Journalism, particularly at the highest level, is about raw power

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26156431

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25952507

Comments are unsubstantive when they don't add any new information—particularly comments that repeat things that have been repeated many times before. Within that set, the worst subset is comments that don't add new information and are stimuli to pre-existing conflicts. Those are not only unsubstantive but flamebait. Examples of those:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26137478

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836608

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25886623

The issue here is not which side you're on, it's whether the comment makes the thread more interesting or less interesting. "Interesting" in HN's sense is a specialized use of the word. It doesn't just mean liking to put attention on something—it also has to do with why or, if you like, what part of one's brain circuitry is being activated. What we want to activate is curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), and for that it's necessary to avoid the stronger forms of indignation, which go in curiosity-killing directions.

The best way to consider whether a comment makes the thread more interesting or less interesting is to think not about the comment itself, but the expected value of the probable subthreads it will lead to. Note that this is not the same as the actual replies it ends up getting; you can't know that until later, but you can always ask yourself what the likely outcome of posting in a certain way will be. If there's new information there, the expected value gets higher; if there's provocation, the expected value gets much lower (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).

We don't have these rules for ethical reasons—we're not trying to tell users what sort of people they should be. We have them for system design reasons—to try to solve the problem of how to operate an internet forum that doesn't suck (or at least sucks less), and doesn't destroy itself over time. That's in everyone's interest who participates here, regardless of what sort of people we all are, what our politics and ideologies and backgrounds all are, and so on.

Has the purpose of journalism ever been to “inform”? Seems it has always (well, going back for centuries at least) been to argue a point. I say this out of sympathy for journalists, not to condem them.

> The individual players just tow the party line.

Aren’t you contradicting yourself? If your aim is to influence the last thing you’d do is toe the line; rather you’d cross it without a thought.