5 ms·

How To Write The Perfect Meta Article

21 points by DanielBMarkham 16y ago

JonnieCache 16y ago
In this situation, as a smug HN reader you may want to make a comment that mirrors the form of the article in a way that you find clever but is in fact irritating. The best way to achieve this is to go one level up on the meta-ladder, and to write a meta-comment, that is, a comment about comments. However that would be self-indulgent to the point of solipsism, so I advise against it. At least I think it would be. Let me just ask the next djinn above me...
- Vivtek 16y ago
  Even includes the Hofstadterian allusion to establish old-school geekdom. I give this a thumbs up, good effort.
- hugh3 16y ago
  With your "next djinn above me" comment you have implicitly already laid claim to the infinite chain of additional rungs on the meta-ladder on top of your comment. And you did it in the very first comment of the thread. I don't see how anybody can possibly go more meta than that.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jerf 16y ago
I've been tempted to write "Top Ten Articles Containing Ten Reasons Top Ten Lists are Bad".
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  I've been meaning for some time to write an article on procrastination.
  - jerf 16y ago
    If that's a friendly snark about how I haven't written it, the reason is that the joke is basically the title; actually writing it doesn't add much to the joke. A little bit from actually finding ten such articles, but not enough to warrent the effort.
    - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
      No snark intended. I got the joke. Just trying to reply in the meta and recursive spirit of the article. Like yours, my title is the joke. Nothing more to add.
edw519 16y ago
OK, Daniel, I see where this is going... Last week: "Roll Your Own LinkBait Tech Headline" This week: "How to Write the Perfect Meta Article" Next week: "Ask HN: Review my start-up BlogPostGenerator.com"
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  After swombat's article today on writing articles for startups I tweet "Swombat! Keep this up and I'll write an article on how to write meta articles" I had to do it. It was a triple-dog dare. He now threatens to write an article on how to make fun of meta articles, but I don't think he has it in him. Meanwhile for those of you who think we do this instead of working, I've been pounding away at writing a custom Data Access Layer in F# and MySql. It's going to do some cool stuff, and I look forward to blogging about it. But the reason it's cool, ugh, is that, you guessed it, it works at the meta level. So I had meta on the brain today and this was just a good way to blow off some frustration.

In this situation, as a smug HN reader you may want to make a comment that mirrors the form of the article in a way that you find clever but is in fact irritating. The best way to achieve this is to go one level up on the meta-ladder, and to write a meta-comment, that is, a comment about comments. However that would be self-indulgent to the point of solipsism, so I advise against it. At least I think it would be. Let me just ask the next djinn above me...

Vivtek 16y ago
Even includes the Hofstadterian allusion to establish old-school geekdom. I give this a thumbs up, good effort.
hugh3 16y ago
With your "next djinn above me" comment you have implicitly already laid claim to the infinite chain of additional rungs on the meta-ladder on top of your comment. And you did it in the very first comment of the thread. I don't see how anybody can possibly go more meta than that.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jerf 16y ago

I've been tempted to write "Top Ten Articles Containing Ten Reasons Top Ten Lists are Bad".

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I've been meaning for some time to write an article on procrastination.
- jerf 16y ago
  If that's a friendly snark about how I haven't written it, the reason is that the joke is basically the title; actually writing it doesn't add much to the joke. A little bit from actually finding ten such articles, but not enough to warrent the effort.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    No snark intended. I got the joke. Just trying to reply in the meta and recursive spirit of the article. Like yours, my title is the joke. Nothing more to add.

edw519 16y ago

OK, Daniel, I see where this is going... Last week: "Roll Your Own LinkBait Tech Headline" This week: "How to Write the Perfect Meta Article" Next week: "Ask HN: Review my start-up BlogPostGenerator.com"

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
After swombat's article today on writing articles for startups I tweet "Swombat! Keep this up and I'll write an article on how to write meta articles" I had to do it. It was a triple-dog dare. He now threatens to write an article on how to make fun of meta articles, but I don't think he has it in him. Meanwhile for those of you who think we do this instead of working, I've been pounding away at writing a custom Data Access Layer in F# and MySql. It's going to do some cool stuff, and I look forward to blogging about it. But the reason it's cool, ugh, is that, you guessed it, it works at the meta level. So I had meta on the brain today and this was just a good way to blow off some frustration.