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> The submission form says, "If there is a url, text is optional," and indeed most submissions with a url provide no text. I think that's because most folks do
by aspenmayer 1y ago
> The submission form says, "If there is a url, text is optional," and indeed most submissions with a url provide no text.
I think that's because most folks don't know how to do it or aren't able to do so. I don't know how some folks make text posts underneath their URL submissions, unless they are asking mods for help or using some kind of special post type like Ask HN/Show HN. Even then I'm not sure if that's all that is needed for users alone to make these kinds of text+URL submissions without mod intervention.
So if you are saying that this is a thing that is already supported but not used, can you link to such a post that you have made? As it is, I'm not sure that HN even lets you make posts like that.
Otherwise, I guess you can be the change you wish to see, but the guidelines argue directly against the point you're making, basically saying that commentary (which would include a blurb or summary) should go in a comment, not in the submission itself. No one is stopping you from summarizing articles, but just know that AI/LLM and other kinds of generated commentary is against HN guidelines to my reading also, so you would have to do that yourself. It seems likely that what you're asking for would result in more rehashing and less original content, but if that rehashing serves some kind of useful editorial function to raise awareness of content that is otherwise relevant and topical to HN and to its users, then your idea might have some potential merit, but I think it would be gamed by bad actors, and I think the bad actors would benefit more from this change than good actors and existing/future HN users.
I'm cautiously pessimistic on this idea, but willing to hear more about why you think it would help rather than allow charlatans and sophists to invisibly rewrite history and the present to bake in their own ideology and beliefs.
- lapcat 1y ago> So if you are saying that this is a thing that is already supported but not used, can you link to such a post that you have made? As it is, I'm not sure that HN even lets you make posts like that. I think that HN simply makes your text the first comment. For example, here I linked to a social media post, and it made sense to quote the entire post to save a click: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41556661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41556661 > the guidelines argue directly against the point you're making, basically saying that commentary (which would include a blurb or summary) should go in a comment, not in the submission itself. Where do the guidelines say this? I'm not seeing it. > AI/LLM and other kinds of generated commentary is against HN guidelines to my reading also, so you would have to do that yourself. Definitely. I'm not calling for AI summaries. I don't want AI summaries. > It seems likely that what you're asking for would result in more rehashing and less original content Why? > I think it would be gamed by bad actors What do you mean by a bad actor? > allow charlatans and sophists to invisibly rewrite history and the present I honestly have no idea what this means in the context under discussion, especially the "invisibly" part but also the rest of your claim. The submitter writes a brief summary of the submitted article. Everyone knows it's the submitter's summary. The worst that can happen is that the submitter writes a bad summary, you click the link, and the article turns out to be not what you expected. This already happens with article titles. Then you can come back and complain about the summary in the comments to the submission. I'm not seeing what the big deal is here.
- aspenmayer 1y agoHere’s an example of the kind of post I mean, with a URL and also text: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44935658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44935658 Your other points are answered in the guidelines, news guidelines, and/or comments by mods, which are also considered part of the guidelines.
- lapcat 1y ago> Your other points are answered in the guidelines, news guidelines, and/or comments by mods, which are also considered part of the guidelines. If you'd kindly point exactly where, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I still have no idea what you're talking about. I have of course read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- aspenmayer 1y agoI have emailed the mods to help answer your questions, because I don’t speak for them or HN.
- lapcat 1y ago> I don’t speak for them or HN. But you do speak for yourself, and indeed the mods don't speak for you, which I think leaves your own opinions unexplained and confusing: > It seems likely that what you're asking for would result in more rehashing and less original content > I think it would be gamed by bad actors > willing to hear more about why you think it would help rather than allow charlatans and sophists to invisibly rewrite history and the present to bake in their own ideology and beliefs.
- aspenmayer 1y agoSummaries are subjective, so the subjectivity allows for glosses and elisions of the objective nature of the original content.