Comment by qqq
17 years ago
> I think we're all a little tired of the off-topic police.
Do you think I should submit this link?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin
(I read it today to satisfy my intellectual curiosity.)
17 years ago
> I think we're all a little tired of the off-topic police.
Do you think I should submit this link?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin
(I read it today to satisfy my intellectual curiosity.)
I'm interested in Isaiah Berlin too, but I wouldn't submit that link. It's not particularly good. It probably wouldn't get many hackers interested in Isaiah Berlin. But if you felt the article was particularly good, I don't see why you shouldn't go ahead and post it. It would be within the HN guidelines to do so.
It's impossible to follow the guidelines precisely, because good hackers aren't all interested in the same things. For any post outside the safety zone of, say, programming, startups, math and maybe physics, there will be some good hackers who aren't interested. But it doesn't follow that others won't like it a lot. The trouble with the "off-topic police" is that they're trying to speak for all hackers about what's not interesting. Le HN c'est moi.
Edit: How about this? Do you think I should submit it? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858701285435131.html
Sure. Though I generally dislike Wikipedia entries, this is meant to be a marketplace of ideas, rather than a site that appeals to my tastes above all.