3 ms·

This is an important topic, but why post it here on HN? More and more posts are general news now. There are so many places for these discussions other than a te

by ogou 3y ago

This is an important topic, but why post it here on HN? More and more posts are general news now. There are so many places for these discussions other than a technology oriented message board.

ttonkytonk 3y ago
Please name a relevant board that takes as little data, and I'm there!
dang 3y ago
HN is explicitly not just about technology - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It is, however, very much against too much repetition of the same few topics, and this is probably one of those.
- ogou 3y ago
  I've been reading for 10+ years and it seems to come in waves. Usually it clears up after a few posters push back. I rarely complain about it, but the past few months seemed to be especially high volume. I posted a few comments to signal that awareness. To me, that's participating in my community. I've read the guidelines many times. The second paragraph seems to indicate this post would be off-topic. "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
  - dang 3y ago
    I appreciate your caring about the quality of HN! With users who care, we can hopefully survive. There's a fat but fuzzy area in the Venn diagram where these things overlap - for example some stories are both intellectually interesting and have a political dimension. Those stories, or at least some of them, can still be on topic for HN. Opinions inevitably differ about which ones belong vs. which ones should be excluded. Lots of past explanation about how we think about this, if you or anyone is interested, can be found here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... The feeling that HN has changed significantly in recent months or even recent years is often due to random (or maybe seasonal) fluctuations. It usually reverts back. For example, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
dredmorbius 3y ago
For what it's worth, I've been looking at HN front-page activity since 2007. I've recently classified the most frequently-appearing sites to give a breakdown of what type of content appears on the front page (as typified by site). Taking two arbitrary years, 2009 (after HN got reasonably established) and 2022 (most recent full year data), what's notable is that general news sites are less prevalent, and that programming content (mostly links to specific languages and/or source repos) more prevalent in the more recent period. 2009 Posts: 10950 Sites: 1129 Submitters: 1440 Class Stories Votes (mean) Comments (mean) UNCLASSIFIED: 3741 3741 1.00 3741 1.00 blog: 1930 1930 1.00 1930 1.00 n/a: 1734 43045 24.82 45495 26.24 tech news: 1118 1118 1.00 1118 1.00 general news: 878 878 1.00 878 1.00 corporate comm.: 450 450 1.00 450 1.00 business news: 407 407 1.00 407 1.00 academic / science: 337 337 1.00 337 1.00 programming: 316 316 1.00 316 1.00 general interest: 124 124 1.00 124 1.00 software: 90 90 1.00 90 1.00 2022 Posts: 10950 Sites: 1158 Submitters: 1398 Class Stories Votes (mean) Comments (mean) UNCLASSIFIED: 4844 4844 1.00 4844 1.00 programming: 1146 1146 1.00 1146 1.00 blog: 1123 1123 1.00 1123 1.00 n/a: 864 167707 194.11 125736 145.53 academic / science: 567 567 1.00 567 1.00 general news: 444 444 1.00 444 1.00 corporate comm.: 406 406 1.00 406 1.00 tech news: 400 400 1.00 400 1.00 social media: 252 252 1.00 252 1.00 general interest: 222 222 1.00 222 1.00 Notes: - The "(mean)" columns have bad data, I need to fix my code. The others should be reasonable. - "UNCLASSIFIED" are sites I've not manually classified. They tend to follow roughly the same overall distribution, though more blogs and fewer news sources. - "n/a" are posts without a site, typically an "Ask", "Tell", "Who's Hiring", or similar post. Keep in mind that even "general news" is often about science, technology, or tech-adjacent business, legislation, court decisions, etc.
- dredmorbius 3y ago

by ogou 3y ago

This is an important topic, but why post it here on HN? More and more posts are general news now. There are so many places for these discussions other than a technology oriented message board.

ttonkytonk 3y ago

Please name a relevant board that takes as little data, and I'm there!

dang 3y ago

HN is explicitly not just about technology - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It is, however, very much against too much repetition of the same few topics, and this is probably one of those.

ogou 3y ago
I've been reading for 10+ years and it seems to come in waves. Usually it clears up after a few posters push back. I rarely complain about it, but the past few months seemed to be especially high volume. I posted a few comments to signal that awareness. To me, that's participating in my community. I've read the guidelines many times. The second paragraph seems to indicate this post would be off-topic. "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
- dang 3y ago
  I appreciate your caring about the quality of HN! With users who care, we can hopefully survive. There's a fat but fuzzy area in the Venn diagram where these things overlap - for example some stories are both intellectually interesting and have a political dimension. Those stories, or at least some of them, can still be on topic for HN. Opinions inevitably differ about which ones belong vs. which ones should be excluded. Lots of past explanation about how we think about this, if you or anyone is interested, can be found here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... The feeling that HN has changed significantly in recent months or even recent years is often due to random (or maybe seasonal) fluctuations. It usually reverts back. For example, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.

dredmorbius 3y ago

For what it's worth, I've been looking at HN front-page activity since 2007. I've recently classified the most frequently-appearing sites to give a breakdown of what type of content appears on the front page (as typified by site). Taking two arbitrary years, 2009 (after HN got reasonably established) and 2022 (most recent full year data), what's notable is that general news sites are less prevalent, and that programming content (mostly links to specific languages and/or source repos) more prevalent in the more recent period. 2009 Posts: 10950 Sites: 1129 Submitters: 1440 Class Stories Votes (mean) Comments (mean) UNCLASSIFIED: 3741 3741 1.00 3741 1.00 blog: 1930 1930 1.00 1930 1.00 n/a: 1734 43045 24.82 45495 26.24 tech news: 1118 1118 1.00 1118 1.00 general news: 878 878 1.00 878 1.00 corporate comm.: 450 450 1.00 450 1.00 business news: 407 407 1.00 407 1.00 academic / science: 337 337 1.00 337 1.00 programming: 316 316 1.00 316 1.00 general interest: 124 124 1.00 124 1.00 software: 90 90 1.00 90 1.00 2022 Posts: 10950 Sites: 1158 Submitters: 1398 Class Stories Votes (mean) Comments (mean) UNCLASSIFIED: 4844 4844 1.00 4844 1.00 programming: 1146 1146 1.00 1146 1.00 blog: 1123 1123 1.00 1123 1.00 n/a: 864 167707 194.11 125736 145.53 academic / science: 567 567 1.00 567 1.00 general news: 444 444 1.00 444 1.00 corporate comm.: 406 406 1.00 406 1.00 tech news: 400 400 1.00 400 1.00 social media: 252 252 1.00 252 1.00 general interest: 222 222 1.00 222 1.00 Notes: - The "(mean)" columns have bad data, I need to fix my code. The others should be reasonable. - "UNCLASSIFIED" are sites I've not manually classified. They tend to follow roughly the same overall distribution, though more blogs and fewer news sources. - "n/a" are posts without a site, typically an "Ask", "Tell", "Who's Hiring", or similar post. Keep in mind that even "general news" is often about science, technology, or tech-adjacent business, legislation, court decisions, etc.

dredmorbius 3y ago