4 ms·

You nailed it, I'm noticing the same thing. I'm sure there are many posts that don't get the attention they deserve, but what stands out more to me is how many

You nailed it, I'm noticing the same thing. I'm sure there are many posts that don't get the attention they deserve, but what stands out more to me is how many of the frontpage post are BS with no meat in them. Anything with AI, Rust, useless startup platitudes/stories, etc is on the frontpage almost automatically, even if it's a shallow article that's just marketing and PR. It almost feels like people just read the title and never check the actual content. At least I hope so, because if people actually find value in that useless content it'd be pretty sad. There is also a lot of post manipulation going on. Articles on company blogs often have lots of boilerplate comments from newish 1-karma accounts.

dang 4y ago
> even if it's a shallow article that's just marketing and PR You should flag those! It's easy and only requires karma > 30.
- jlokier 4y ago
  I think people read "flag" as "tell HN this article/comment has offensive content", so will not think it's appropriate to use "flag" for content that's merely shallow. We don't flag comments for being merely shallow.
  - dang 4y ago
    I'd say flag things that go against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- sph 4y ago
  dang, a question for you: I lost my vouch privileges because I did vouch dubious comments (we spoke about it and you graciously restored that functionality to my account), and I am now afraid that flagging stuff I don't like would incur a similar penalty. Can you confirm that I can flag anything I do not wish to see, even if it's objectively not bad content? I am a little confused if flagging is just reserved for abuse and spam or not. Will I lose my flagging privileges if I keep flagging a certain topic I'd rather not see?
  - Tomte 4y ago
    I did, but was restored. Strangely I still haven't got vouching privileges, although I can't have vouched for many articles, I think. It's intentionally ambiguous. Like HN's little sister to nuclear weapons.
    - dang 4y ago
      Your account has vouching privileges.
  - dang 4y ago
    You shouldn't flag things just because you don't like them, but you should flag them if they go against the site guidelines. "Shallow article that's just marketing and PR" sounds like that to me.

dang 4y ago

> even if it's a shallow article that's just marketing and PR You should flag those! It's easy and only requires karma > 30.

jlokier 4y ago
I think people read "flag" as "tell HN this article/comment has offensive content", so will not think it's appropriate to use "flag" for content that's merely shallow. We don't flag comments for being merely shallow.
- dang 4y ago
  I'd say flag things that go against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
sph 4y ago
dang, a question for you: I lost my vouch privileges because I did vouch dubious comments (we spoke about it and you graciously restored that functionality to my account), and I am now afraid that flagging stuff I don't like would incur a similar penalty. Can you confirm that I can flag anything I do not wish to see, even if it's objectively not bad content? I am a little confused if flagging is just reserved for abuse and spam or not. Will I lose my flagging privileges if I keep flagging a certain topic I'd rather not see?
- Tomte 4y ago
  I did, but was restored. Strangely I still haven't got vouching privileges, although I can't have vouched for many articles, I think. It's intentionally ambiguous. Like HN's little sister to nuclear weapons.
  - dang 4y ago
    Your account has vouching privileges.
- dang 4y ago
  You shouldn't flag things just because you don't like them, but you should flag them if they go against the site guidelines. "Shallow article that's just marketing and PR" sounds like that to me.