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This ‘bad submission’, despite many upvotes and significant engagement, is flagged and removed. In favour of these submissions on the front page: ‘THOSE BULLE

This ‘bad submission’, despite many upvotes and significant engagement, is flagged and removed. In favour of these submissions on the front page: ‘THOSE BULLET EFFECTS IN TERMINATOR 2 WEREN’T CGI’ ‘Your Red Snapper Filet Might Have Been Caught by Drug Runners’ An absurd outcome.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Trust me, the hive mind is fickle. Its responses are hard to judge. It tneds not to take well to direct confrontation. Don't get attached to any one post. There a COP26 / carbon-reduction post on the front page as I write: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29217810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29217810 I've suggested several times that you find a better story to submit. My first response to this submission was to see if it might be possible to salvage a week submission by substituting the original source (see HN Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). I do this fairly regularly, emailing HN's moderators. My suggestions are usually (though not always) accepted. But the upstream source is also weak and confused. The Tweet isn't itself an original source, which would make it a more viable contribution (see e.g., the Flexport CEO tweetstorm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28957379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28957379). There's some resistance on HN to stories that go against a technotopian narrative. (There's also some support.) A well-formed, well-pitched story, with a constructive early discussion, stands a much better chance. Sometimes the best way to point out the weaknesses in a question or comment is to not challenge the author directly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132283 For a story with weak context and/or a poor headline, providing context with sympathy to the confused can be useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4134488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4134488 Where you disagree with a statement of fact, a citation to an authoritative source refuting or weakening the claim can be effective: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29214622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29214622 I submit fairly frequently to HN. It costs little. Upside potential is high. What succeeds ... varies tremendously, and trust me I often wish that what's ignored did better and feel that what succeeds is overly trivial. Rather than fight that, I try to see how I can succeed more with what I feel are significant and under-served topics. And if someone else submits what I think is a good post, I'll try to benefit that, working within HN's accepted mechanisms: by scanning the new queue, upvoting quality, commenting in a constructive manner, and suggesting fixes (usually: improved title, source links) to HN mods. Occasionally I'll drop suggestions to submitters. Again: I suspect I'm quite sympathetic to your viewpoint. The submission was low-quality, not your fault. Find a better one. Please! Don't get vested in losing battles.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Trust me, the hive mind is fickle. Its responses are hard to judge. It tneds not to take well to direct confrontation. Don't get attached to any one post. There a COP26 / carbon-reduction post on the front page as I write: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29217810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29217810 I've suggested several times that you find a better story to submit. My first response to this submission was to see if it might be possible to salvage a week submission by substituting the original source (see HN Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). I do this fairly regularly, emailing HN's moderators. My suggestions are usually (though not always) accepted. But the upstream source is also weak and confused. The Tweet isn't itself an original source, which would make it a more viable contribution (see e.g., the Flexport CEO tweetstorm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28957379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28957379). There's some resistance on HN to stories that go against a technotopian narrative. (There's also some support.) A well-formed, well-pitched story, with a constructive early discussion, stands a much better chance. Sometimes the best way to point out the weaknesses in a question or comment is to not challenge the author directly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132283 For a story with weak context and/or a poor headline, providing context with sympathy to the confused can be useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4134488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4134488 Where you disagree with a statement of fact, a citation to an authoritative source refuting or weakening the claim can be effective: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29214622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29214622 I submit fairly frequently to HN. It costs little. Upside potential is high. What succeeds ... varies tremendously, and trust me I often wish that what's ignored did better and feel that what succeeds is overly trivial. Rather than fight that, I try to see how I can succeed more with what I feel are significant and under-served topics. And if someone else submits what I think is a good post, I'll try to benefit that, working within HN's accepted mechanisms: by scanning the new queue, upvoting quality, commenting in a constructive manner, and suggesting fixes (usually: improved title, source links) to HN mods. Occasionally I'll drop suggestions to submitters. Again: I suspect I'm quite sympathetic to your viewpoint. The submission was low-quality, not your fault. Find a better one. Please! Don't get vested in losing battles.