4 ms·

Can you not? Please? I'd prefer YC's comments not go the way of Digg or Reddit.

mattmaroon 18y ago
Yeah, we wouldn't want a sense of humor creeping into this site. Might ruin it. Note that 3 of your last 5 comments are you being the HN police. Maybe consider relaxing and enjoying life a little more, rather than attempting to impose your vision of what the site should be upon everyone else.
- zenspider 18y ago
  Congratulations... you've learned how to bias your samples! Out of my last 20 comments, 4 are me being "HN police". 20% vs your 60%. And you're right, I don't come here for humor or jokes or any other bullshit. I come here because the name is "hacker news" and thus far, it has done a pretty good job of living up to both words in that name. The reason I come here is 80% for the comments, 20% for the actual links. I learn more from the comments than I do from most of the articles and I'd like to keep it that way. I go elsewhere for humor, and I don't want to spend my time sorting the two out here. Is that asking for too much? I see now in the guidelines that my original comment is frowned upon. I only have a 56 karma currently so I apparently don't meet the threshold for downvoting/flagging (I'm more of a gatherer/reader than a karmawhore) so this is all I've got available as a tool to shape things. So, I retract my request and I'll go back to lurking and if/when the signal:noise ratio goes to shit I'll go looking for something else (tho, HN does seem to be the last resort for good S:N so my hopes aren't too high).
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    My point was that different people come here for different things, and it's kind of rude to try to force everyone to come here for the exact same stuff as you. A lot of people think that the occasional humor makes the whole world a little more palatable. I did not mean to imply that you should never comment, just that you should lighten up a bit and let the voting system and PG's guiding hand take its course. I'd say overall it's doing a pretty great job. I didn't realize just how great until I spent a half hour on Reddit.
    - sysop073 18y ago
      Speaking of the voting system, why is there no downvote on the comment that started this thread? I have down arrows for all the others, but not that one. I'm still a little hazy on how karma affects all this, so maybe it's something to do with that
iigs 18y ago
Yeah. Sorry about that. I generally revise my comments if they're too confrontational, negative, or inane. That one was set up perfectly, though. I fully expected to come back to my computer to find my first net-negative comment. FWIW, this was my second highest comment and second most replied-to comment since I joined. In both dimensions this comment lost to my first comment which 1) was a reply to PG, 2) invoked the "hi i just registered here" sympathy upmod and 3) invoked "boo reddit/digg" sentiment in this parenthetical comment: (I'm a recent reddit lurker, and as reddit continues to become digg my clicks seem to be heading elsewhere) So, I agree with you fundamentally, but it looks like that's not how things are going to play out, if my first lets-be-a-jackass comment scored so well. Perhaps there's some middle ground? Everyone has their limit, but I'm not offended by a little risque humour (obviously), and it doesn't seem inappropriate for the site so long as it's not explicit or vulgar. My primary beef with reddit is that as an "all things to all people" site the front page is filled O LOOK A LOL CAT ITS A CAT WITH FUNNY WORDS [pic], and the comment threads are filled with semi-predictable reply chain puns. I'd love to read consensus (esp PG comments) for style guidelines for this site. I'm a geek and a trendy comp-sci field dabbler, but I'm not building a startup, despite my desire to be an entrepreneur, and I'm definitely not in Y Combinator, so I have a pretty good idea where my opinion lays in the grand scheme of things here. All articles being about tech/hacker interest seems 100%+ sensible. If the style guidelines are "No empty humor comments, period. Startups are Serious Business." Then perhaps I haven't found the right community fit for myself (hey look a startup idea!).
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Eh, don't sweat it, he just likes to play neighborhood watchman here apparently. Some people aren't content to just vote, they have to impose their will on others. There's nothing wrong with mixing in a little humor. It's been awhile since I read PG's guidelines, but I don't remember a ban on it. I don't think your joke broke the bounds of civility. It's a little blue for sure, but not NSFW. A joke here and there (even an off-color one) is FAR from turning this site into Reddit or Digg. I started surfing those for the first time a week or two ago just to see why everyone here complains about them, and wow is this site worlds apart (in a good way). I was actually shocked at how Reddit links are often so editorialized that I can't even guess what will be there when I click through.
13ren 18y ago
HN and reddit have swapped roles on this particular story: http://www.reddit.com/comments/6w1v0/pink_box_testing_are_you_doing_it/ http://www.reddit.com/comments/6w1v0/pink_box_testing_are_yo... BTW: I recently wanted to make an inane joke on a HN article, so I found the article on reddit using the below (I have it as a bookmark): javascript:location.href='http://reddit.com/submit?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title) and made my joke there.

Yeah, we wouldn't want a sense of humor creeping into this site. Might ruin it. Note that 3 of your last 5 comments are you being the HN police. Maybe consider relaxing and enjoying life a little more, rather than attempting to impose your vision of what the site should be upon everyone else.

zenspider 18y ago
Congratulations... you've learned how to bias your samples! Out of my last 20 comments, 4 are me being "HN police". 20% vs your 60%. And you're right, I don't come here for humor or jokes or any other bullshit. I come here because the name is "hacker news" and thus far, it has done a pretty good job of living up to both words in that name. The reason I come here is 80% for the comments, 20% for the actual links. I learn more from the comments than I do from most of the articles and I'd like to keep it that way. I go elsewhere for humor, and I don't want to spend my time sorting the two out here. Is that asking for too much? I see now in the guidelines that my original comment is frowned upon. I only have a 56 karma currently so I apparently don't meet the threshold for downvoting/flagging (I'm more of a gatherer/reader than a karmawhore) so this is all I've got available as a tool to shape things. So, I retract my request and I'll go back to lurking and if/when the signal:noise ratio goes to shit I'll go looking for something else (tho, HN does seem to be the last resort for good S:N so my hopes aren't too high).
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  My point was that different people come here for different things, and it's kind of rude to try to force everyone to come here for the exact same stuff as you. A lot of people think that the occasional humor makes the whole world a little more palatable. I did not mean to imply that you should never comment, just that you should lighten up a bit and let the voting system and PG's guiding hand take its course. I'd say overall it's doing a pretty great job. I didn't realize just how great until I spent a half hour on Reddit.
  - sysop073 18y ago
    Speaking of the voting system, why is there no downvote on the comment that started this thread? I have down arrows for all the others, but not that one. I'm still a little hazy on how karma affects all this, so maybe it's something to do with that

iigs 18y ago

Yeah. Sorry about that. I generally revise my comments if they're too confrontational, negative, or inane. That one was set up perfectly, though. I fully expected to come back to my computer to find my first net-negative comment. FWIW, this was my second highest comment and second most replied-to comment since I joined. In both dimensions this comment lost to my first comment which 1) was a reply to PG, 2) invoked the "hi i just registered here" sympathy upmod and 3) invoked "boo reddit/digg" sentiment in this parenthetical comment: (I'm a recent reddit lurker, and as reddit continues to become digg my clicks seem to be heading elsewhere) So, I agree with you fundamentally, but it looks like that's not how things are going to play out, if my first lets-be-a-jackass comment scored so well. Perhaps there's some middle ground? Everyone has their limit, but I'm not offended by a little risque humour (obviously), and it doesn't seem inappropriate for the site so long as it's not explicit or vulgar. My primary beef with reddit is that as an "all things to all people" site the front page is filled O LOOK A LOL CAT ITS A CAT WITH FUNNY WORDS [pic], and the comment threads are filled with semi-predictable reply chain puns. I'd love to read consensus (esp PG comments) for style guidelines for this site. I'm a geek and a trendy comp-sci field dabbler, but I'm not building a startup, despite my desire to be an entrepreneur, and I'm definitely not in Y Combinator, so I have a pretty good idea where my opinion lays in the grand scheme of things here. All articles being about tech/hacker interest seems 100%+ sensible. If the style guidelines are "No empty humor comments, period. Startups are Serious Business." Then perhaps I haven't found the right community fit for myself (hey look a startup idea!).

mattmaroon 18y ago
Eh, don't sweat it, he just likes to play neighborhood watchman here apparently. Some people aren't content to just vote, they have to impose their will on others. There's nothing wrong with mixing in a little humor. It's been awhile since I read PG's guidelines, but I don't remember a ban on it. I don't think your joke broke the bounds of civility. It's a little blue for sure, but not NSFW. A joke here and there (even an off-color one) is FAR from turning this site into Reddit or Digg. I started surfing those for the first time a week or two ago just to see why everyone here complains about them, and wow is this site worlds apart (in a good way). I was actually shocked at how Reddit links are often so editorialized that I can't even guess what will be there when I click through.

13ren 18y ago

HN and reddit have swapped roles on this particular story: http://www.reddit.com/comments/6w1v0/pink_box_testing_are_you_doing_it/ http://www.reddit.com/comments/6w1v0/pink_box_testing_are_yo... BTW: I recently wanted to make an inane joke on a HN article, so I found the article on reddit using the below (I have it as a bookmark): javascript:location.href='http://reddit.com/submit?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title) and made my joke there.