4 ms·

Regardless, I think it's a terrible story for a site about programming topics, and I would absolutely vote it down. But I can't.

johns 18y ago
Flag it if you believe it to be off-topic.
- codinghorror 18y ago
  Where's the UI to flag a story as off-topic? I don't see anything on the article page itself, and the FAQ ( http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html ) doesn't mention anything about flagging?
  - johns 18y ago
    On the article page, this is what I see: http://screencast.com/t/Wqa1zmMJ http://screencast.com/t/Wqa1zmMJ I don't know if there is a rep threshold for flagging, but I wouldn't be surprised.
  - kylec 18y ago
    You apparently need at least 51 karma to flag a post. (The number may not be exact, it's not an official source. Also, it says "comments" not "posts", so there may be a different threshold for that) source: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439396
    - codinghorror 18y ago
      Shouldn't these rep limits, and the information about them, be codified into the FAQ?
      - allenbrunson 18y ago
        karma limits change all the time, due to "inflation." it used to be pretty difficult to get to 100 points. these days you could get there in a day or two, if you're determined.
      - lacker 18y ago
        No. Hacker News doesn't have to work the same way as Stack Overflow. Not only are these limits fluctuating and not really public, HN relies on human editors a lot. That's okay; the models are really different. Stack Overflow needs to scale more because to be useful, there need to be thousands of questions asked every day, and every question needs to be able to get a response. Hacker News can be useful to me even if it only gets a hundred new stories a day, and it's not really a problem if many stories get axed for a bad reason.
  - kajecounterhack 18y ago
    Yeah, I think it's karma. oh well, just get some karma and then talk a little more about it, eh? I think I've flagged something....once. Yup. Most everything on the front page is interesting, the most interesting of which I upvote, and the few things that aren't I just don't read and let die. the front page changes enough to allow me to do that anyway.
gruseom 18y ago
This isn't "a site about programming topics". Read the guidelines. Or even just the comment you were replying to.
- codinghorror 18y ago
  Are you and I reading the same guidelines? http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, Isn't "How to stop the drug wars" about politics? I know it is exactly the kind of article I expect to find on Reddit. I was surprised to see it on the front page here. From the linked article: > That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sense of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century. It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled. This is not an article about politics?
  - rms 18y ago
    "most" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=507890 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=507890
    - codinghorror 18y ago
      Isn't this exactly why downvoting should be a bit more prevalent than it is now? For marginally topical (and in my opinion completely off-topic) political stories like that? Right now only the people who upvote it get to have a say.
      - deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
      - gruseom 18y ago
        Right now only the people who upvote it get to have a say. Not so. The people who flag it also get to have a say. And if you observed the site more closely you would notice that their say is quite effective.
axod 18y ago
You're free to flag it, and downvote everyone who commented on it :/ I agree with you, stories about drugs aren't what I come to HN for.
ars 18y ago
And that is EXACTLY the point! You can't vote it down, and that's a very good thing. I've been friended by some people on digg - and they constantly shout battles at me: bury this, digg that. The bury brigades have gone to work on this, etc, etc. You can't do that here, someone who hates a topic simply can not affect it. All you can do is say there are X number of people who are interested in something. It doesn't matter that some people hate the topic, or are opposed to it. They have no voice. Example: If you have a very controversial topic that 50% of people agree with, and 50% of people disagree with. You will never see it if you have downvoting. But since there is only upvoting, you will. And I think that that is very very important, and it's one of the reasons this site is so much better than digg and reddit. I've always thought that digg should frontpage also controversial stories, not just upvoted ones, but ones that have an almost even ratio of down/up votes. And BTW you don't loose half of the information about votes for a topic - the algorithm here is that stories fall down over time, so time itself basically acts as a constant down vote. You have upvoting to counter that, and ignoring a topic to assist that. Bill Gates once said something like: if I only read the stories that I am interested in, I'll never learn anything new - so I make a point of reading the entire newspaper. (I hope I remembered the quote correctly, it was from before the internet.)

johns 18y ago

Flag it if you believe it to be off-topic.

codinghorror 18y ago
Where's the UI to flag a story as off-topic? I don't see anything on the article page itself, and the FAQ ( http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html ) doesn't mention anything about flagging?
- johns 18y ago
  On the article page, this is what I see: http://screencast.com/t/Wqa1zmMJ http://screencast.com/t/Wqa1zmMJ I don't know if there is a rep threshold for flagging, but I wouldn't be surprised.
- kylec 18y ago
  You apparently need at least 51 karma to flag a post. (The number may not be exact, it's not an official source. Also, it says "comments" not "posts", so there may be a different threshold for that) source: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439396
  - codinghorror 18y ago
    Shouldn't these rep limits, and the information about them, be codified into the FAQ?
    - allenbrunson 18y ago
      karma limits change all the time, due to "inflation." it used to be pretty difficult to get to 100 points. these days you could get there in a day or two, if you're determined.
    - lacker 18y ago
      No. Hacker News doesn't have to work the same way as Stack Overflow. Not only are these limits fluctuating and not really public, HN relies on human editors a lot. That's okay; the models are really different. Stack Overflow needs to scale more because to be useful, there need to be thousands of questions asked every day, and every question needs to be able to get a response. Hacker News can be useful to me even if it only gets a hundred new stories a day, and it's not really a problem if many stories get axed for a bad reason.
- kajecounterhack 18y ago
  Yeah, I think it's karma. oh well, just get some karma and then talk a little more about it, eh? I think I've flagged something....once. Yup. Most everything on the front page is interesting, the most interesting of which I upvote, and the few things that aren't I just don't read and let die. the front page changes enough to allow me to do that anyway.

gruseom 18y ago

This isn't "a site about programming topics". Read the guidelines. Or even just the comment you were replying to.

codinghorror 18y ago
Are you and I reading the same guidelines? http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, Isn't "How to stop the drug wars" about politics? I know it is exactly the kind of article I expect to find on Reddit. I was surprised to see it on the front page here. From the linked article: > That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sense of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century. It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled. This is not an article about politics?
- rms 18y ago
  "most" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=507890 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=507890
  - codinghorror 18y ago
    Isn't this exactly why downvoting should be a bit more prevalent than it is now? For marginally topical (and in my opinion completely off-topic) political stories like that? Right now only the people who upvote it get to have a say.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - gruseom 18y ago
      Right now only the people who upvote it get to have a say. Not so. The people who flag it also get to have a say. And if you observed the site more closely you would notice that their say is quite effective.

axod 18y ago

You're free to flag it, and downvote everyone who commented on it :/ I agree with you, stories about drugs aren't what I come to HN for.

ars 18y ago

And that is EXACTLY the point! You can't vote it down, and that's a very good thing. I've been friended by some people on digg - and they constantly shout battles at me: bury this, digg that. The bury brigades have gone to work on this, etc, etc. You can't do that here, someone who hates a topic simply can not affect it. All you can do is say there are X number of people who are interested in something. It doesn't matter that some people hate the topic, or are opposed to it. They have no voice. Example: If you have a very controversial topic that 50% of people agree with, and 50% of people disagree with. You will never see it if you have downvoting. But since there is only upvoting, you will. And I think that that is very very important, and it's one of the reasons this site is so much better than digg and reddit. I've always thought that digg should frontpage also controversial stories, not just upvoted ones, but ones that have an almost even ratio of down/up votes. And BTW you don't loose half of the information about votes for a topic - the algorithm here is that stories fall down over time, so time itself basically acts as a constant down vote. You have upvoting to counter that, and ignoring a topic to assist that. Bill Gates once said something like: if I only read the stories that I am interested in, I'll never learn anything new - so I make a point of reading the entire newspaper. (I hope I remembered the quote correctly, it was from before the internet.)