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There are two ways to think about this. First, there is a saying, "The state of a nation will never be better than the sum of the state of each one of its indi
by Hawramani 16y ago
There are two ways to think about this.
First, there is a saying, "The state of a nation will never be better than the sum of the state of each one of its individuals." If the awareness of the people on HN is not enough to automatically cause content like TechCrunch to be excluded, maybe we deserve to see such content until we work to increase awareness.
Second, maybe it is non-core or new users of HN who vote up TechCrunch articles. Maybe we should take into consideration the opinion of the people who really care about HN and who know the business (and TechCrunch) better than the rest, and if they say the community will benefit if TechCrunch is banned then it should be.
- petercooper 16y agoPoint 1 - agreed. To counter this, regulars need to spend more time in /newest setting a good example with their votes. I subscribe to the "HN firehose" on Twitter for this reason. It's amazing, though, how much good stuff gets stuff in the low single digits because people just don't happen to be looking there. Point 2 - sure, but that introduces a layer of authority that is, at present, well hidden and rarely engaged. Perhaps instead of the deus ex machina solution of arbitrarily coming up with policies or bans, the voting system should be improved. I'd suggest that there's enough of a userbase here nowadays to stop, say, people with under X karma or Y days of HN membership from voting without causing a negative impact. This sort of algorithmic solution appeals to me more than potentially erroneous and biased decision making by committee any day.
- Hawramani 16y agoGreat suggestion! I wholeheartedly agree with what you said, it is vastly superior to my second solution.