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

Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 114 posts

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#51

Post by iamelgringo »

prakash wrote: post #41
iamelgringo wrote: post #34

This is our site, if we want more hacker news and less reddit, follow the new page and consistently vote up geeky articles. The site has thousands of page views every single day, but the top stories routinely get less than 100 votes. The moral of the story: submit good articles and vote up on them. The ratio of voters to lurkers is probably from 1:100 to 1:300. Your votes count. The only way to avoid having an Eterna…

I constantly check the new page to vote up & flag items. As some other have posted, more people should vote up.

I know you do, prakash. The comment was directed at others, not so much yourself. Sorry for the confusion.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#52

Post by comatose_kid »

pmorici wrote: post #20

I think you forgot one major sub category... ...submissions about submissions being off topic. I don't think business is off topic seeing as this site is half about starting a business Economics effect those businesses so in a particularly bad week esp. one in which events that haven't happened to the great depression transpire you are going to see some stories about it. What political news are you talking about? The…

Business submissions can dilute the front page. For example, take articles about the current economic environment (mergers, banks dying off) - they suck because:

1) You can read about that stuff everywhere right now (news.google, front of popular magazines).

2) It doesn't really help start my business as it provides little actionable advice.

3) Look at 1) again. I'm not interested in reading about current events on HN. Other sites do a better job of this, and that is not why I come here. Generally, if it appears on the front page of news.google.com, it shouldn't be on this site.

Of course I'm not against biz articles categorically, just the ones that meet the above criteria.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#53

Post by robg »

Jem wrote: post #48
robg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's not supposed to be in the system: Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site Isn't that exactly what you're doing too, though?

The guidelines don't matter for this discussion? It seems to me it's the only thing that should matter. Without them, this site has no focus whatsoever.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#54

Post by aslkjdf »

robg wrote: post #53
Jem wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site Isn't that exactly what you're doing too, though?

The guidelines don't matter for this discussion? It seems to me it's the only thing that should matter. Without them, this site has no focus whatsoever.

robg. Regarding the site having focus. I suggest you re-read the guidelines. When the guidelines are as vague as "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." it's not as easy as just throwing the guidelines at someone.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#55

Post by robg »

aslkjdf wrote: post #50

If you followed digg as close as I did from 05-07 and saw what happened you would feel the same way as the parent. Current HN was digg in early 05/06. Now look at it. It went from articles on computer science/tech at UW/google research/stanford/MSR to MSN/college humor in what seems like a flash because people flocked towards what was popularized instead of technical. I took solace in the fact there was a tech sectio…

Your account was created 10 days ago. I don't see how you've interacted with this community enough to accurately judge what direction it's headed. Why not start by submitting stuff you deem worthy? That would be a more fruitful path toward course correction.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#56

Post by prakash »

robg wrote: post #49
prakash wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been flaging things like crazy. People just ignore flagging off-topic submission, the same way people don't upmod enough.

I don't see any reason why you should be flagging like crazy. These posts aren't so ubiquitous as to be over running the site. Unless you're not using the definition of "off-topic" in the guidelines? 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 prob…

There are quite a few posts under the new page.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#57

Post by robg »

aslkjdf wrote: post #54
robg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guidelines don't matter for this discussion? It seems to me it's the only thing that should matter. Without them, this site has no focus whatsoever.

robg. Regarding the site having focus. I suggest you re-read the guidelines. When the guidelines are as vague as "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." it's not as easy as just throwing the guidelines at someone.

You're missing the point. The guidelines are the only thing that should matter. Without them, this community has exactly zero form.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#58

Post by the_negotiator »

I think what it comes down is the HN community's craving for such information. People can submit all sort of information but it's the links that are upmodded that make the cut.

Don't worry it will work itself out. Otherwise just band together with fellow HN users and just upmod the news that your interested in reading. :)

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#59

Post by aslkjdf »

robg wrote: post #55
aslkjdf wrote: post #50

If you followed digg as close as I did from 05-07 and saw what happened you would feel the same way as the parent. Current HN was digg in early 05/06. Now look at it. It went from articles on computer science/tech at UW/google research/stanford/MSR to MSN/college humor in what seems like a flash because people flocked towards what was popularized instead of technical. I took solace in the fact there was a tech sectio…

Your account was created 10 days ago. I don't see how you've interacted with this community enough to accurately judge what direction it's headed. Why not start by submitting stuff you deem worthy? That would be a more fruitful path toward course correction.

You can read a site and not be registered. I've been on this site for months but never chose to register an account. Found out about it on techcrunch about 6 months ago and have been reading every day since. Even shared and discuss it with my boss. Just like on digg, it took me 8 months before I joined. You can see a pattern through observation of submissions. Instead of trying to discredit me by the length of days of my account, why dont you try and just take in my point and reflect on it and then interact with me on what you think. Its a word to the wise. I am not saying panic. Panic is for morons. But many people are aware of the problems with digg and they wont be fixed using simple user guidelines.

Re: Pleading with YC: Enough with the political & financial news. More Hacker News please.

#60

Post by robg »

prakash wrote: post #56
robg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any reason why you should be flagging like crazy. These posts aren't so ubiquitous as to be over running the site. Unless you're not using the definition of "off-topic" in the guidelines? 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 prob…

There are quite a few posts under the new page .

I don't even see them there. Early in the morning there's spam to flag, but I'd say 95% of the submissions fit into the guidelines. Of the remaining 5% maybe 10% makes it to the front page. My intuition is we're arguing about .5 to 1%. Even if it's as high as 10%, I still don't think that's significant.

Instead of complaining, why not do a study? Classify all front page submissions for one week. I bet not 1% would touch on politics. For this time of the election cycle, that would be a great indicator of the strength of this community.

I disagree wholeheartedly on economics and business submissions, though.

Post reply on HN