On: Ask HN: Where is the Hostility on HN Coming From?

[dalore]

To use your metaphor, walking into the Yankee Stadium and using their PA would be akin to this person putting the new design up on Wikipedia, like on a talk page or linking to it from Wikipedia's entry on Wikipedia. No, the person put their new design up on a totally separate website.

He didn't say that Wikipedia has to change, it was merely just his design idea that he wanted to share with the world. Yes, if he actually wanted Wikipedia to change there is a process of contacting Wikipedia and going through the whole bureaucratic process but I think it was more of a show what's possible. Kind of like that design project that was on HN a while back showing a possible rebranding of Microsoft.

I may be in the minority here but I don't believe it warranted such harsh criticism.

[jonnathanson → dalore]

"He didn't say that Wikipedia has to change, it was merely just his design idea that he wanted to share with the world."

Well, the cynic in me -- which I've been trying to restrain throughout the last few days of this discussion -- thinks he was doing it primarily as "content marketing" for his design firm. Maybe it's a little unfair to pin that motive on him. And I certainly have no way of knowing what the hidden agenda was, or even if there was one. But when you make a "pitch" to the entire Internet in this fashion, generally speaking, you're doing it to get attention (and business).

There's nothing wrong with content marketing. Some HN luminaries do it all the time. But the content has to provide some value, and a lot of folks (myself included) are still struggling to find the value in the Wikipedia redesign post.