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I usually am not one to make such comments, but a recent trend in HN has been submissions unrelated to the guidelines (see http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines
by notdarkyet 18y ago
I usually am not one to make such comments, but a recent trend in HN has been submissions unrelated to the guidelines (see http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Not too long ago there was an article on Obama and I defended its relevancy and was heavily downmodded (and deservedly so).
Digg and Reddit have become almost useless to me and HN is my main community to participate in. I have noticed that with its growing popularity, the articles have increasingly become weaker and so have the conversations. The length and depth of posts have been reduced to the level of both Digg and Reddit. People attempt to get in their "clever" one liners and the the site becomes watered down with its popularity. I strongly believe that if the community reaffirms the core guidelines to the newer users (I am quite new myself even though I was a lurker for some time), HN can retain its quality while it scales.
- JesseAldridge 18y agoI doubt it. I think the only real way to keep quality up is to improve the system. Asking people to play nice only goes so far.
- yelsgib 18y agoOf course, there is something to be said for the ability to exist within a free (non-systemic) community, no? I mean, we can have a "system" where the members of the community come to a consensus about appropriate content, downmod people who violate that consensus, etc. I dislike very much the knee-jerk reaction to create rules, order, etc.
- wumi 18y agoI strongly believe that if the community reaffirms the core guidelines to the newer users nickb is #1 on the leaderboard ... http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
- davidw 18y agoAnd he submits a lot of stuff. 17 people voted the thing up, though.
- brlewis 18y agoI voted it up. A government that wants to surveil its citizens without any accountability is not one that will tolerate an open Internet for long. This story is totally relevant.
- davidw 18y agoIt's extremely important, but not so relevant to this and only this site. It's relevant to everyone - we all use the web, email and talk on the phone. Between that and a big red politics flag, to me that means it shouldn't be here. There are much better places to discuss and act on this and the numerous other serious problems with the current government.
- mhb 18y agoSix Degrees of Hacker News is based on a variation of the concept of the small world phenomenon and states that any news story can be found to fit within the submission guidelines of Hacker News. See also: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon)
- davidw 18y agoHah! I've been thinking the same thing for a while. I think that you win more points in the SDOHN game the more tenuous the connection is: "This Obama article is really about hacker news because ... ... facebook ... ... futures trading ... ... venture capital ... hackers!"
- icey 18y agoEven nickb is allowed to misfire once in awhile.
- pmorici 18y agoI disagree, this is an extremely relevant article to hacker news. What percentage of internet traffic is carried by telephone companies?