161–170 of 195 posts
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Band together (e.g. private mailing list) with like-minded people and upvote each other's submissions until the culture has changed. EDIT: Hey, that's the only reasonable answer to the parent's question so far, as far as I can see. I don't like the idea either, but it's a reasonable idea, downvotes be damned!
Why don't we just band together in a private mailing list and leave it at that? I'm pretty sure we'll lose the arms race on organized voting.
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It's not just the off-topic stuff. It's groupthink. The needle on that has been buried for months now. I'll give you a telling example: the insane series of threads where, in essence, an angry mob chased a comp-sci grad student around for nominating Wikipedia articles for deletion. "Here's the main offender!" "You're a drain on Wikipedia, a negative source of knowledge!" "You're an idiot!". An Internet-famous guy chi…
I like that example, too. Well stated. My observation was that the whole episode reeked of something you'd expect to play out on reddit, but not the old-school HN.
When there's a bunch of angry people wielding pitchforks convinced that Wikipedians (or some subset) are evil bastards who hate knowledge and love nothing but rules, it's not that conducive to calm discussion. There's just sort of a vaguely defensive, "well, it's not quite like that, you know most of us also think about these issues and have tried to balance the criticisms many people have of Wikipedia, and even some of the rules and guidelines I disagree with do have some reasons they exist, but nobody seems very interested in discussing any of that, so I guess I'll just mostly sit this one out...". To be fair, there was some good discussion buried in some of the threads.
I did write up a way-too-long version of what I would've said in the discussion: http://www.kmjn.org/notes/wikipedia_notability_verifiability...
(As a non-HN-specific aside: What's frustrating from the perspective of someone who wants to make Wikipedia work is that it seems most external discussion of Wikipedia comes in these weird mob frenzies, but they come from opposite sides. One group of people is convinced Wikipedians are a bunch of rule-loving fascists; another group of people is convinced Wikipedians are a bunch of anarchistic amateurs with a hippy anything-goes attitude. So the first group gets angry when a topic they're a fan of is deleted, and demands fewer rules; the second group initiates big frenzies like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy, and demands more rules.)
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Except they weren't singled out. Visa waiver program requires each member be at certain economic and political levels. Countries like Singapore met the requirement and are included, countries like Brazil, China, and India don't. This isn't elementary school anymore, you expect diplomats to act diplomats and get policies enacted, not come up with some stupid scheme even a 10 year old could see through. What the politi…
Americans weren't singled out either. Brazil's policy is the same for all countries: the same hurdles Brazilians have to go through in a given country, citizens of that country will have to go through in Brazil. EDIT: Would Florida prefer that half a million Brazilians hadn't visited in 2010? It works both ways, you see.
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Yes, and what useful relevant information did you gather from this submission? That immigration officers are often incompetent? That once they damaged some guy's camera? Let me inform you further: the airplane food usually sucks and US time is, annoyingly, 6-8 hours behind central Europe.
You're clearly ignoring the fact, that it's mostly US-only issue, and it doesn't have to be that way. We, non-US citizens, can't do much about it, and we'd like to get attention of US folks (who often are less affected), because they (you?) can. I'll probably get downvoted for it, and I'd like to be mistaken here, but I'm getting the feeling that some of you get offended by critique, justified or not, of some of US p…
I think many of us would actually make the same critiques.
But not on this site. We don't want to talk politics here.
Anybody willing to share how Schengen/EU borders are for foreigners?
I guess this means that Schengen countries have extensive cooperation and will adopt joint standards in time.
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You're trying to get a green card? Do you realize that once you get it you're going to be responsible for filing tax returns as long as you have it, no matter where you actually live and work?
This is precisely why I've been repeatedly extending my E-2 visa. Of course, by wanting that freedom, all my payments to US social security are definitely going to waste...
I have to admit, as difficult as it is, he makes a good point here. I'm nowhere near as well travelled, but we do a lot of work in the middle east (some of the nastier parts too), which is a place you would imagine a white westerner would count seriously against you. But, frankly, I've never felt safer or more welcomed in my life (apart from the odd dicey moment). OK, the US is not terrible, unsafe or specifically un…
Have you ever been to Qatar? I'd have to disagree with you there.
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It takes one phone call to speak to someone at your Congresscritter's office about this. They really do listen and, occasionally, even act on things which generate heat from constituents (ask any Republican who flipped on immigration circa 2007-2008). If you feel strongly about it, make the freaking call. (Or, better, write an honest-to-God on-dead-tree letter.)
I actually HAVE written to my senators about this issue, unfortunately I didn't even get the courtesy of a form letter in response - and they're both Democrats. I didn't bother writing to my rep since he's a Republican.
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Why don't we just band together in a private mailing list and leave it at that? I'm pretty sure we'll lose the arms race on organized voting.
That's how it seems to me too. This was a very popular post, so most people here don't seem to share your views on this issue. Rather than blustering about how the site has gone to hell because so many people see travel as a legitimate part of startup life, and getting more hacks in the software to penalize the topics you don't want to hear about, maybe it's time to accept it.
So I have to disagree with you here, Jon. I care about politics, I really do, just not much while I'm here.
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Brazil isn't part of the Visa Waiver program and felt that its citizens were being treated unreasonably. Thus, they began being rude to Americans. (IIRC) Kind of an asshole move, but highly entertaining to watch from the outside.
Brazil has a well-known tit-for-tat policy in foreign matters. They will apply to a country's citizens whatever policy that country applies to Brazilians. So Americans were singled out because they singled out Brazilians. It's called having balls.
It's called having balls.