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The question was asked on a different thread earlier today, and I think it deserves asking here too: What does this has to do on Hacker News? Both articles ar

by bertil 13y ago

The question was asked on a different thread earlier today, and I think it deserves asking here too: What does this has to do on Hacker News? Both articles are about groups are the lagging edge of development; both groups are made exclusively of one gender (although, unsurprising, only the other one used that aspect to hammer victimisation). Both issues are connected to an existing hardware technology that could be, but is not of interest to HN. I read that kind of article (both) in my daily rotation outside of HN, so I don’t mind -- but I was wondering if HN commenters had felt the parallel, and would have reacted the same way on both.

contingencies 13y ago
Human rights and social wellbeing are generally of interest to educated people. Furthermore, quirks in the global legal system are interesting. I see nothing rendering this article unworthy of attention, other than the fact that it's perhaps old news.
- bertil 13y ago
  It is absolutely worthy of attention -- my point was: what are the editorial guidelines of HackerNews? There are guidelines, as was pointed to me. Those guidelines are not exactly followed by the chunk of the community who confused my open question with a complaint and downvoted. I was curious how people read those guidelines in those two cases: are both up-voted by the same group? If human interest is key, why isn’t every Vice documentary here?
trendoid 13y ago
For many people, hacker news is the only source of knowing shit happening in the world, be it innovation or injustice. Hence, if once in a while such stories do pop up, I like that.
- bertil 13y ago
  Me too. My question was more about clarifying editorial guidelines. Commenting guidelines are already weird (I got pummeled for that one, even though I was the only one trying to explain the relevance for HN on the entire thread, and ask the community non-obvious questions) but I though starting by clarifying posting ones: is it neglected technical aspects, social issues, things that a world-changing company can make profit from? In this case, the only solution that I see is automated construction using 3D-printing, most likely augmented by drones to scale. That would put most of those workers out of a job -- a situation probably worst off, and more deadly than the one they are in at the moment. It follows the disenfranching trend that Brynjolfsson gives to technology, and against yesterday’s parallel example (locally made menstruating pads in rural India). I assumed talking about that was better that the tacitly racist ‘You know, Qatari have no respect for human lives…’ that fill this thread otherwise. It might sound true (family members living there tend to agree, vocally, but they aren’t exactly not-racists) but it seems far less productive than highlighting the works of some Qatari trying to change that.
gabriel34 13y ago
From the guidelines section (link at the bottom of the page): Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did. Although I do concur that this post is off topic, what is or not pertinent to this site is a subjective matter resultant to the sum of the views of everyone(by points) and heavily biased towards the view of the few who control the site. I too am breaking the same guideline if you extend it to comments, but there is no other way to let you know why you were downvoted by others (as there is no PM system AFAIK).
- bertil 13y ago
  Wow, that was indeed violent. The worst thing is: I wasn’t complaining that it was off-topic; I was pointing at a different treatment of two off-topic events on the Front page, and how they were gender based.
mayneack 13y ago
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. This sounds like an interesting phenomenon in that I assume this wasn't the case at other recent major sporting events. As for TV news: http://www.msnbc.com/search/world%20cup http://www.msnbc.com/search/world%20cup (nothing) http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/search?q=world+cup&submit=Search&ss=fn http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/search?q=world+cup&sub... (nothing) http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=world%20cup&sortBy=relevance http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=world%20cup&sortBy=relevanc... (nothing) I almost didn't even bother with CNN because it was obviously nothing due to the missing flight.
- bertil 13y ago
  It wasn't covered by TV recently because it's not recent.

by bertil 13y ago

contingencies 13y ago

Human rights and social wellbeing are generally of interest to educated people. Furthermore, quirks in the global legal system are interesting. I see nothing rendering this article unworthy of attention, other than the fact that it's perhaps old news.

bertil 13y ago
It is absolutely worthy of attention -- my point was: what are the editorial guidelines of HackerNews? There are guidelines, as was pointed to me. Those guidelines are not exactly followed by the chunk of the community who confused my open question with a complaint and downvoted. I was curious how people read those guidelines in those two cases: are both up-voted by the same group? If human interest is key, why isn’t every Vice documentary here?

trendoid 13y ago

For many people, hacker news is the only source of knowing shit happening in the world, be it innovation or injustice. Hence, if once in a while such stories do pop up, I like that.

bertil 13y ago
Me too. My question was more about clarifying editorial guidelines. Commenting guidelines are already weird (I got pummeled for that one, even though I was the only one trying to explain the relevance for HN on the entire thread, and ask the community non-obvious questions) but I though starting by clarifying posting ones: is it neglected technical aspects, social issues, things that a world-changing company can make profit from? In this case, the only solution that I see is automated construction using 3D-printing, most likely augmented by drones to scale. That would put most of those workers out of a job -- a situation probably worst off, and more deadly than the one they are in at the moment. It follows the disenfranching trend that Brynjolfsson gives to technology, and against yesterday’s parallel example (locally made menstruating pads in rural India). I assumed talking about that was better that the tacitly racist ‘You know, Qatari have no respect for human lives…’ that fill this thread otherwise. It might sound true (family members living there tend to agree, vocally, but they aren’t exactly not-racists) but it seems far less productive than highlighting the works of some Qatari trying to change that.

gabriel34 13y ago

From the guidelines section (link at the bottom of the page): Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did. Although I do concur that this post is off topic, what is or not pertinent to this site is a subjective matter resultant to the sum of the views of everyone(by points) and heavily biased towards the view of the few who control the site. I too am breaking the same guideline if you extend it to comments, but there is no other way to let you know why you were downvoted by others (as there is no PM system AFAIK).

bertil 13y ago
Wow, that was indeed violent. The worst thing is: I wasn’t complaining that it was off-topic; I was pointing at a different treatment of two off-topic events on the Front page, and how they were gender based.

mayneack 13y ago

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. This sounds like an interesting phenomenon in that I assume this wasn't the case at other recent major sporting events. As for TV news: http://www.msnbc.com/search/world%20cup http://www.msnbc.com/search/world%20cup (nothing) http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/search?q=world+cup&submit=Search&ss=fn http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/search?q=world+cup&sub... (nothing) http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=world%20cup&sortBy=relevance http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=world%20cup&sortBy=relevanc... (nothing) I almost didn't even bother with CNN because it was obviously nothing due to the missing flight.

bertil 13y ago
It wasn't covered by TV recently because it's not recent.