

Ask HN:  Should we adopt an Offtopic: naming convention? - physcab

There has been some comments recently about banning offtopic posts because they don't relate to Hacker News. Before such action is taken, should the community adopt an Offtopic: naming convention?<p>eg. "Offtopic: 15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee"<p>The benefits of such would be several-fold as far as I can see:<p>1)  Easily identify and skip offtopic posts if you have no interest in reading them.<p>2)  Use the convention as an opportunity to teach new users what qualifies as ontopic or offtopic.<p>3)  Help us better quantify the ratio of ontopic to offtopic posts, and can be later used as evidence for banning offtopic posts altogether.<p>4)  Help the moderators do their moderating :)<p>What do you all think?
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icey
There are enough on-topic things to talk about here; off-topic things should
be taken to a different site.

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jbooth
Please define on-topic?

Also, if anyone disagrees with your definition, your point is invalid :)

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icey
If you know well enough to think "Hey, I should title this as Offtopic:
whatever", then it probably doesn't belong here.

HN has been around long enough that people should be able to have a decent
feel for what's on-topic and what's not; and if they're mistaken the flag
button is there.

What I think is on-topic may not be what the next guy thinks is on-topic. The
definition of what is on-topic is defined by the community (by way of voting
and flagging).

My personal litmus test is whether I think a link is relevant to a hacker /
entrepreneur. To be fair, not all of my submissions meet my own criteria, so
clearly there's gray area there. I just don't want to encourage people to
increase the noise when it's already tough enough to deal with it and maintain
the health of the community.

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jbooth
Well, let's be clear, hacker news is a website for hackers/entrepreneurs to
waste time, blow off steam, maybe learn something but more likely find
interesting commentary.

I liked the coffee beans article, I drink a lot of coffee and it was an
interesting quick read to kill 5 minutes before a meeting.

The community here happens to consist of people who find entertainment in
learning about things, but let's be clear, this site is entertainment.

