Comment by mattmaroon
17 years ago
But they are, by definition, not off-topic. Given PG's guidelines, for something to be off-topic it has to not gratify anyone's intellectual curiosity and not be of interest to any hackers.
So to say that something is off-topic here, you have to be willing to assert that it is not of interest to any hackers, which means that whoever posted it and whoever voted it up are not hackers. Are you willing to assert that for something that now has 22 points? I wouldn't be willing to assert that for anything that was submitted at all unless it were blatant spam.
It seems that everything posted here is, by definition, either spam or on-topic. Perhaps you are looking for a social news site that defines on-topic as being CS-related, but at least according to the current guidelines, that is not this site.
That's why I'm constantly annoyed at the off-topic police. They're trying to make this site into what they wish it were, rather than what it is. Please reread the stated purpose of this site and explain to me how it is possible that that article does not fall within the guidelines.
Edit: I would appreciate that anyone who downmodded this explain my logical error. Not because I care about the karma, but because I'd like to see at least a reasonable explanation as to how I'm incorrect.
I like articles like this, but what I'm really worried about is the fact that they attract non-hacker types who just want to talk politics. Next stop: reddit. First come articles like this, then more, good, interesting in-depth articles about Obama, then just plain old Obama articles, then McCain is a big old dufus articles, and so on down the drain. See, for instance, maxklein's comment below. That's exactly what I fear happening when these types of articles turn up.
Perhaps we could create a HN-offtopic on some site that implements social news, by invite only, for HN users, and use that for politics/economics/whatever. Any other ideas for a constructive solution to this problem(+) that don't involve lots of PG's time?
(+) With "the problem" being defined as: "we are interested in off topic articles, but are afraid of what they'll do to the site in the long term".
Once again, I take issue with your definition of off-topic, since the guidelines seem to suggest that anything intelligent is on-topic. This a good, interesting, in-depth article about Obama would be on-topic, whereas anything below that in your progression would be off.
I don't think PG will allow it to progress to "McCain is a big old dufus articles". He has stated that he would not, and that he has constructive solutions to that problem that he will implement if he feels it necessary.
I'm a hacker and I read reddit quite regularly. I browse the politics, business, programming and world news sections.
I quite enjoy it. I find those articles interesting, though the debate is usually less so. Yet I'm a hacker. Does that mean that reddit is publishing hacker news?
Of course not.
Just because it's interesting to "some hackers" doesn't make it hacker news. Similarly, if an article about fluffy toys is interesting to some people in the medical profession, should it be published in the British Medical Journal, as a medical article? No.
6 replies →
So the problem is not:
- Off-topic articles are not interesting.
it is:
- Off topic articles are interesting also to off topic readers & off topic readers jeopardise the nature of the site/community.
No, the problem is people trying to enforce their vision of off-topic (stuff that is not CS/startup related) on a site whose guidelines define it as something entirely different.
I bet someone could through together a formula for the best ratio of article types to keep the site both growing and hacker focussed.
Isn't that the point of the up arrow? I'm not sure the site is meant to keep growing.
No, because both hackers and non-hackers use the up arrow. Which is fine if you don't mind content drift, but the people you are responding to do mind.