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A continued focus on political articles will attract people who enjoy endless and mostly pointless arguments about politics. It is a path to HN becoming anothe

A continued focus on political articles will attract people who enjoy endless and mostly pointless arguments about politics. It is a path to HN becoming another reddit. Political articles are like junk food. Tempting while they're right in front of you. A little bit of indulgence is OK. Not good as a steady diet. PG has said that he thinks he can prevent deterioration of content on HN. I think this problem is actually very difficult. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months.

lallysingh 18y ago
While I don't think HN's been too bad in this area at all, the threat of a slippery slope bringing in the trolls is pretty real. Perhaps an accepted convention of downmodding any discussion of the political aspects of the economic stories is in order? IMHO the economic discussions are pretty relevant to us (esp. things like the capital markets for our VC-loving industry), but this isn't an economics or political site, so the links back to public policy don't really fit here.
robg 18y ago
In almost 600 days, it hasn't happened yet. Even as this worry has been constant, I have seen little to no evidence of this shift. So how long before we can can the incessant worry? Another 600 days, perhaps?
- iamwil 18y ago
  It could be that the incessant worry has kept it at bay for 600 days. It's hard to tell.
  - robg 18y ago
    I agree that it probably has. Still, even the techcrunch crunch didn't change things. PG has said he monitors for drift and hasn't seen it. I presume that if he did he would change the guidelines accordingly.
- jon_dahl 18y ago
  I've definitely seen a gradual shift in the last 600 days. If the shift continues gradually, then yes, this site may be Reddit-lite in 600 days. If the shift accelerates, it could happen sooner than that.
  - robg 18y ago
    Problem is, of course, this election is huge news. Considering that, are even one in a hundred posts here touching on those issues? What was it last year at this time, one in two hundred posts? That's a difference of 1% vs. .5% of submissions. Frankly, I highly doubt that 1 in 100 posts, right now, touch politics unless your view of politics is so jaded that it infects things like economic collapses. There may be a shift, but if those numbers are accurate (and I think they're conservative) we're seeing an over reaction to a very minor issue.
danielrhodes 18y ago
I think the risk of this is inherently lower considering the unambiguous name of the site. However, everybody here is responsible for the articles being on the front page considering they upvoted them. It's hard for a community to be so singular in its focus.
agotterer 18y ago
The financial and political news will fade. To be honest I think a lot of it is relevant. The political news is often regarding technology policy. The financial news impacts us all. The economy is going through some really rough times. This affects startups, which is one of the hacker news core subjects. I have been on hacker news a long time and still don't see a shift or pattern to indicating a decrease quality in news. I think people might be over exaggerating just a little. Its been said before, if you want to see better content, find it, post it and vote it up.
agotterer 18y ago
The financial and political news will fade. To be honest I think a lot of it is relevant. The political news is often regarding technology policy. The financial news impacts us all. The economy is going through some really rough times. This affects startups, which is one of the hacker news core subjects. I have been on hacker news a long time and still don't see a shift or pattern to indicating a decrease quality in news. I think people might be over exaggerating just a little. Its been said before, if you want to see better content, find it, post it and vote it up.
agotterer 18y ago
The financial and political news will fade. To be honest I think a lot of it is relevant. The political news is often regarding technology policy. The financial news impacts us all. The economy is going through some really rough times. This affects startups, which is one of the hacker news core subjects. I have been on hacker news a long time and still don't see a shift or pattern to indicating a decrease quality in news. I think people might be over exaggerating just a little. Its been said before, if you want to see better content, find it, post it and vote it up.
agotterer 18y ago
The financial and political news will fade. To be honest I think a lot of it is relevant. The political news is often regarding technology policy. The financial news impacts us all. The economy is going through some really rough times. This affects startups, which is one of the hacker news core subjects. I have been on hacker news a long time and still don't see a shift or pattern to indicating a decrease quality in news. I think people might be over exaggerating just a little. Its been said before, if you want to see better content, find it, post it and vote it up.

lallysingh 18y ago

While I don't think HN's been too bad in this area at all, the threat of a slippery slope bringing in the trolls is pretty real. Perhaps an accepted convention of downmodding any discussion of the political aspects of the economic stories is in order? IMHO the economic discussions are pretty relevant to us (esp. things like the capital markets for our VC-loving industry), but this isn't an economics or political site, so the links back to public policy don't really fit here.

robg 18y ago

In almost 600 days, it hasn't happened yet. Even as this worry has been constant, I have seen little to no evidence of this shift. So how long before we can can the incessant worry? Another 600 days, perhaps?

iamwil 18y ago
It could be that the incessant worry has kept it at bay for 600 days. It's hard to tell.
- robg 18y ago
  I agree that it probably has. Still, even the techcrunch crunch didn't change things. PG has said he monitors for drift and hasn't seen it. I presume that if he did he would change the guidelines accordingly.
jon_dahl 18y ago
I've definitely seen a gradual shift in the last 600 days. If the shift continues gradually, then yes, this site may be Reddit-lite in 600 days. If the shift accelerates, it could happen sooner than that.
- robg 18y ago
  Problem is, of course, this election is huge news. Considering that, are even one in a hundred posts here touching on those issues? What was it last year at this time, one in two hundred posts? That's a difference of 1% vs. .5% of submissions. Frankly, I highly doubt that 1 in 100 posts, right now, touch politics unless your view of politics is so jaded that it infects things like economic collapses. There may be a shift, but if those numbers are accurate (and I think they're conservative) we're seeing an over reaction to a very minor issue.

danielrhodes 18y ago

I think the risk of this is inherently lower considering the unambiguous name of the site. However, everybody here is responsible for the articles being on the front page considering they upvoted them. It's hard for a community to be so singular in its focus.

agotterer 18y ago

The financial and political news will fade. To be honest I think a lot of it is relevant. The political news is often regarding technology policy. The financial news impacts us all. The economy is going through some really rough times. This affects startups, which is one of the hacker news core subjects. I have been on hacker news a long time and still don't see a shift or pattern to indicating a decrease quality in news. I think people might be over exaggerating just a little. Its been said before, if you want to see better content, find it, post it and vote it up.

agotterer 18y ago