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It's actually people like me who are the problem, and I have to learn to control myself. When I read a great essay by Marco, or Gruber, that is substantive, we

It's actually people like me who are the problem, and I have to learn to control myself. When I read a great essay by Marco, or Gruber, that is substantive, well written, and speaks to something I truly believe in, I have an instinctive twitch to upvote it. This is particularly true when I recognize that a lot of effort has gone into an essay like Gruber's recent "MacBook Pro Retina Essay", but, I'll even admit to even doing it with marco's silly blog entry about his trip to the Microsoft store in the mall - that really had no place on HN. (And, I say that coming from the position of listening to every one of his podcasts, reading his blog, and as a loyal instapaper and "The Magazine" subscriber) I (and, I would kindly suggest), others need to learn to control our base urges to do this, or I agree, we'll need to lean on moderators to fix it for us. Save us from ourselves. Just because we (sometimes strongly) agree with it, we find it interesting, and it's well written, does not mean that it's fodder for HN. And, we need to learn to write more like grellas, or patio11 when contributing to a thread - put some time, effort, and research into providing information on something that we know about, and can really educate others, with new, or insightful information that people are universally interested in. Our (my) tendency to feed the echo chamber only brings the level of discourse down, and there are (many) other outlets that would be more appropriate venues for such threads.

mattmanser 14y ago
I don't think it's useful to ask people to talk like someone else. Patio11 and grellas are but facets of the conversations that go on here. I personally, and I stress the personally bit, rarely find any value to either of their views or writings. I, again personally, think they are the echo chamber. I frequently find myself almost diametrically opposed to their viewpoints or find what they say to be inane or obvious or just a brain dump of nonsense. But that's not what's this is about. I understand others find what they say to be enlightening and excellent. I understand that there's plenty of people here who enjoy what they write and there are lots of people who highly value their contribution. And I completely admit they'll write something that I find thought provoking and interesting. Something that might challenge my world view. And so I appreciate reading it even if sometimes I think 'stop upvoting these HN celebs just because they spoke'. What I'm trying to say is that you and the OP shouldn't presume to say what the HN audience wants. The point I'm trying to make is that we all like different things. What determines what we like is upvotes. That's just the way it works. Some things get upvoted that you don't agree with. Hard luck. We have no better way.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  The only components of grellas's/patio11's writing I was suggesting we emulate was "put some time, effort, and research into providing information on something that we know about, and can really educate others, with new, or insightful information that people are universally interested in." If anything, I think it's important to encourage writers having viewpoints and positions diametrically opposed to mine, but at the very least, a broad assortment of clearly presented information from a diverse community is what's important. The "universally interested in" part was trying to address the habit we sometimes have of writing from a position that only those, who are of the same political/bias realm will appreciate. I'm not suggesting we drop the Haskell, or financing-startup articles just because not everyone on HN is interested in them. But if you do write on, say (to take something that I hope nobody is sensitive about), financing startups - don't write something like, "Only complete idiots will accept a cap on convertible notes right now" - recognize there are other perspectives and contribute in a way that brings the level of discourse up, not down.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- dtby 14y ago
  I am a jerk-off. I communicate well, but I do not pretend it is one of my core competencies. And, yet, I have made millions of dollars being little more than a cog in the machine. I do not pretend that I have great insight beyond "be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing." And I have managed to get hell-banned for differentiating this from the "reach for the stars and hit your dreams" snake oil of, since it no longer matters, Paul Graham.
- jt2190 14y ago
  > What I'm trying to say is that you and the OP > shouldn't presume to say what the HN audience wants. That's exactly the decision that up voting gives us: Each up vote is a tiny fragment of a dynamic editorial policy, and the result of that policy is the top stories on the home page. While each individual can decide who the HN audience is (either themselves alone or some idealized audience) they are making that presumption.
davidw 14y ago
Very thoughtful comment. I think this instinct comes out in spades with politics: people feel very "rah! rah! Go team!" about some articles, but in reality they just lead to flame wars.

mattmanser 14y ago

I don't think it's useful to ask people to talk like someone else. Patio11 and grellas are but facets of the conversations that go on here. I personally, and I stress the personally bit, rarely find any value to either of their views or writings. I, again personally, think they are the echo chamber. I frequently find myself almost diametrically opposed to their viewpoints or find what they say to be inane or obvious or just a brain dump of nonsense. But that's not what's this is about. I understand others find what they say to be enlightening and excellent. I understand that there's plenty of people here who enjoy what they write and there are lots of people who highly value their contribution. And I completely admit they'll write something that I find thought provoking and interesting. Something that might challenge my world view. And so I appreciate reading it even if sometimes I think 'stop upvoting these HN celebs just because they spoke'. What I'm trying to say is that you and the OP shouldn't presume to say what the HN audience wants. The point I'm trying to make is that we all like different things. What determines what we like is upvotes. That's just the way it works. Some things get upvoted that you don't agree with. Hard luck. We have no better way.

ghshephard 14y ago
The only components of grellas's/patio11's writing I was suggesting we emulate was "put some time, effort, and research into providing information on something that we know about, and can really educate others, with new, or insightful information that people are universally interested in." If anything, I think it's important to encourage writers having viewpoints and positions diametrically opposed to mine, but at the very least, a broad assortment of clearly presented information from a diverse community is what's important. The "universally interested in" part was trying to address the habit we sometimes have of writing from a position that only those, who are of the same political/bias realm will appreciate. I'm not suggesting we drop the Haskell, or financing-startup articles just because not everyone on HN is interested in them. But if you do write on, say (to take something that I hope nobody is sensitive about), financing startups - don't write something like, "Only complete idiots will accept a cap on convertible notes right now" - recognize there are other perspectives and contribute in a way that brings the level of discourse up, not down.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dtby 14y ago
I am a jerk-off. I communicate well, but I do not pretend it is one of my core competencies. And, yet, I have made millions of dollars being little more than a cog in the machine. I do not pretend that I have great insight beyond "be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing." And I have managed to get hell-banned for differentiating this from the "reach for the stars and hit your dreams" snake oil of, since it no longer matters, Paul Graham.
jt2190 14y ago
> What I'm trying to say is that you and the OP > shouldn't presume to say what the HN audience wants. That's exactly the decision that up voting gives us: Each up vote is a tiny fragment of a dynamic editorial policy, and the result of that policy is the top stories on the home page. While each individual can decide who the HN audience is (either themselves alone or some idealized audience) they are making that presumption.

davidw 14y ago

Very thoughtful comment. I think this instinct comes out in spades with politics: people feel very "rah! rah! Go team!" about some articles, but in reality they just lead to flame wars.