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HN hates lazy comments. A clever or insightful joke may be upvoted, particularly if it is followed by thoughtful exploration of the topic. But "one liners," li
by Someone1234 6y ago
HN hates lazy comments.
A clever or insightful joke may be upvoted, particularly if it is followed by thoughtful exploration of the topic. But "one liners," like your example, are just lazy and offer no insight or in any way elevate the conversation.
Generally speaking if you want lazy retorts and memes, Reddit or Twitter already caters to that very well. HN is something else, and two things can exist to fill different niches.
- quickthrower2 6y agoI echo this a lot but every subreddit is different, some will also be like HN, others like 4chan, so get to know your sub before dropping the puns. And some subs have other weird downvoting cultures where if you trip the wrong wire you get obliterated.
- credit_guy 6y agoI'm familiar with reddit/AskHitorians. Any other good subreddit like that one that you know of?
- Debug_Overload 6y agor/askscience might be the closest one in terms of strict moderation and not tolerating off-topic/joke/anecdotal (or otherwise unscientific, obviously) stuff; you'll mostly find high-quality answers submitted by the verified panelists of the sub.
- krapp 6y ago> HN hates lazy comments. We really don't. It's not difficult to find plenty of hyperbole, boilerplate polemic and low-effort cynicism which gets voted up (or at least not voted down) and many comments here have no more effort or insight put into them than a joke or a meme. Most people here don't even seem to bother reading the linked articles, they just riff on whatever they think the title is about on first glance. It's mostly elitism. Jokes and memes are associated with the commoners on Reddit and there is nothing Hacker News despises so much as being considered common. It's also particularly ironic, given how many brilliant thinkers also had great (and sometimes even puerile) senses of humor. There was plenty of humor on USENET and BBSs in the halcyon days of hacker culture that HN looks back on so fondly. Obviously humor and intellect aren't inversely related but a lot of people here seem to believe so.
- pontus 6y agoI think this is actually pretty spot on. The same, ironically, goes for comments that espouse a view that's contrarian against the already contrarian HN perspective. I say ironically because in many ways HN prides itself with being contrarian.
- brudgers 6y agoAs someone with fond memories of the Usenet and bulletin boards, I recognize my fondness is for the pure joy of writing what is easy to write. Snark, sarcasm, flame bait, and utterances from beneath a bridge. Fondness of writing for an endless stream of billy goats as an audience. Fondness for competitive typing. Fondness for not knowing better. For not holding myself accountable. Fondness for the rationalizations of a bully. There's lots of crap on HN. Because it's still the internet. Just because there's a lower ratio of crap because it's HN doesn't mean people won't go out of their way to crap on it.
- jasonkester 6y agoIndeed. Humor is fine, provided it's used to advance the discussion. Looking back at my comment history, plenty of highly voted ones started with or included something humorous. Example: On designers worrying about losing work to 99designs... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2378303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2378303 Stupid joke to illustrate a point, followed by actionable advice.