Bit disappointed by "top 10 X" articles creeping on to the HN homepage recently | Hacker News Reader

Bit disappointed by "top 10 X" articles creeping on to the HN homepage recently

38 pointssimonw9 comments

People seem to be voting for them, but I doubt I'm the only person who's a little sad to see that kind of thing crop up on the homepage. They're very rarely the kind of insightful article I come to Hacker News to find.

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This community should adopt a flag-happy attitude to the 'new' section of this site. If it isn't tertiarily related to programming or entrepreneurship, strongly consider flagging it on the basis of being off-topic.

Here's the off-topic stuff on the homepage right now:

-What is Apple hiding on the iPhone4?

-AT&T 1993 "You Will" Ads

-Romantic Love: The problem with Western cultures

-This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

-The Bitter Truth About Sugar

-Bing Napkin Maps

-Russia Getting Rid of Capital Gains Tax

"Tech," politics, random neat things, funny things, something just because it's about a business, etc. are a waste of attention on here. There are plenty of other communities for that. Many of you are likely expats of those communities.

A related problem is that people rarely follow the FAQ guidelines for headline editing. In this case, there's even a specific example: 'translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X,"'. In other words, we shouldn't even know it's a "top 10 list" per se, the subject matter should be interesting on its own.

I'm actually not a huge fan of that headline editing policy. My problem isn't the headlines, it's the actual content - if something is a "20 great sites about X" post, it's very unlikely to contain thoughtful writing.

I deal with those by flagging.

There is the general tendency towards the "lowest common denominator" that seems to be inevitable in communities. Besides introducing draconian barriers like needing to have N points before one can upvote, I'm not sure what else can be done on sites like ours.

Is that viable? Will it counter the tendency towards the banal? Will it force new-comers to only make "safe" comments in order to gain enough points? Or will it encourage richer conversations and meaningful engagement?

It would be helpful if you can point out examples.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444823

... For example.

I share the sentiment; I've seen quite a few others over the past 48 hours. Is there a way to raise the minimum karma threshhold for stories to be displayed on my front page?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1443817 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444823 were the two that triggered me to post this.

Do you have ten reasons why you're disappointed?

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