Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

#11

Post by troydavis »

plessthanpt05 wrote: post #5
detaro wrote: post #4

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Trump saying him and Melania testing positive for the Coronavirus four weeks out from the presidential election is huge news. This story is not about politics (i.e. about a political issue), it is about a political/world leader and his wife. Edit: So "TV news" covering the newest iPhone release would probably be off-topic too then based on this reasoning, but this seems to reliably hit the front page of HN everytime…

> Edit: So "TV news" covering the newest iPhone release would probably be off-topic too then based on this reasoning, but this seems to reliably hit the front page of HN everytime Apple does so.

Consider that HN is all about intellectual curiosity. Imagine that the hostname is intellectualcuriosity.ycombinator.com rather than news. Debating product design is more likely to yield interesting thoughts/comments and much less likely to lead to a useless flame war.

The newsworthiness of a submission - which is huge in this case, as you noted - is a relatively minor factor for whether something is a good fit.

Re: Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

#12

Post by rvz »

plessthanpt05 wrote: post #5
detaro wrote: post #4

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Trump saying him and Melania testing positive for the Coronavirus four weeks out from the presidential election is huge news. This story is not about politics (i.e. about a political issue), it is about a political/world leader and his wife. Edit: So "TV news" covering the newest iPhone release would probably be off-topic too then based on this reasoning, but this seems to reliably hit the front page of HN everytime…

Well I recall the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had Covid-19 and was in hospital and on HN it was flagged. It may have been 'news' but it was against the guidelines. This is no different.

The guidelines probably needs to be changed here then.

Re: Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

#14

Post by plessthanpt05 »

detaro wrote: post #6
plessthanpt05 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump saying him and Melania testing positive for the Coronavirus four weeks out from the presidential election is huge news. This story is not about politics (i.e. about a political issue), it is about a political/world leader and his wife. Edit: So "TV news" covering the newest iPhone release would probably be off-topic too then based on this reasoning, but this seems to reliably hit the front page of HN everytime…

> This story is not about politics (i.e. about a political issue), it is about a political leader and his wife. That's worse. Political issues as at least typically have different perspectives to discuss, people-facts do not. This doesn't need to be on the front page.

> Political issues as at least typically have different perspectives to discuss, people-facts do not.

If people-facts do not have different perspectives to discuss, then why would the death of someone (regardless of who they are) be relevant to HN (even though they are routinely on the frontpage)? Or as user "bdcravens" wrote above, then "Articles about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning would also be subject to those rules", but are also routinely on the frontpage.

Re: Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

#16

Post by bdcravens »

detaro wrote: post #4

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Articles about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning would also be subject to those rules.

Re: Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

#17

Post by plessthanpt05 »

bdcravens wrote: post #16
detaro wrote: post #4

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Articles about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning would also be subject to those rules.

> Articles about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning would also be subject to those rules.

Agreed. This is selective censorship by the HN moderators (which is fine, as it's clearly up to them as to what's deemed important here, but the rules for being flagged need to be more clear in this manner then).

Re: Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

#19

Post by detaro »

plessthanpt05 wrote: post #17
bdcravens wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Articles about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning would also be subject to those rules.

> Articles about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning would also be subject to those rules. Agreed. This is selective censorship by the HN moderators (which is fine, as it's clearly up to them as to what's deemed important here, but the rules for being flagged need to be more clear in this manner then).

just to be clear, flagged status is not a moderator action, but done by users.

Re: Ask HN: How is Trump testing positive for Coronavirus not on the frontpage?

#20

Post by detaro »

plessthanpt05 wrote: post #14
detaro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This story is not about politics (i.e. about a political issue), it is about a political leader and his wife. That's worse. Political issues as at least typically have different perspectives to discuss, people-facts do not. This doesn't need to be on the front page.

> Political issues as at least typically have different perspectives to discuss, people-facts do not. If people-facts do not have different perspectives to discuss, then why would the death of someone (regardless of who they are) be relevant to HN (even though they are routinely on the frontpage)? Or as user "bdcravens" wrote above, then "Articles about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning would also be…

Typically, the death is not the thing being discussed, but the death is taken as a point to discuss/share stories about/... the person - and not every death is discussed here. Whereas the current US president already comes up in discussions all the time.
Post reply on HN