5 ms·

Huge downvote to this. Saying that a hacker community shouldn't be interested in the Snowden revelations is ridiculous, and listing him alongside New World Ord

Huge downvote to this. Saying that a hacker community shouldn't be interested in the Snowden revelations is ridiculous, and listing him alongside New World Order conspiracy theories is just insulting.

dylangs1030 13y ago
Chill out. He didn't try to insult you, he said it's somewhere else for those things to go. He didn't claim it's actually unimportant, and frankly, Hacker News wasn't intended for this kind of discussion - the guidelines support him. Whether or not that means it shouldn't be here at all is up for debate, but don't act as though he's being insulting when he's just supporting something that's reasonable. He can voice his reasons just as you can voice yours. You're the one being more insulting.
- mcphilip 13y ago
  From the guidelines: >On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. So basically anything upvoted by this community is considered on topic since enough people deem it gratifying intellectual curiosity. Secondly, the insulting part is about how he snarkly listed Snowden alongside conspiracy theories. Like him or not, the risks he's taken to get this information out deserve him some level of repspect.
jasonkester 13y ago
First, downvotes aren't for disagreement here. Comments are. Thus... Second, I disagree, and agree with the grandparent that that other place (or any other place, really) would make a perfect place for discussing all those things you list. Actionable articles about the business of software and technology to help build same. That's what we're here for. If you'd like more stuff to talk about, there's lots more internet out there. You're free to hang out at more than one place.
- nsmartt 13y ago
  > On-Topic:Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. This absolutely includes NSA/Snowden news and any other news relating the intersection between politics and technology.
- mcphilip 13y ago
  The main purpose of the downvote as I understand it is to punish responses (in the ranking algo sense) that don't add to the discussion. A snark one-two liner sitting on the top of the comment page is hardly a comment that's adding anything interesting to the discussion of Libre News
  - petercooper 13y ago
    A snark one-two liner sitting on the top of the comment page is hardly a comment that's adding anything interesting As a wise man once said, and I paraphrase: So basically anything upvoted by this community is considered on topic since enough people deemed it worthwhile.
- jccc 13y ago
  Actionable articles about the business of software and technology to help build same. That's what we're here for. Really? http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." The guidelines do also say, "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics [etc.]," but then qualify, "unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." It might be that HN has reached a point at which there ought to be a split with accompanying comment police to enforce it, but it seems presumptuous to assume that the decision has already been made in alignment with your particular preferences.
- gruseom 13y ago
  Downvotes aren't for disagreement here. Comments are That's not true. PG has said the opposite many times. Commenting is for when one has something to say.
petercooper 13y ago
From the guidelines for "off topic": If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. And for "on topic": anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Mainstream US-centric political news is not particularly intellectually gratifying and not what this site has ever done well. Reddit and Twitter had all the same pointless arguments. And I say "mainstream" because perhaps the only hacker-specific part of the story was Snowden being a sys-admin. His revelations and the impact of the story were felt across all of society and were not specifically related to hackerdom (the follow up stories about DEF CON or protecting your own privacy by technical means, however, were clearly hacker oriented and well suited to HN).

dylangs1030 13y ago

Chill out. He didn't try to insult you, he said it's somewhere else for those things to go. He didn't claim it's actually unimportant, and frankly, Hacker News wasn't intended for this kind of discussion - the guidelines support him. Whether or not that means it shouldn't be here at all is up for debate, but don't act as though he's being insulting when he's just supporting something that's reasonable. He can voice his reasons just as you can voice yours. You're the one being more insulting.

mcphilip 13y ago
From the guidelines: >On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. So basically anything upvoted by this community is considered on topic since enough people deem it gratifying intellectual curiosity. Secondly, the insulting part is about how he snarkly listed Snowden alongside conspiracy theories. Like him or not, the risks he's taken to get this information out deserve him some level of repspect.

jasonkester 13y ago

First, downvotes aren't for disagreement here. Comments are. Thus... Second, I disagree, and agree with the grandparent that that other place (or any other place, really) would make a perfect place for discussing all those things you list. Actionable articles about the business of software and technology to help build same. That's what we're here for. If you'd like more stuff to talk about, there's lots more internet out there. You're free to hang out at more than one place.

nsmartt 13y ago
> On-Topic:Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. This absolutely includes NSA/Snowden news and any other news relating the intersection between politics and technology.
mcphilip 13y ago
The main purpose of the downvote as I understand it is to punish responses (in the ranking algo sense) that don't add to the discussion. A snark one-two liner sitting on the top of the comment page is hardly a comment that's adding anything interesting to the discussion of Libre News
- petercooper 13y ago
  A snark one-two liner sitting on the top of the comment page is hardly a comment that's adding anything interesting As a wise man once said, and I paraphrase: So basically anything upvoted by this community is considered on topic since enough people deemed it worthwhile.
jccc 13y ago
Actionable articles about the business of software and technology to help build same. That's what we're here for. Really? http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." The guidelines do also say, "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics [etc.]," but then qualify, "unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." It might be that HN has reached a point at which there ought to be a split with accompanying comment police to enforce it, but it seems presumptuous to assume that the decision has already been made in alignment with your particular preferences.
gruseom 13y ago
Downvotes aren't for disagreement here. Comments are That's not true. PG has said the opposite many times. Commenting is for when one has something to say.

petercooper 13y ago

From the guidelines for "off topic": If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. And for "on topic": anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Mainstream US-centric political news is not particularly intellectually gratifying and not what this site has ever done well. Reddit and Twitter had all the same pointless arguments. And I say "mainstream" because perhaps the only hacker-specific part of the story was Snowden being a sys-admin. His revelations and the impact of the story were felt across all of society and were not specifically related to hackerdom (the follow up stories about DEF CON or protecting your own privacy by technical means, however, were clearly hacker oriented and well suited to HN).