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HN is consistently stretching the definition of "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"

dang 3y ago
Stretching is probably good, no? That's part of curiosity. It's impossible to gratify all curiosities equally because people differ a lot. That means there will always be something on the front page that you don't find interesting, but also hopefully several things you do. It's true that the better "stretches" have to do with topics that are little-known and little-discussed, and Ghibli and Miyazaki aren't that.
- pipeline_peak 3y ago
  > Stretching is probably good, no? I don’t believe so, HN should be a place where people talk about tech and academia. Once you expand the scope, it says “this is what this group of people by majority have decided is Interesting, regardless of the field”. To me that reads as a cult mindset. I think shrinking the scope allows people to challenge their opinions. When you broaden it, discussions become nothing more than “wow bird house building is really cool, thanks HN!” “I’m glad I found out how to build a tandem bike”
  - dang 3y ago
    Perhaps some users who felt that it gratified theirs could say why.
    - pipeline_peak 3y ago
      Idk if you noticed but, I edited my above comment
      - dang 3y ago
        Ah I see it now. Well, I'm afraid you're running against the grain of HN tradition there. HN, since the day pg renamed it from Startup News to Hacker News, has always been for anything that gratifies intellectual curiosity—specifically "anything that good hackers would find interesting". As he wrote way back then ( https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html), "That includes a lot more than hacking and startups", and I'd say it also includes a lot more than "tech and academia". This is important. More relevant links: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang 3y ago

Stretching is probably good, no? That's part of curiosity. It's impossible to gratify all curiosities equally because people differ a lot. That means there will always be something on the front page that you don't find interesting, but also hopefully several things you do. It's true that the better "stretches" have to do with topics that are little-known and little-discussed, and Ghibli and Miyazaki aren't that.

pipeline_peak 3y ago
> Stretching is probably good, no? I don’t believe so, HN should be a place where people talk about tech and academia. Once you expand the scope, it says “this is what this group of people by majority have decided is Interesting, regardless of the field”. To me that reads as a cult mindset. I think shrinking the scope allows people to challenge their opinions. When you broaden it, discussions become nothing more than “wow bird house building is really cool, thanks HN!” “I’m glad I found out how to build a tandem bike”
- dang 3y ago
  Perhaps some users who felt that it gratified theirs could say why.
  - pipeline_peak 3y ago
    Idk if you noticed but, I edited my above comment
    - dang 3y ago
      Ah I see it now. Well, I'm afraid you're running against the grain of HN tradition there. HN, since the day pg renamed it from Startup News to Hacker News, has always been for anything that gratifies intellectual curiosity—specifically "anything that good hackers would find interesting". As he wrote way back then ( https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html), "That includes a lot more than hacking and startups", and I'd say it also includes a lot more than "tech and academia". This is important. More relevant links: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html