7 ms·

Women, like men, want Hacker News to stay on topic.

Shamiq 18y ago
Reading through it, I'm finding it's got a great story about a scientist doing her science. That should be sufficient to call it on-topic.
petercooper 18y ago
Whatever gets legitimately voted up from the "New" page is on topic.
- jodrellblank 18y ago
  Not so - there are On/Off Topic subjects mentioned in the HN guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - shrughes 18y ago
    In particular, > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site.
    - xenophanes 18y ago
      I think that's a mistake. How are people going to learn their submissions are off topic if everyone refuses to tell them?
      - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        It's a known bug. (Or to the developers, a feature) Doesn't do any good to complain. Many of us have tried.
        Retric 18y ago
        Not really, people with high Karma can flag posts and get them taken down. This happens a lot more with politics than other types of controversial topics. Personally I could flag this post, but it's interesting AND novel so IMO it stays. Edit: "The story is on topic." (PG) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460159
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        The bug being the policy of discouraging feedback to commenters/submitters on exactly why their comment/article was down-modded. Meta-discussion, last I checked, was no-no.
        Retric 18y ago
        Meta-discussion is not needed. You can teach a neural net to dance simply by saying Yes, and No. The problem with saying "you did X wrong here is how you fix it" is many people only hear "Only do Y" where we want any acceptable submission even if it's on juggling (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=418460 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=418460).
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        I've got the "interesting to hackers" bit. What happens is somebody makes a comment, gets downmodded, then wonders why. So they ask (trust me, I've tried this). Their question itself then gets downmodded -- meta discussions not tolerated. So the commenter, who is not psychic, is left with negative feedback from the moderation system without any idea at all what or what not to do in the future. This idea of treating HN as just a large dataset with contributors simply being data suppliers to train the neural net has some really big limitations. Last I checked, the board was full of human beings, and posting in some fashion approximates the social activity of having a conversation. The further the system strays from the social/linguistic/psychological needs of conversation, the less effective it is as a community facilitator, in my opinion. Meta-discussion might not be needed by the computer, but it's a natural part of human behavior and to the degree the system does not allow this, the system is broken. My opinion only.
      - rms 18y ago
        When they show up dead, but I guess if they don't have showdead on then there is no feedback that the post is killed.
      - pg 18y ago
        They'll notice the submissions get no comments or upvotes.
        deleted 18y ago
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        deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
        petercooper 18y ago
        The problem, though, is that "off-topic" (as judged by the guidelines page) stuff can get voted up. My argument is that if something gets voted up here (legitimately) then it's de facto on-topic, but that other poster disagrees and is wondering how to give feedback on that without breaking the rules.
        davidw 18y ago
        Why wouldn't they get any comments or upvotes? You just posted a thread about a big spike in new users. There's no guarantee that they have read and taken to heart the guidelines.
        pg 18y ago
        I mean that if a submission actually is offtopic, users will flag it and editors will kill it. And once it's dead it will get no comments or upvotes.
pg 18y ago
The story is on topic. On topic = interesting to the intellectually curious. Whereas this comment is not merely a facile witticism, but of a type the site guidelines explicitly ask users not to make. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dreish 18y ago
  It is -- it's a thoughtful and thorough investigation of a perfectly legitimate area of scientific study -- but it also smells like the sort of thing the hormone-drunk adolescents that rule Reddit go nuts for, so surely some people can be forgiven for dismissing it out-of-hand, especially given recent history here.
  - scw 18y ago
    If we want a community of intelligent, civil posters, asking its citizens to look beyond titles and examine the articles themselves seems like a reasonable expectation.
  - TooMuchNick 18y ago
    Since I'm spending a lot of time on 4chan lately as research for an article, I got a fit of giggles when you mentioned the hormone-drunk adolescents that rule...Reddit.
- xenophanes 18y ago
  It'd be a better topic if the title wasn't linkbait that encouraged off topic comments. And the article didn't start with a big kiss picture and a statement about making animal porn. BTW, calling my comment superficial violates your guidelines. It's not civil. It's not an argument. It's an insult.

Reading through it, I'm finding it's got a great story about a scientist doing her science. That should be sufficient to call it on-topic.

petercooper 18y ago

Whatever gets legitimately voted up from the "New" page is on topic.

jodrellblank 18y ago
Not so - there are On/Off Topic subjects mentioned in the HN guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- shrughes 18y ago
  In particular, > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site.
  - xenophanes 18y ago
    I think that's a mistake. How are people going to learn their submissions are off topic if everyone refuses to tell them?
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      It's a known bug. (Or to the developers, a feature) Doesn't do any good to complain. Many of us have tried.
      - Retric 18y ago
        Not really, people with high Karma can flag posts and get them taken down. This happens a lot more with politics than other types of controversial topics. Personally I could flag this post, but it's interesting AND novel so IMO it stays. Edit: "The story is on topic." (PG) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460159
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        The bug being the policy of discouraging feedback to commenters/submitters on exactly why their comment/article was down-modded. Meta-discussion, last I checked, was no-no.
        Retric 18y ago
        Meta-discussion is not needed. You can teach a neural net to dance simply by saying Yes, and No. The problem with saying "you did X wrong here is how you fix it" is many people only hear "Only do Y" where we want any acceptable submission even if it's on juggling (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=418460 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=418460).
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        I've got the "interesting to hackers" bit. What happens is somebody makes a comment, gets downmodded, then wonders why. So they ask (trust me, I've tried this). Their question itself then gets downmodded -- meta discussions not tolerated. So the commenter, who is not psychic, is left with negative feedback from the moderation system without any idea at all what or what not to do in the future. This idea of treating HN as just a large dataset with contributors simply being data suppliers to train the neural net has some really big limitations. Last I checked, the board was full of human beings, and posting in some fashion approximates the social activity of having a conversation. The further the system strays from the social/linguistic/psychological needs of conversation, the less effective it is as a community facilitator, in my opinion. Meta-discussion might not be needed by the computer, but it's a natural part of human behavior and to the degree the system does not allow this, the system is broken. My opinion only.
    - rms 18y ago
      When they show up dead, but I guess if they don't have showdead on then there is no feedback that the post is killed.
    - pg 18y ago
      They'll notice the submissions get no comments or upvotes.
      - deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
      - petercooper 18y ago
        The problem, though, is that "off-topic" (as judged by the guidelines page) stuff can get voted up. My argument is that if something gets voted up here (legitimately) then it's de facto on-topic, but that other poster disagrees and is wondering how to give feedback on that without breaking the rules.
      - davidw 18y ago
        Why wouldn't they get any comments or upvotes? You just posted a thread about a big spike in new users. There's no guarantee that they have read and taken to heart the guidelines.
        pg 18y ago
        I mean that if a submission actually is offtopic, users will flag it and editors will kill it. And once it's dead it will get no comments or upvotes.

pg 18y ago

The story is on topic. On topic = interesting to the intellectually curious. Whereas this comment is not merely a facile witticism, but of a type the site guidelines explicitly ask users not to make. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dreish 18y ago
It is -- it's a thoughtful and thorough investigation of a perfectly legitimate area of scientific study -- but it also smells like the sort of thing the hormone-drunk adolescents that rule Reddit go nuts for, so surely some people can be forgiven for dismissing it out-of-hand, especially given recent history here.
- scw 18y ago
  If we want a community of intelligent, civil posters, asking its citizens to look beyond titles and examine the articles themselves seems like a reasonable expectation.
- TooMuchNick 18y ago
  Since I'm spending a lot of time on 4chan lately as research for an article, I got a fit of giggles when you mentioned the hormone-drunk adolescents that rule...Reddit.
xenophanes 18y ago
It'd be a better topic if the title wasn't linkbait that encouraged off topic comments. And the article didn't start with a big kiss picture and a statement about making animal porn. BTW, calling my comment superficial violates your guidelines. It's not civil. It's not an argument. It's an insult.