4 ms·

Cue one highly ranked HN news item with no news, nothing about startups, nothing specific to hacking, no real information, and nothing that gratifies one's inte

Cue one highly ranked HN news item with no news, nothing about startups, nothing specific to hacking, no real information, and nothing that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Yup - I'm "that guy" and today I'm a grumpy old man. This item is just noise. ADDED IN EDIT: And yes, I expected to be downvoted, because anything that smacks of criticism of the community gets downvoted. People don't like to be told that they're doing something wrong, especially people who are so damned sure they're right, or clever, or talented, or hardworking. Yes, the very nature of an entrepreneur is to follow things through in the face of adversity, but when you're criticised you need to stop and see if there's some truth - to see if there's something you should learn. Before you downvote this comment, ask yourself why? Does this submission as a whole really add value to the site? If it does, then my criticism doesn't, and rightly should be downvoted. But if this item adds no real value to the site then my criticism is valid and should at least make you pause before looking for an arrow to click. And if you do downvote, then a reasoned response would add value. But maybe you really are just looking for cheap entertainment. Replying - adding value to the site - would be, you know, like, work.

jedsmith 16y ago
Fight noise with noise?
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  Well, I was just hoping to make people stop, think, and not contribute to this content-free crap. I used to come to HN and read pretty much everything. Now there's less and less that's got actual content, and more and more "entertaining" articles, or items of purely general interest with no focus. Some hard-of-thinking wannabee hitman, how to insult computer scientists, completely obvious comments about outsourcing, letters from Fukushima workers, any items of real value have to compete for space. Even the really good stuff feels familiar. I wonder if I've just seen all there is to see and everything's looking familiar, in the same way that as you get older, everyone reminds you of someone else. Maybe it's time to move on. Maybe this is a time to get the sense of the community and use that to help guide my decision. They do say - listen to your users. My contributions here on HN mean that you are, in a sense, my users.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Just curious, are you upvoting stuff on the "new" page? I see a lot of stuff that I think is interesting get few if any votes, and then slides off to obscurity. As you noted, this is a community, and so all have to play their part. If you and a few others upvote interesting stuff, it probably finds its way to the front page to fend for itself.
    - RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
      Yes, regularly. I use the "New" page as my main landing, before visiting the "Front" page. Every time I visit I upvote everything that I think is of value.
  - mkr-hn 16y ago
    I found this whole subthread and the lack of comment tree collapsing more disruptive and annoying than the submission.
    - nandemo 16y ago
      That's just as well if stops people from submitting and upvoting low signal-to-noise stories. (edited "noise-to-signal" typo).
      - jedsmith 16y ago
        You're kidding, right?
        nandemo 16y ago
        No, I really mean it. Some noise (e.g. in the form of this meta-discussion started by RiderOfGiraffes) is OK if makes people think twice before submitting more noise.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - 16y ago
jpwagner 16y ago
I couldn't disagree with you more. This is not a posting of a lolcat, it is relatively witty. Sure it's no Silence Dogood essay, but you're way too harsh here.
num1 16y ago
According to the official FAQ (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) on-topic is defined as: "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." Now I personally am a hacker (we'll leave the good for others to argue) and I find this interesting, if not rather humorous. This post currently has 51 points, meaning at least 50 other people also considered it interesting. If that's not strong evidence that this link belongs here please explain what is.
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  Do you really think it "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." ?? Honestly?? I think it's a cheap joke with no intellectual value. Some people find it funny, and they will upvote it. I'll happily believe that 50, 100, possibly 1000 people here find it funny to think about how to insult computer scientists. After you've read it - what have you really learned? Upvotes do not of themselves mean an item meets the guidelines.
  - num1 16y ago
    You are, of course, correct that upvotes do not "define" what belongs in this community. However if you will not accept that evidence, look at the other comments in this thread. I see people having fun and satisfying their creative curiosity by making and building upon jokes inspired by this link. Links which link intellect and curiosity are quite often posted to HN. To answer your question on what have I really learned... well that's not a question you want to start asking. I can point out quite a few articles that don't belong upon HN when held against that criteria. Take for example almost everything related to the NYT. I usually don't click on those and just wait for the blog post that explains the same thing with more information and less filler. As for another argument that you will find quite easy to strike down, this is not somewhere where I go do to market research, it is somewhere where I go to entertain myself and find things, preferably about hacking, that I may read. This link does a brilliant job of being related to hacking while also being entertaining.
lukeschlather 16y ago
I think this post is timely. My brother is presently working and studying at a university (The University of Cincinnati) where the computer science department has been axed in its entirety because of politics. They still, however, have the more applied computer engineering department. I think this post speaks volumes about the attitudes of faculty at Purdue, both in CS and outside. There's a lot of stuff this post doesn't explore because of the format, but I'm glad this showed up. Maybe you're removed from academia, or maybe the academic environment in the UK doesn't have these sorts of issues separating applied and theoretical CS, and even with applications-focused universities killing CS entirely. In short, this is not fluff, it succinctly illustrates a significant divide in the field.
hyperbovine 16y ago
In the future, I recommend not clicking.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
That was an especially fine job of grumpy old man. Kudos and congratulations. If you haven't noticed, the site is going to hell in a handbasket. Looking at the front page, we have more quadracopter porn (love it!), three stories along the lines of "guess who's quit/joining X" story, more Color trashing (can we say who cares?), a story that promises to teach me to accomplish anything, and, yet again, "Is C++ dead?" I say if C++ has jumped the shark, it is only a shark iterator, and the sequence is infinite. That's not even mentioning the new jokey/snide-remark level in commenting... Sorry. Didn't mean to horn in on your grumpy old guy glory.
- alnayyir 16y ago
  It's okay, I'll tromp all over your next "Glorious Defender of .NET" grumpy guy routine.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    Get off my lawn!

jedsmith 16y ago

Fight noise with noise?

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Well, I was just hoping to make people stop, think, and not contribute to this content-free crap. I used to come to HN and read pretty much everything. Now there's less and less that's got actual content, and more and more "entertaining" articles, or items of purely general interest with no focus. Some hard-of-thinking wannabee hitman, how to insult computer scientists, completely obvious comments about outsourcing, letters from Fukushima workers, any items of real value have to compete for space. Even the really good stuff feels familiar. I wonder if I've just seen all there is to see and everything's looking familiar, in the same way that as you get older, everyone reminds you of someone else. Maybe it's time to move on. Maybe this is a time to get the sense of the community and use that to help guide my decision. They do say - listen to your users. My contributions here on HN mean that you are, in a sense, my users.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Just curious, are you upvoting stuff on the "new" page? I see a lot of stuff that I think is interesting get few if any votes, and then slides off to obscurity. As you noted, this is a community, and so all have to play their part. If you and a few others upvote interesting stuff, it probably finds its way to the front page to fend for itself.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
    Yes, regularly. I use the "New" page as my main landing, before visiting the "Front" page. Every time I visit I upvote everything that I think is of value.
- mkr-hn 16y ago
  I found this whole subthread and the lack of comment tree collapsing more disruptive and annoying than the submission.
  - nandemo 16y ago
    That's just as well if stops people from submitting and upvoting low signal-to-noise stories. (edited "noise-to-signal" typo).
    - jedsmith 16y ago
      You're kidding, right?
      - nandemo 16y ago
        No, I really mean it. Some noise (e.g. in the form of this meta-discussion started by RiderOfGiraffes) is OK if makes people think twice before submitting more noise.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- 16y ago

jpwagner 16y ago

I couldn't disagree with you more. This is not a posting of a lolcat, it is relatively witty. Sure it's no Silence Dogood essay, but you're way too harsh here.

num1 16y ago

According to the official FAQ (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) on-topic is defined as: "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." Now I personally am a hacker (we'll leave the good for others to argue) and I find this interesting, if not rather humorous. This post currently has 51 points, meaning at least 50 other people also considered it interesting. If that's not strong evidence that this link belongs here please explain what is.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Do you really think it "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." ?? Honestly?? I think it's a cheap joke with no intellectual value. Some people find it funny, and they will upvote it. I'll happily believe that 50, 100, possibly 1000 people here find it funny to think about how to insult computer scientists. After you've read it - what have you really learned? Upvotes do not of themselves mean an item meets the guidelines.
- num1 16y ago
  You are, of course, correct that upvotes do not "define" what belongs in this community. However if you will not accept that evidence, look at the other comments in this thread. I see people having fun and satisfying their creative curiosity by making and building upon jokes inspired by this link. Links which link intellect and curiosity are quite often posted to HN. To answer your question on what have I really learned... well that's not a question you want to start asking. I can point out quite a few articles that don't belong upon HN when held against that criteria. Take for example almost everything related to the NYT. I usually don't click on those and just wait for the blog post that explains the same thing with more information and less filler. As for another argument that you will find quite easy to strike down, this is not somewhere where I go do to market research, it is somewhere where I go to entertain myself and find things, preferably about hacking, that I may read. This link does a brilliant job of being related to hacking while also being entertaining.

lukeschlather 16y ago

I think this post is timely. My brother is presently working and studying at a university (The University of Cincinnati) where the computer science department has been axed in its entirety because of politics. They still, however, have the more applied computer engineering department. I think this post speaks volumes about the attitudes of faculty at Purdue, both in CS and outside. There's a lot of stuff this post doesn't explore because of the format, but I'm glad this showed up. Maybe you're removed from academia, or maybe the academic environment in the UK doesn't have these sorts of issues separating applied and theoretical CS, and even with applications-focused universities killing CS entirely. In short, this is not fluff, it succinctly illustrates a significant divide in the field.

hyperbovine 16y ago

In the future, I recommend not clicking.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

That was an especially fine job of grumpy old man. Kudos and congratulations. If you haven't noticed, the site is going to hell in a handbasket. Looking at the front page, we have more quadracopter porn (love it!), three stories along the lines of "guess who's quit/joining X" story, more Color trashing (can we say who cares?), a story that promises to teach me to accomplish anything, and, yet again, "Is C++ dead?" I say if C++ has jumped the shark, it is only a shark iterator, and the sequence is infinite. That's not even mentioning the new jokey/snide-remark level in commenting... Sorry. Didn't mean to horn in on your grumpy old guy glory.

alnayyir 16y ago
It's okay, I'll tromp all over your next "Glorious Defender of .NET" grumpy guy routine.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  Get off my lawn!