2 ms·

I've been flagging mainstream news topics hard all year, but I think there's just a few of us actually trying to keep the site to its stated goal. The level of

I've been flagging mainstream news topics hard all year, but I think there's just a few of us actually trying to keep the site to its stated goal. The level of discourse around those topics is abysmal.

krapp 7y ago
The stated goal of Hacker News is "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." Mainstream topics allowed from any source so long as they meet that criteria or presents "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This site has never been exclusively for technical topics. Flagging stories merely because you don't find them interesting, because they're mainstream or because they come from a mainstream site is an abuse of flagging privileges. You can just ignore such stories, hide them, upvote the content you would rather see or post more of such content.
- busterarm 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html 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._ Highlighting added for emphasis.
  - krapp 7y ago
    Probably, not definitely. Mainstream news covers plenty of stories which would be relevant here. If you don't believe me, talk to the admin and the guy who made the site[0]. The problem here is not the mainstream nature of articles being posted, but the low effort being put in by commenters. Plenty of tech-related stories have plenty of garbage comments as well. Most of the discussion around RMS has been a dumpster fire. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
    - busterarm 7y ago
      Right. I'm not saying definitely no politics, but there's a ton of political content that is not really that interesting (like the two stories that were just on the front page about the US drone strike killing pine nut farmers in Afghanistan that are sliding down the ranking fast). It has been a growing trend. Maybe I spend too much time on the site, but I usually see most of the threads that get flagged/dead. And I agree with my parent poster -- lobste.rs is a much better curated feed of interesting topics to me -- I'm not on it yet, because I sort of feel that I've made an investment here in the community.

krapp 7y ago

The stated goal of Hacker News is "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." Mainstream topics allowed from any source so long as they meet that criteria or presents "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This site has never been exclusively for technical topics. Flagging stories merely because you don't find them interesting, because they're mainstream or because they come from a mainstream site is an abuse of flagging privileges. You can just ignore such stories, hide them, upvote the content you would rather see or post more of such content.

busterarm 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html 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._ Highlighting added for emphasis.
- krapp 7y ago
  Probably, not definitely. Mainstream news covers plenty of stories which would be relevant here. If you don't believe me, talk to the admin and the guy who made the site[0]. The problem here is not the mainstream nature of articles being posted, but the low effort being put in by commenters. Plenty of tech-related stories have plenty of garbage comments as well. Most of the discussion around RMS has been a dumpster fire. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
  - busterarm 7y ago
    Right. I'm not saying definitely no politics, but there's a ton of political content that is not really that interesting (like the two stories that were just on the front page about the US drone strike killing pine nut farmers in Afghanistan that are sliding down the ranking fast). It has been a growing trend. Maybe I spend too much time on the site, but I usually see most of the threads that get flagged/dead. And I agree with my parent poster -- lobste.rs is a much better curated feed of interesting topics to me -- I'm not on it yet, because I sort of feel that I've made an investment here in the community.