4 ms·

It must be awesome to be able to file away big, direct threats to the lives of huge numbers of people (including everyone who reads HN) as "just politics."

vixen99 7y ago
Doesn't HN site guidance allow stories about politics, or crime, or sports if `they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon` and `gratifies intellectual curiosity`? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mindcrime 7y ago
  Yes. But the guidelines also say If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. An awful lot of what gets discussed here, IMO, falls into the "generic story that would be covered on TV news" category. But that's just me.
  - danso 7y ago
    Which of the current top 15 HN front page stories would be a typical TV news story? 1. Let's Encrypt Has Issued a Billion Certificates (letsencrypt.org) 2. GitHub Facing Downtime (githubstatus.com) 3. Goodreads Data Pipeline (github.com) 4. Why the Gov.uk Design System team changed the input type for numbers (technology.blog.gov.uk) 5. CDC declined to test new coronavirus patient for days, California hospital says (thehill.com) 6. Things about the new Firefox browser for Android (blog.mozilla.org) 7. Japan's PM Asks All School to Temporarily Close (nhk.or.jp) 8. Hasura raises $9.9M Series A to simplify GraphQL for developers (techcrunch.com) 9. New improvements to IPFS Bitswap for faster container image distribution (ipfs.io) 10. Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths (worldometers.info) 11. The $35 Raspberry Pi 4 now comes with double the RAM (engadget.com) 12. Pen testers mom breaks into a state prison and infects wardens computer (wired.com) 13. The Simpsons in CSS (pattle.github.io) 14. Don’t try to sanitize input – escape output (benhoyt.com) 15. Rome: An experimental JavaScript toolchain (github.com)
    - mindcrime 7y ago
      A snapshot of which links happen to be on the front-page at any given time doesn't tell you anything, really, vis-a-vis the point I was getting at. The front page ebbs and flows constantly, stories that aren't on the front-page still get discussed, and not every front-page story draws the same amount of engagement.
      - danso 7y ago
        Absolutely. So take a peek at the most active discussions and the "best" (most upvoted) lists: https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best There's a lot of CDC/Cornoavirus in the /active list, and almost none (so far) in the /best list. And I suppose this is begging the question a little, but it doesn't seem out of place for coronavirus to be a big topic in /active. The first community transmission was just reported in the Bay Area, which means there will be a potential imminent impact to the daily lives of HN's biggest audience. Nevermind the already existing impact of travel and tech events being cancelled worldwide.
        mindcrime 7y ago
        Yeah, I mean, on the Coronavirus thing, I understand why people here are interested in talking about it, and I'm not going to complain too much. Heck, I've been active on some of those discussions myself. But in general, I do feel like HN has "drifted" over the years, to be closer to "talking about the same stuff that's on CNN" site, than the hyper-niche techie/startupy/sciencey site that it was. Of course there's still plenty of tech|startup|science stuff here (and "coronavirus" arguably falls into "science" anyway) and one can always ignore the stuff they don't find interesting. shrug

vixen99 7y ago

Doesn't HN site guidance allow stories about politics, or crime, or sports if `they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon` and `gratifies intellectual curiosity`? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mindcrime 7y ago
Yes. But the guidelines also say If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. An awful lot of what gets discussed here, IMO, falls into the "generic story that would be covered on TV news" category. But that's just me.
- danso 7y ago
  Which of the current top 15 HN front page stories would be a typical TV news story? 1. Let's Encrypt Has Issued a Billion Certificates (letsencrypt.org) 2. GitHub Facing Downtime (githubstatus.com) 3. Goodreads Data Pipeline (github.com) 4. Why the Gov.uk Design System team changed the input type for numbers (technology.blog.gov.uk) 5. CDC declined to test new coronavirus patient for days, California hospital says (thehill.com) 6. Things about the new Firefox browser for Android (blog.mozilla.org) 7. Japan's PM Asks All School to Temporarily Close (nhk.or.jp) 8. Hasura raises $9.9M Series A to simplify GraphQL for developers (techcrunch.com) 9. New improvements to IPFS Bitswap for faster container image distribution (ipfs.io) 10. Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths (worldometers.info) 11. The $35 Raspberry Pi 4 now comes with double the RAM (engadget.com) 12. Pen testers mom breaks into a state prison and infects wardens computer (wired.com) 13. The Simpsons in CSS (pattle.github.io) 14. Don’t try to sanitize input – escape output (benhoyt.com) 15. Rome: An experimental JavaScript toolchain (github.com)
  - mindcrime 7y ago
    A snapshot of which links happen to be on the front-page at any given time doesn't tell you anything, really, vis-a-vis the point I was getting at. The front page ebbs and flows constantly, stories that aren't on the front-page still get discussed, and not every front-page story draws the same amount of engagement.
    - danso 7y ago
      Absolutely. So take a peek at the most active discussions and the "best" (most upvoted) lists: https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best There's a lot of CDC/Cornoavirus in the /active list, and almost none (so far) in the /best list. And I suppose this is begging the question a little, but it doesn't seem out of place for coronavirus to be a big topic in /active. The first community transmission was just reported in the Bay Area, which means there will be a potential imminent impact to the daily lives of HN's biggest audience. Nevermind the already existing impact of travel and tech events being cancelled worldwide.
      - mindcrime 7y ago
        Yeah, I mean, on the Coronavirus thing, I understand why people here are interested in talking about it, and I'm not going to complain too much. Heck, I've been active on some of those discussions myself. But in general, I do feel like HN has "drifted" over the years, to be closer to "talking about the same stuff that's on CNN" site, than the hyper-niche techie/startupy/sciencey site that it was. Of course there's still plenty of tech|startup|science stuff here (and "coronavirus" arguably falls into "science" anyway) and one can always ignore the stuff they don't find interesting. shrug