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Poll: What is your age?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: What is your age?

#251

Post by eeeeaaii »

Jun8 wrote: post #248
pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

I've been here for some time and I usually agree/upvote pg's comments, not because of reverence to him or because I'm start-struck but because, well, the man is a well of wisdom (I regularly buy Hackers and Painters and give it away as presents to the young students I mentor. And OK, I may be a bit star-struck, too.) This is his first comment I disagreed completely and downvoted. As a personal policy I downvote any c…

I think you are missing the point that this poll is voluntary. So, the "Do not disclose" option is there -- just click on one of the many other links on HN today, or otherwise do something else with your time. There, you "did not disclose."

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#252

Post by bkanber »

Jun8 wrote: post #248
pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

I've been here for some time and I usually agree/upvote pg's comments, not because of reverence to him or because I'm start-struck but because, well, the man is a well of wisdom (I regularly buy Hackers and Painters and give it away as presents to the young students I mentor. And OK, I may be a bit star-struck, too.) This is his first comment I disagreed completely and downvoted. As a personal policy I downvote any c…

This poll was optional, and you could have simply ignored it.

Your action was exactly the type of thing PG's talking about. In the past, the community at large either would have been truthful or simply not responded. Now, a significant portion of the community is responding non-truthfully. Your motivation doesn't matter: whether it was "not believing in the honor system", or "protesting against the poll", or anything else, you still contributed to the pollution of the data.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#253

Post by micampe »

pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

I ignored the poll but if it comes with a sane font size i'll go vote for over 90 right now.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#254

Post by rattray »

Jun8 wrote: post #248
pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

I've been here for some time and I usually agree/upvote pg's comments, not because of reverence to him or because I'm start-struck but because, well, the man is a well of wisdom (I regularly buy Hackers and Painters and give it away as presents to the young students I mentor. And OK, I may be a bit star-struck, too.) This is his first comment I disagreed completely and downvoted. As a personal policy I downvote any c…

While I disagree that responding falsely was a better move than simply not responding at all, I agree with your point about hn quality lamentations.

As someone who came to hn after "the good ol' days", I would much prefer to see constant reminders of "That's not how we do things here" than "Man, things sure have gotten bad". Entropy is the norm; everything degrades without constant force applied.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#255

Post by vorvzakone »

pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

That's a pretty dramatic post just because 100-300 people said they were 10 or 90. Get over yourself.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#256

Post by solistice »

ebbv wrote: post #216
alanctgardner2 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I present, No True Hacker ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman ). Some hackers are interested in the results of the poll. Some resent any effort by anyone to collect their personal information. Some just wanted to click all the buttons, to see if they could. None of these are more or less valid than any other viewpoint, and it's silly to argue about what this portends for the HN community.

Whether you're interested in the poll or not is no reason to vandalize it. Being unwilling to share personal information is no reason to vandalize it. Wanting to "click all the buttons" is only a valid excuse if you are under the age of 8. What's silly is defending the dickheads who purposely ruin the poll.

According to the poll, there are plenty of people under 8 on here.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#258

Post by rednum »

Jun8 wrote: post #248
pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

I've been here for some time and I usually agree/upvote pg's comments, not because of reverence to him or because I'm start-struck but because, well, the man is a well of wisdom (I regularly buy Hackers and Painters and give it away as presents to the young students I mentor. And OK, I may be a bit star-struck, too.) This is his first comment I disagreed completely and downvoted. As a personal policy I downvote any c…

I think that he actually has a little more than gut feeling here:

> about half the users under 10 are also over 90

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537050

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#259

Post by bjhoops1 »

Jun8 wrote: post #248
pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

I've been here for some time and I usually agree/upvote pg's comments, not because of reverence to him or because I'm start-struck but because, well, the man is a well of wisdom (I regularly buy Hackers and Painters and give it away as presents to the young students I mentor. And OK, I may be a bit star-struck, too.) This is his first comment I disagreed completely and downvoted. As a personal policy I downvote any c…

Not sure what's more ridiculous - that you took the time to skew a perfectly reasonable poll, or that you expected anyone to understand your tortuous logic in doing so.

Just because you personally don't like coffee doesn't mean you should go out of your way to defecate in someone else's mug.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#260

Post by msellout »

pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

I'd forgotten the fonts were small, because I've had them magnified on this page for so long. I'm only old according to Peter Townshend.
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