3 ms·
Great idea. To avoid Wiki-style lawyering (as noted in other comments), I think the guidelines could really be kept incredibly small. I think pg's "colleagues
by edanm 13y ago
Great idea.
To avoid Wiki-style lawyering (as noted in other comments), I think the guidelines could really be kept incredibly small. I think pg's "colleagues working together to uncover the truth" line covers 90% of what HN discussions should be.
I'd also add "no comments that don't add information/low signal comments", to avoid "+1" style comments and humour. I'm not sure most of the community agrees with me, but I don't like such comments here. Reddit optimises for fun being on Reddit and reading comments, HN optimises for getting the most on-topic information in the least time.
- britta 13y agoWikipedia's wikilawyering culture generates and maintains the extensive guidelines there, instead of the guidelines generating that culture. (Like with most projects, people don't read the documentation first.) It'd be great if a tiny set of guidelines were enough for HN, but that's very optimistic about people being able to pick up on implicit rules & values. A well-written set of reasonably detailed guidelines would make explicit what the majority of decent HN commenters already agree that HN should be.