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Why are there so many random NY Times articles ending up on the front page lately? Back 6 months ago I never remember seeing these articles and now there seems

by bunkat 12y ago

Why are there so many random NY Times articles ending up on the front page lately? Back 6 months ago I never remember seeing these articles and now there seems to be one hitting the front page every day. I could understand if they were relevant technical articles but one about giraffes? The worst part is they create very poor discussions where most of the comments get down voted because what can one really say about a story about giraffe evolution?

Jtsummers 12y ago
Because someone submitted them and others up voted them. Don't compain just flag it or ignore it.
- bunkat 12y ago
  So if a group of people wants to change the fundamental focus of this site from technology to animal evolution we're not allowed to say anything about it? Flagging doesn't do anything because too many people take your approach of just ignoring it (or worse down voting any concern as complaining). There definitely seems to be a growing group of users who are looking to greatly expand the scope of this site and to me that dilutes the quality of the site.
  - Jtsummers 12y ago
    1. I don't down vote comments like yours because I try not to down vote (I once down voted in anger and felt bad, ever since I've reserved them for the most ignorant comments I come across and rarely even bother then). 2. If I ignore it, I'm not up voting it. I'm up voting posts that I think have some value. 3. This site is about whatever people on this site find interesting. If evolution (an interesting subject) happens to come up, it'll likely get up voted and discussed. 4. We get some slow days when it's mostly fluff here. And then we get days when it's nothing but academic math papers. It comes and goes, deal with it.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    > "Flagging doesn't do anything" It most certainly does. A few days back I watched an article with hundreds of votes drop like a rock as the flags rolled in (it was fairly political, and I suspect it gathered a bunch of flags as soon as the flamewar started.) It went from near the top of the front page to approximately the fourth page in a matter of perhaps ten minutes. One flag won't do much. But if enough other people agree with you that something doesn't belong, it'll disappear. > "change the fundamental focus of this site from technology to animal evolution" One reason you're not getting as much agreement as you might expect: the fundamental focus of this site is not technology. It's anything that gratifies intellectual curiosity. Technology and animal evolution both fall into that category, as do history, chemistry, mathematics, and occasionally even religion (not samey-samey stuff, but genuinely new discoveries or interesting topics -- like when the Vatican decided to create a giant digital archive, or when a guy did a Show HN about software he made for his church.)
dang 12y ago
HN is for stories of intellectual interest. The community tends to be focused on programming and startups—with many exceptions, of course—but that doesn't mean the topics are. PG explained this when he changed the site name back in 2007: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html, and it has been at the top of HN's guidelines for years: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. > because what can one really say about a story about giraffe evolution? One can always say nothing.

by bunkat 12y ago

Jtsummers 12y ago

Because someone submitted them and others up voted them. Don't compain just flag it or ignore it.

bunkat 12y ago
So if a group of people wants to change the fundamental focus of this site from technology to animal evolution we're not allowed to say anything about it? Flagging doesn't do anything because too many people take your approach of just ignoring it (or worse down voting any concern as complaining). There definitely seems to be a growing group of users who are looking to greatly expand the scope of this site and to me that dilutes the quality of the site.
- Jtsummers 12y ago
  1. I don't down vote comments like yours because I try not to down vote (I once down voted in anger and felt bad, ever since I've reserved them for the most ignorant comments I come across and rarely even bother then). 2. If I ignore it, I'm not up voting it. I'm up voting posts that I think have some value. 3. This site is about whatever people on this site find interesting. If evolution (an interesting subject) happens to come up, it'll likely get up voted and discussed. 4. We get some slow days when it's mostly fluff here. And then we get days when it's nothing but academic math papers. It comes and goes, deal with it.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  > "Flagging doesn't do anything" It most certainly does. A few days back I watched an article with hundreds of votes drop like a rock as the flags rolled in (it was fairly political, and I suspect it gathered a bunch of flags as soon as the flamewar started.) It went from near the top of the front page to approximately the fourth page in a matter of perhaps ten minutes. One flag won't do much. But if enough other people agree with you that something doesn't belong, it'll disappear. > "change the fundamental focus of this site from technology to animal evolution" One reason you're not getting as much agreement as you might expect: the fundamental focus of this site is not technology. It's anything that gratifies intellectual curiosity. Technology and animal evolution both fall into that category, as do history, chemistry, mathematics, and occasionally even religion (not samey-samey stuff, but genuinely new discoveries or interesting topics -- like when the Vatican decided to create a giant digital archive, or when a guy did a Show HN about software he made for his church.)

dang 12y ago

HN is for stories of intellectual interest. The community tends to be focused on programming and startups—with many exceptions, of course—but that doesn't mean the topics are. PG explained this when he changed the site name back in 2007: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html, and it has been at the top of HN's guidelines for years: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. > because what can one really say about a story about giraffe evolution? One can always say nothing.