lurkinglurker

What you're calling a "gimmick account" may well be a way to shield oneself from the negative karma associated with asking questions that go against the downvote capacity of the unwashed masses. The parent is clearly making a statement that goes against what the recent wave of HN users seem to be upvoting.

I have been a long-time lurker here, but felt compelled to create an account to post in support of the parent. There has been too many submissions lately where there is a low barrier to entry, inane discussion, and no connection to hacking.

I'll ignore your snarky comment and quote the same guidelines then:

"A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting."

"What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be deeply interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger, underlying trend, then perhaps it could be."

Do you realize that the reasoning you provided could be used to justify any submission, and therefore is unsuitable to use when deciding what belongs on HN?

A hacker should be able to tell apart a scientific argument that rules certain stories in and others out from empty rhetoric that appeals to emotions.

As an aside, hackers' concerns are not the same as those of people doing startups, and it's a mistake to equate the two. Lots of people involved in a startup are not hackers by any stretch of imagination, and vice versa.

Avid biker and long time lurker here, and I believe that (a) this article belongs on reddit, not on HN, (b) there has been a recent flurry of submissions with no connection to hacking or hackers and a low barrier to entry that generates inane discussions, (c) telling someone to downvote is itself trollish, because to rely solely on the downvote to express one's opinion is to expect them to remain silent and accept the opinion of the masses, and I suspect the parent is making a statement about the recent voting by the masses on HN.