tomhow

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please avoid swipes like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. HN is for curious conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please avoid swipes like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't post flamebait or instigate generic tangents on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here, particularly these sections:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously... Edit out swipes.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Flags are disabled after a user exhibits a continuing pattern of flagging items for reasons other than guidelines breaches; most commonly for political reasons. That's not “frivolous”, but it is most certainly a mis-use of the flag feature.

There are cases where an exception to the “If you flag, please don't also comment that you did” rule is warranted, but it needs to carry the substance and energy of an earnest, helpful contribution to the discussion. The comment I replied to seemed much more snarky than earnest.

I think it's a fairly solid rule of thumb that almost any comment made earnestly will be okay here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50296470

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That's not really what we are :) It's part of what we talk about, sure, but mostly we're a site for curious conversation.

We actually don't want to automate things in ways that seem “polished” and “perfect” all the time. Which individual or software system would we want to be the arbiter of that? We like that the software does a rough approximation in cases like these, then through collaboration between the community and the moderators we arrive the best outcome in the end.

False positives are going to happen, no matter how much we try to make our systems infallible, and you're welcome to email us if any comments of yours get killed and aren't quickly vouched by other users.

I can still confirm that your comments weren't being killed via any deliberate moderator intervention.

Please don't accuse people of writing AI-generated comments. If you suspect it, please email us: hn@ycombinator.com.

LISPy things you can do in 64K bytes of core (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44490099 - July 2025 (4 comments)