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It is substantial, but it is not relevant. This article is clearly far enough afield from the topic of this site that it deserves to be flagkilled. Whether it's

by chc 12y ago

It is substantial, but it is not relevant. This article is clearly far enough afield from the topic of this site that it deserves to be flagkilled. Whether it's substantial or not is a different question. Also, if you're going to override people's flags, you should also override all the upvotes, because there is no way to just downvote irrelevant crap like this, so political diatribes, Buzzfeed links and everything else that has a solid core of upvoters will dominate if we can't filter for relevance.

dang 12y ago
> This article is clearly far enough afield from the topic of this site I'm afraid you have a misconception, and it's a crucial one. There is no "topic of this site". The axiom of Hacker News is intellectual curiosity, and intellectual curiosity does not limit itself to one set of things. Of course we're not all curious about the same stuff. That's why we have voting—to express personal interest. But to flag an article like this one is to say it has no (or nearly no) potential for intellectual curiosity at all, and that seems clearly to be a bad call.
- chc 12y ago
  I think the guidelines suggest something a little less broad than "whatever you personally find interesting": "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." Let me elaborate: Should I start spamming links to long-winded vegan propaganda? I would find it interesting, because it appeals to a viewpoint I happen to agree with. I also find Sailor Moon to be interesting. Should I start linking Sailor Moon content? Exactly how ridiculous and fluffy do my interests have to be before we can agree that there would be a better forum for the content? Although they might be interesting to some particular hackers, vegan evangelism, libertarian politics and Sailor Moon are pretty far from the obvious intent of "things that good hackers would find interesting." More than that, political content is poisonous to good discussion. The more you allow politics in, the more politics will consume everything, and the more comment threads you'll have that only gratify people's need to be outraged. I can understand that some political stories legitimately reflect a new trend that affects hackers and entrepreneurs, but allowing anything that interests anyone just allows far too much junk and hastens the site's decline.
  - dang 12y ago
    It isn't whatever you find interesting, it's whatever you find intellectually interesting. Intellectual interest is only one kind of interest. I think this answers the examples you raise—e.g. long-winded vegan propaganda wouldn't be intellectually interesting, but an article about the history of veganism might be. The guidelines do say that most political stories are probably off-topic. But "note those words most and probably" [1]. They're not there by accident. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922304#up_4922426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922304#up_4922426

by chc 12y ago

dang 12y ago

> This article is clearly far enough afield from the topic of this site I'm afraid you have a misconception, and it's a crucial one. There is no "topic of this site". The axiom of Hacker News is intellectual curiosity, and intellectual curiosity does not limit itself to one set of things. Of course we're not all curious about the same stuff. That's why we have voting—to express personal interest. But to flag an article like this one is to say it has no (or nearly no) potential for intellectual curiosity at all, and that seems clearly to be a bad call.

chc 12y ago
I think the guidelines suggest something a little less broad than "whatever you personally find interesting": "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." Let me elaborate: Should I start spamming links to long-winded vegan propaganda? I would find it interesting, because it appeals to a viewpoint I happen to agree with. I also find Sailor Moon to be interesting. Should I start linking Sailor Moon content? Exactly how ridiculous and fluffy do my interests have to be before we can agree that there would be a better forum for the content? Although they might be interesting to some particular hackers, vegan evangelism, libertarian politics and Sailor Moon are pretty far from the obvious intent of "things that good hackers would find interesting." More than that, political content is poisonous to good discussion. The more you allow politics in, the more politics will consume everything, and the more comment threads you'll have that only gratify people's need to be outraged. I can understand that some political stories legitimately reflect a new trend that affects hackers and entrepreneurs, but allowing anything that interests anyone just allows far too much junk and hastens the site's decline.
- dang 12y ago
  It isn't whatever you find interesting, it's whatever you find intellectually interesting. Intellectual interest is only one kind of interest. I think this answers the examples you raise—e.g. long-winded vegan propaganda wouldn't be intellectually interesting, but an article about the history of veganism might be. The guidelines do say that most political stories are probably off-topic. But "note those words most and probably" [1]. They're not there by accident. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922304#up_4922426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922304#up_4922426