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There are no set topics on hacker news for a reason. As I understood it, the main criteria was for submissions to be intelligent and informative. This article i

by hooande 17y ago

There are no set topics on hacker news for a reason. As I understood it, the main criteria was for submissions to be intelligent and informative. This article is one of the most rational discussions of the US health care system I have seen, and it's worth reading if you want to find out how it works. I think the key is that every story on the home page helps you to better understand how something works or why something happened. You know, the hacker part of "hackernews". We should probably save the flags for stories that are being manipulated by spammers or small groups. Anything else will rotate off the home page in a few hours anyway.

davidw 17y ago
The thing I worry about is that these stories attract people interested in discussing politics, who in turn post more stories, which may not be quite as good, which in turn attract more people, and so on and so forth. Politics/economics are low hanging fruit that anyone can dig up a story on and comment on. Erlang vs Scala in terms of creating distributed systems... not so much. The first will always crowd out the second, given enough time.
- sho 17y ago
  I share your concerns but what if you want to discuss politics with the inhabitants of Hacker News? The community here is the best on the web by far. I want to discuss any number of things and hear the views of the smart, technical people who hang out here. I often enjoy the non-code articles more than the "on topic" ones. It's a tough, but interesting, question. Limiting the topics allowed reduces the functional value of the group. But loosening it too much will reduce the quality of the group itself. I don't know the solution (yet).
  - davidw 17y ago
    > discuss politics with the inhabitants of Hacker News? The community here is the best on the web by far. I have a suspicion that these two things are mutually incompatible.
    - sho 17y ago
      Perhaps, but that would be unfortunate. When I get together with my friends, we can discuss whatever we want without needing to worry that the very choice of topic might lead to the group being diluted and eventually poisoned. Personally I am not convinced what happened to Reddit and Slashdot etc would happen here anyway. It is quite possible that Reddit has accomodated all the people who wanted a current-style Reddit and they are all happy where they are. There is a finite number of people, after all, despite how it sometimes seems. The people arguing against political topics here, based upon the experience at Reddit, do so referring to a single data point in a highly complex environment. I am far from convinced the argument is valid at all. Sure, discourage puns in comments and [PIC] links, couldn't agree more. But I am not sure forbidding whole topics as a rule is a good idea. Plenty of smart hackers are also interested in politics, and they might not be interested in participating in multiple discussion sites. If HN limits itself too much, they might get bored and leave. Anyway, just my speculation on an interesting topic, not trying to mount a formal argument or anything.

by hooande 17y ago

davidw 17y ago

The thing I worry about is that these stories attract people interested in discussing politics, who in turn post more stories, which may not be quite as good, which in turn attract more people, and so on and so forth. Politics/economics are low hanging fruit that anyone can dig up a story on and comment on. Erlang vs Scala in terms of creating distributed systems... not so much. The first will always crowd out the second, given enough time.

sho 17y ago
I share your concerns but what if you want to discuss politics with the inhabitants of Hacker News? The community here is the best on the web by far. I want to discuss any number of things and hear the views of the smart, technical people who hang out here. I often enjoy the non-code articles more than the "on topic" ones. It's a tough, but interesting, question. Limiting the topics allowed reduces the functional value of the group. But loosening it too much will reduce the quality of the group itself. I don't know the solution (yet).
- davidw 17y ago
  > discuss politics with the inhabitants of Hacker News? The community here is the best on the web by far. I have a suspicion that these two things are mutually incompatible.
  - sho 17y ago
    Perhaps, but that would be unfortunate. When I get together with my friends, we can discuss whatever we want without needing to worry that the very choice of topic might lead to the group being diluted and eventually poisoned. Personally I am not convinced what happened to Reddit and Slashdot etc would happen here anyway. It is quite possible that Reddit has accomodated all the people who wanted a current-style Reddit and they are all happy where they are. There is a finite number of people, after all, despite how it sometimes seems. The people arguing against political topics here, based upon the experience at Reddit, do so referring to a single data point in a highly complex environment. I am far from convinced the argument is valid at all. Sure, discourage puns in comments and [PIC] links, couldn't agree more. But I am not sure forbidding whole topics as a rule is a good idea. Plenty of smart hackers are also interested in politics, and they might not be interested in participating in multiple discussion sites. If HN limits itself too much, they might get bored and leave. Anyway, just my speculation on an interesting topic, not trying to mount a formal argument or anything.