are not particularly related to technology, startup culture, and programming?" That's my preference, but I also came in a few generations after HN started.
epo 16y ago
This sentiment, which I would caricature as "the hoi-polloi are polluting our elite discussions" is risible. Enlightenment and insight comes from listening to a variety of sources, not all of them agreeable. Set up your own invite-only community and see how quickly the discussions become stilted and predictable. It may well be true that the threshold for stories appearing on the front page needs to be revised, but if you only ever read the front page then you are also doing nothing to select stories of quality and relevance to appear there. Perhaps you should personally be doing more to raise the quality of the front page in whatever direction you feel appropriate. And yes, I am a newcomer.
- jdp23 16y ago
  agreed. Matt made some very good points, and i can see arguments for revising the voting scheme. but a long-time poster citing as his #1 issue the problem that "a vocal minority" (whose views he doesn't want to hear) is getting a handful of stories on the front page comes across as very elitist, and so do a lot of the comments in this thread
- mfukar 16y ago
  Enlightenment and insight comes from listening to a variety of sources, not all of them agreeable. I believe the most appropriate of responses here is, no, not necessarily. In the end, communities defined and redefine themselves, and they do so constantly. One way to keep the level and content of discussions in acceptable territory is to restate, emphasize or otherwise promote the original purpose of the community. Discussions such as this help, if each party isn't entirely focused on mindlessly arguing with other and actually try to understand where their fellow HN-er is coming from, I suppose. Keep in mind that the sentiment, as you put it, of the grandparent does not necessarily imply the elitism you so readily cauterize. Like it or not, communities have a narrow focus, at least narrow in the sense that contradicts a sentence like "Politics are ubiquitous!". Insight and enlightenment in this particular area of focus usually has a prerequisite the deep and fundamental familiarity with said subject. Your point about the front page I liked alot. I noticed I only view the front page, deliberate as that may be. I wonder what gems I might be missing..
  - 16y ago

by amelim 16y ago

TomOfTTB 16y ago

The problem is the community can't really do anything about it. Without the ability to downvote a topic all you can do is watch and hope others don't upvote a story like that. Which itself is a problem because the threshold is so low. By even the most conservative estimates there are thousands of people visiting the site every day yet it only takes a handful or so to get an item to the front page. So even if 99.5% of the people here make a "strong commitment" as you put it the front page will still be flooded with all those TSA stories

gloob 16y ago
Flag them. Flag them all.
- NathanKP 16y ago
  Does anyone know how many flags it takes before an article is automatically deleted? I'm just curious as to what percentage of the hacker news ecosystem would have to flag something to remove it from the front page.
  - die_sekte 16y ago
    I think an article is deleted when it reaches 10 flags (could be less, not sure) before reaching 10 votes. After 10 votes, it can't be flagged to death anymore.
rlpb 16y ago
How about permitting downvotes to everyone after a submission has had a certain number of upvotes (say 10 or 20)? As you say, currently there's no way to say "there's nothing interesting on the front page" even if a majority think that.

lwhi 16y ago

It would be completely ridiculous to try to remove political discussion from HN. Politics is involved with _everything_ the world has to offer; and more specifically, politics is fundamentally bound to technology. The fact that people like making 'cool stuff', will always have a flip-side. We need to be able to talk about the way that technology is utilised and that (necessarily) involves political discussion. Without this kind of discussion, people involved in the tech industry are destined to become unthinking drones .. consideration of ethics and politics is essential if technology stands any chance of making the world a better place.

Charuru 16y ago
Any way you slice it, discussion on ways to bypass scanners is not that relevant to technology. More importantly, there are a large number of sites where 'politics' can be discussed, don't infest a hacker site with it.
- lwhi 16y ago
  It's entirely relevant to technology. Whether you like it or not, technology doesn't happen in a vacuum. Technology relates to people and society in a big way. When usage of a device (like the millimetre wave scanner) is misguided and unappreciated by a large number of people, why on earth _shouldn't_ it be discussed on a tech forum? It's not enough to take the view that 'I just make the stuff .. other people can choose whether it's a good idea'. We all have a responsibility to consider whether what we create is going to result in anything 'good' and what 'good' actually means.
  - Pahalial 16y ago
    That's bypassing the point. Discussed once, absolutely; discussed in hundreds of posts, maybe not so much. http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+intitle%3ATSA http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+i...
  - Charuru 16y ago
    What you're talking about are your opinions and your personal philosophical beliefs of only tangential relevance to technology. Discussing them is not what I signed up here for. You wanna talk about it? I have a reddit account, you know?

The_Igor 16y ago

I disagree that everything that is submitted should be related to tech. Opposite is also true, just cause it is related to tech, does not mean it is appropriate. In any case, here is the official NH policy: "What to Submit On-Topic: 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."

malbiniak 16y ago

All I can ask is please, try not to submit/vote up stories which are not particularly related to tech. It's not what I'm interested in discussing in this particular venue. As a community, is that true, or is it "submit/vote up stories which are not particularly related to technology, startup culture, and programming?" That's my preference, but I also came in a few generations after HN started.

epo 16y ago

This sentiment, which I would caricature as "the hoi-polloi are polluting our elite discussions" is risible. Enlightenment and insight comes from listening to a variety of sources, not all of them agreeable. Set up your own invite-only community and see how quickly the discussions become stilted and predictable. It may well be true that the threshold for stories appearing on the front page needs to be revised, but if you only ever read the front page then you are also doing nothing to select stories of quality and relevance to appear there. Perhaps you should personally be doing more to raise the quality of the front page in whatever direction you feel appropriate. And yes, I am a newcomer.

jdp23 16y ago
agreed. Matt made some very good points, and i can see arguments for revising the voting scheme. but a long-time poster citing as his #1 issue the problem that "a vocal minority" (whose views he doesn't want to hear) is getting a handful of stories on the front page comes across as very elitist, and so do a lot of the comments in this thread
mfukar 16y ago
Enlightenment and insight comes from listening to a variety of sources, not all of them agreeable. I believe the most appropriate of responses here is, no, not necessarily. In the end, communities defined and redefine themselves, and they do so constantly. One way to keep the level and content of discussions in acceptable territory is to restate, emphasize or otherwise promote the original purpose of the community. Discussions such as this help, if each party isn't entirely focused on mindlessly arguing with other and actually try to understand where their fellow HN-er is coming from, I suppose. Keep in mind that the sentiment, as you put it, of the grandparent does not necessarily imply the elitism you so readily cauterize. Like it or not, communities have a narrow focus, at least narrow in the sense that contradicts a sentence like "Politics are ubiquitous!". Insight and enlightenment in this particular area of focus usually has a prerequisite the deep and fundamental familiarity with said subject. Your point about the front page I liked alot. I noticed I only view the front page, deliberate as that may be. I wonder what gems I might be missing..
- 16y ago