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I've been here for a while, and I already went through my six-month noob HN-is-reddit phase. That being said, in what possible way is this within the HN guideli

I've been here for a while, and I already went through my six-month noob HN-is-reddit phase. That being said, in what possible way is this within the HN guidelines?

elbrodeur 16y ago
Putting this here because you don't have an email address: - Upvoting an article is the group's way of saying, "This article has something interesting in it." - Bad articles, spam, linkbait or things that don't fit in the guidelines or don't follow common sense usually get flagged and filtered out. The post doesn't really seem to be outside of the guidelines. It may not meet your personal standard of quality, but the group likes it so it's on the front page. The best way to combat content that you think is spammy, irrelevant or wrong is to flag it.
- ecuzzillo 16y ago
  I did flag it. I'm aware of the idea that people are supposed to upvote things that have something interesting in them. However, lately, it has been remarked elsewhere by people who are not me that politics have crept into the discussion well beyond the threshold of intellectual curiosity, and this was to me a flagrant example of something that in no way piqued anyone's intellectual curiosity, but instead triggered political feelings. Things that are there for the purpose of intellectual intrigue do not have rallying cries for redistribution in bold as their first sentence, for example. Also, I've observed the upvote vs. flag mechanism working for several years now. I agree that it does work in general. I posted this because I believe it is somewhat breaking down lately, in the form of political rallying cries reaching the front page.
  - mquander 16y ago
    I agree with you about this post. But the only thing to do is flag it and move on. Complaining in the post is rarely going to lead to anything productive at all, so you may as well not do it. Keep the thread clean for people who do want to talk about this.
  - elbrodeur 16y ago
    Again, there's no way to contact you personally regarding this really off-topic thread, so I'll reply here. I'll agree with you that there is an unfortunate rise in the amount of politically charged rhetoric lately, but I really don't care for navel gazing (which I think is a far more unfortunate result of online communities in their adolescence). However, I don't really think that this article "in no way piqued anyone's intellectual curiosity, but instead triggered political feelings." ... I'm not quite sure how "intellectual" curiosity differs from normal curiosity, but can you honestly say that there wasn't a single person who didn't find the article interesting enough to say, 'Hey, what this guy said was interesting! I'd like to investigate this issue further.' >>Things that are there for the purpose of intellectual intrigue do not have rallying cries for redistribution in bold as their first sentence, for example. Intellectual intrigue? Was there a thought crime committed here? Joking aside, you can't fault any author for trying to promote their work. Self promotion -- and the prominence of the self promotion -- doesn't say anything about the quality of the content. >> Also, I've observed the upvote vs. flag mechanism working for several years now. I agree that it does work in general. I posted this because I believe it is somewhat breaking down lately, in the form of political rallying cries reaching the front page. Again, this is a conversation you and I should be having. It's a great reason to add some sort of way to contact you personally -- there's no reason anyone else should have to read our meta-HN conversation. That being said -- what does a comment that essentially amounts to a downvote + flag add to the discussion? - You obviously don't care for the article - You didn't add anything constructive OR critical I mean, honestly, I can't believe I've been typing for two minutes about this.
    - ecuzzillo 16y ago
      In general, it's true that excess meta-discussion is boring and annoying, and I haven't participated in very many meta-discussions since my HN-reddit-noob period. At some point, though, when things pass a threshold, I believe it's okay to say something. Moreover, I believe that while this thread is not on the topic of the post, it is at least somewhat interesting topic to talk about, and is unlikely to be discussed elsewhere. For this reason, I don't think it would be better for us to communicate privately, and feel fortunate that it never occurred to me to put my email in my profile. Anyway, to me, the difference between curiosity and intellectual curiosity is the motivation behind it. A televangelist who discovers YouTube is not curious about how to use YouTube because he likes to figure out how things work; he is curious because he would like more ways to evangelize. Similarly, someone who upvoted this post is likely not intellectually curious about the phenomena involved; he's likely instead curious about how best to further his cause (which in this case is civil liberties). So, interested, yes, intellectual curiosity piqued, no. Also, I'm not faulting the blogger. The blogger is a blogger; he blogs. I'm faulting the editors for not killing this, because it doesn't add content; it adds rallying cry.
  - fauigerzigerk 16y ago
    Domain names getting seized is not just politics for the people here.
jdp23 16y ago
i asked a similar question on another post and also got voted down. my conclusion is that these posts clearly fall within the HN guidelines (at a minimum very relevant to anybody whose current or future web startup relates to content or online shopping) but there are obviously different opinions. i don't see why suggestions that we discuss it get routinely downvoted.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  > i don't see why suggestions that we discuss it get routinely downvoted. Because this kind of meta-discussion is explicitly off-topic: > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.
- ecuzzillo 16y ago
  Like I said in the other branch: in general, it sucks to talk about talking, especially when it's always the same stuff being said. So even if it seems kind of off-topic, it's often better to stay mum for this reason. That said, this seems more than kind of, and is the type of off-topic that seems to lead to more of the not interesting stuff, so I decided to say something despite all that.

I've been here for a while, and I already went through my six-month noob HN-is-reddit phase. That being said, in what possible way is this within the HN guidelines?

elbrodeur 16y ago

Putting this here because you don't have an email address: - Upvoting an article is the group's way of saying, "This article has something interesting in it." - Bad articles, spam, linkbait or things that don't fit in the guidelines or don't follow common sense usually get flagged and filtered out. The post doesn't really seem to be outside of the guidelines. It may not meet your personal standard of quality, but the group likes it so it's on the front page. The best way to combat content that you think is spammy, irrelevant or wrong is to flag it.

ecuzzillo 16y ago
I did flag it. I'm aware of the idea that people are supposed to upvote things that have something interesting in them. However, lately, it has been remarked elsewhere by people who are not me that politics have crept into the discussion well beyond the threshold of intellectual curiosity, and this was to me a flagrant example of something that in no way piqued anyone's intellectual curiosity, but instead triggered political feelings. Things that are there for the purpose of intellectual intrigue do not have rallying cries for redistribution in bold as their first sentence, for example. Also, I've observed the upvote vs. flag mechanism working for several years now. I agree that it does work in general. I posted this because I believe it is somewhat breaking down lately, in the form of political rallying cries reaching the front page.
- mquander 16y ago
  I agree with you about this post. But the only thing to do is flag it and move on. Complaining in the post is rarely going to lead to anything productive at all, so you may as well not do it. Keep the thread clean for people who do want to talk about this.
- elbrodeur 16y ago
  Again, there's no way to contact you personally regarding this really off-topic thread, so I'll reply here. I'll agree with you that there is an unfortunate rise in the amount of politically charged rhetoric lately, but I really don't care for navel gazing (which I think is a far more unfortunate result of online communities in their adolescence). However, I don't really think that this article "in no way piqued anyone's intellectual curiosity, but instead triggered political feelings." ... I'm not quite sure how "intellectual" curiosity differs from normal curiosity, but can you honestly say that there wasn't a single person who didn't find the article interesting enough to say, 'Hey, what this guy said was interesting! I'd like to investigate this issue further.' >>Things that are there for the purpose of intellectual intrigue do not have rallying cries for redistribution in bold as their first sentence, for example. Intellectual intrigue? Was there a thought crime committed here? Joking aside, you can't fault any author for trying to promote their work. Self promotion -- and the prominence of the self promotion -- doesn't say anything about the quality of the content. >> Also, I've observed the upvote vs. flag mechanism working for several years now. I agree that it does work in general. I posted this because I believe it is somewhat breaking down lately, in the form of political rallying cries reaching the front page. Again, this is a conversation you and I should be having. It's a great reason to add some sort of way to contact you personally -- there's no reason anyone else should have to read our meta-HN conversation. That being said -- what does a comment that essentially amounts to a downvote + flag add to the discussion? - You obviously don't care for the article - You didn't add anything constructive OR critical I mean, honestly, I can't believe I've been typing for two minutes about this.
  - ecuzzillo 16y ago
    In general, it's true that excess meta-discussion is boring and annoying, and I haven't participated in very many meta-discussions since my HN-reddit-noob period. At some point, though, when things pass a threshold, I believe it's okay to say something. Moreover, I believe that while this thread is not on the topic of the post, it is at least somewhat interesting topic to talk about, and is unlikely to be discussed elsewhere. For this reason, I don't think it would be better for us to communicate privately, and feel fortunate that it never occurred to me to put my email in my profile. Anyway, to me, the difference between curiosity and intellectual curiosity is the motivation behind it. A televangelist who discovers YouTube is not curious about how to use YouTube because he likes to figure out how things work; he is curious because he would like more ways to evangelize. Similarly, someone who upvoted this post is likely not intellectually curious about the phenomena involved; he's likely instead curious about how best to further his cause (which in this case is civil liberties). So, interested, yes, intellectual curiosity piqued, no. Also, I'm not faulting the blogger. The blogger is a blogger; he blogs. I'm faulting the editors for not killing this, because it doesn't add content; it adds rallying cry.
- fauigerzigerk 16y ago
  Domain names getting seized is not just politics for the people here.

jdp23 16y ago

i asked a similar question on another post and also got voted down. my conclusion is that these posts clearly fall within the HN guidelines (at a minimum very relevant to anybody whose current or future web startup relates to content or online shopping) but there are obviously different opinions. i don't see why suggestions that we discuss it get routinely downvoted.

steveklabnik 16y ago
> i don't see why suggestions that we discuss it get routinely downvoted. Because this kind of meta-discussion is explicitly off-topic: > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.
ecuzzillo 16y ago
Like I said in the other branch: in general, it sucks to talk about talking, especially when it's always the same stuff being said. So even if it seems kind of off-topic, it's often better to stay mum for this reason. That said, this seems more than kind of, and is the type of off-topic that seems to lead to more of the not interesting stuff, so I decided to say something despite all that.