question: doesn't submitting posts like this, which will likely garner a bunch of points, contradict the theme that it is pushing forth? seeing a bunch of top threads that just talk about the state of HN makes HN much less HN-like.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. In this case, I just wish that folks would make the community better, by submitting and upvoting better content, than by complaining. The former is the only way to change things. Every time we wish to complain, and I have too on occasion, I just wish we'd remember the submit and upvote principle.
You are mistaken, sorry. Complaining does change people's behaviour. You wouldn't be complaining about other people's behaviour if you didn't think so! That being said, you are entitled to suggest that submitting content and upvoting content is the best way to make the community "better."
But it is not the only way, at least not until HN explicitly forbids meta-posting.
> But it is not the only way, at least not until HN explicitly forbids meta-posting.
I hope we don't, there have been some effective meta-discussions in the past. For example, one lead to the banning of valleywag stoies (I know pg posted a poll on it, but iirc. it was other users who were complaining initially).
I'd say the guidelines and then the community that breathed life into them. That's the hypothesis any ways. They seem to be the only thing restricting the content.
I think some additional algorithms could work, and we're building an application based on them. But so far, here, I'm not sure they're necessary.
Seems rather odd to be complaining to the customers that their complaining is wrong.
Sound like a guy running a hot dog stand. Each day, a thousand folks come by and buy hot dogs. Maybe ten thousand just read the signs. About a hundred of the regulars say "Why don't you paint the sign blue?"
You can say, "no" or you can say "yes". What makes no sense at all is to keep arguing with the complainers.
Is there a way to paint the sign blue without losing the traffic? If so, do it. However -- and this is what bugs me -- perhaps you like the traffic more than the contributors. Perhaps the contributors are just suckers creating unique, interesting, and varied content on your site everyday. And if that's the case, well it doesn't really matter at all what 'HN' really is, because the whole point is to let it evolve into a mindless link farm not to service the commenters/readers. In other words, the true customers are the passerbys, not the people eating the hotdogs.
I don't believe this premise, but it is self-consistent. I would like to see a drop-down voting system where there would be 5-7 categories each user could choose from. If I thought the article was interesting, I could choose "interesting". If you thought it was on-topic, you could choose "on-topic". etc. Add a flag and tag feature, get rid of downvotes entirely, and at least then the site is customizable to work no matter the reader's preference.
