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Do you realize that the reasoning you provided could be used to justify any submission, and therefore is unsuitable to use when deciding what belongs on HN? A

Do you realize that the reasoning you provided could be used to justify any submission, and therefore is unsuitable to use when deciding what belongs on HN? A hacker should be able to tell apart a scientific argument that rules certain stories in and others out from empty rhetoric that appeals to emotions. As an aside, hackers' concerns are not the same as those of people doing startups, and it's a mistake to equate the two. Lots of people involved in a startup are not hackers by any stretch of imagination, and vice versa.

petite 17y ago
I think more that the submission guidelines are a catch-all for obvious stories that the entire community wants to avoid. These are stories that appear on large community sites, regardless of whether the core community has interest in them, and only appear to increase the demographic of the website. But I don't think Hacker News works the same way. Anyone is allowed to submit a story, and depending on the community interest, the story gets posted to the front page. This ensures that the stories of most interest to the community are most viewable to the community. So the way I understand your criticism, it seems more to be a critique on the entire community (or at least the ones who vote), rather than a critique on the poster not following the rules. "WhyIsThisOnHN" commented on articles about differing ways to look at literature, a painter who creates photorealistic paintings, a question posed to the HN community (this article), and one on the cause of death in cyclists. None of these articles strike me as something that merely exists to draw in eyeballs, but rather portray the varying interests of a group of highly motivated and intelligent people. Those are the types of articles I come here to read. If I wanted to read about computers and code all day, there are websites for that. If I wanted to read about startups all day, again, there are startup centric sites. I am interested in what people of like mind find interesting, but perhaps do not have the chance to expose myself to due to time constraints, and I think that this is partly responsible for the appeal of HN over other aggregate sites. note - sorry for the off-topic comment, this is just something that has been on my mind, and possibly exasperated by the WhyIsThisOnHN username
edw519 17y ago
Do you realize that a comment from your hn name is a logical impossibility? From the hn guidelines: "What to Submit" "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." "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."
- lurkinglurker 17y ago
  I'll ignore your snarky comment and quote the same guidelines then: "A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting." "What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be deeply interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger, underlying trend, then perhaps it could be."
michael_dorfman 17y ago
Been here long?
- lurkinglurker 17y ago
  About as long as you have. And yes, I realize that "this is not hacker news" is a common theme, so is the confusion between what is interesting to hackers and what is interesting to startup folks, but I think the content has gotten really bad recently. There is a pic submission on the front page even as we speak, just one step short of lolcats (frankly, I love lolcats, and so do many younger hackers, but HN would be terrible if the current trends hold up). The number of business submissions is almost always higher than hacking-related submissions. And I see insightful comments downmodded without a response much more frequently these days.

petite 17y ago

I think more that the submission guidelines are a catch-all for obvious stories that the entire community wants to avoid. These are stories that appear on large community sites, regardless of whether the core community has interest in them, and only appear to increase the demographic of the website. But I don't think Hacker News works the same way. Anyone is allowed to submit a story, and depending on the community interest, the story gets posted to the front page. This ensures that the stories of most interest to the community are most viewable to the community. So the way I understand your criticism, it seems more to be a critique on the entire community (or at least the ones who vote), rather than a critique on the poster not following the rules. "WhyIsThisOnHN" commented on articles about differing ways to look at literature, a painter who creates photorealistic paintings, a question posed to the HN community (this article), and one on the cause of death in cyclists. None of these articles strike me as something that merely exists to draw in eyeballs, but rather portray the varying interests of a group of highly motivated and intelligent people. Those are the types of articles I come here to read. If I wanted to read about computers and code all day, there are websites for that. If I wanted to read about startups all day, again, there are startup centric sites. I am interested in what people of like mind find interesting, but perhaps do not have the chance to expose myself to due to time constraints, and I think that this is partly responsible for the appeal of HN over other aggregate sites. note - sorry for the off-topic comment, this is just something that has been on my mind, and possibly exasperated by the WhyIsThisOnHN username

edw519 17y ago

Do you realize that a comment from your hn name is a logical impossibility? From the hn guidelines: "What to Submit" "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." "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."

lurkinglurker 17y ago
I'll ignore your snarky comment and quote the same guidelines then: "A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting." "What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be deeply interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger, underlying trend, then perhaps it could be."

michael_dorfman 17y ago

Been here long?

lurkinglurker 17y ago
About as long as you have. And yes, I realize that "this is not hacker news" is a common theme, so is the confusion between what is interesting to hackers and what is interesting to startup folks, but I think the content has gotten really bad recently. There is a pic submission on the front page even as we speak, just one step short of lolcats (frankly, I love lolcats, and so do many younger hackers, but HN would be terrible if the current trends hold up). The number of business submissions is almost always higher than hacking-related submissions. And I see insightful comments downmodded without a response much more frequently these days.