

HN's commenting policy is a barrier to diversity in tech - cmrivers
http://www.caitlinrivers.com/blog/hns-commenting-policy-is-a-barrier-to-diversity-in-tech

======
DanBC
Read the guidelines, they're very clear:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.

See also the very clear guidance in the welcome guidelines:

> 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.

> The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but
> shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or
> videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto
> a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to
> be quieter.

What's the point of posting "police should not murder citizens" posts? Anyone
who isn't a vile human being agrees; and those posts always drag out the vile
human beings who will blame the minor criminal who gets murdered by police.

There is no constructive discussion to be had from them. See also discussions
about Israel / Palestine; abortion; gun control; etc.

Having said all that I didn't see the link and if you feel it was unfairly
flagged you should email hn and ask them to tweak it. I think they do un-flag-
kill some stories that they think should be here and I know of at least one
that was about diversity stuff.

~~~
hackerjam
thanks for revisiting the posting rules. it's been awhile since i read them
and i neglected (my bad) to reread them when i finally got up the nerve to
start posting. i will definitely keep this mind when i submit something in
future. however, most of the time, i do submit non-mainstream stories instead
of the "duhhh" everybody w/ half a brain should know or have this figured out
already... unless of course, the news item-in-question pertains to emergent
technologies, like the blockchain or AI and the like.

however, let me ask you this: do you think hn has reached the point where it
is practically impossible to consume all of the content that is posted each
day? and the fact that titles+urls i submit -- don't get upvoted or flagged --
is not due to an overzealous gatekeeper but because they fall through the
cracks. no one sees them. and perhaps it is time that yc updated their
submission form so that the content can be more nuanced (classified) and say,
if i, for example, want to look at breaking news in an emergent field like
cryptocurrencies i click on that page, the way that i can look at the jobs or
show sections.

or if that is not feasible, do you think the hn community will continue to
fracture with new hn clones being set up -- like coinspotting,
cryptoanalys.is, data tau, growth hackers, inbound, python hacker news, etc.
-- to provide for and appeal to a more specialized userbase.

~~~
dragonwriter
> and the fact that titles+urls i submit -- don't get upvoted or flagged -- is
> not due to an overzealous gatekeeper but because they fall through the
> cracks. no one sees them.

Other people's submissions are getting upvoted or flagged, so its probably not
that no one is seeing yours (though there are potential timing issues that
might make that the case), its probably just that no one is either interested
in or objecting to them.

> and perhaps it is time that yc updated their submission form so that the
> content can be more nuanced (classified) and say, if i, for example, want to
> look at breaking news in an emergent field like cryptocurrencies i click on
> that page, the way that i can look at the jobs or show sections.

I think YC specifically _does not_ want to be maintaining something like
Reddit that covers everything under the sun, and limiting the classification
breadth and depth is a tool to encourage that.

> if that is not feasible, do you think the hn community will continue to
> fracture with new hn clones being set up

I think new discussion forums, including ones that are generally similar to HN
and target some segment of the same audience, or going to continue to get set
up _no matter what HN does_. And that's a good thing.

------
hackerjam
just for the record, i have been subbed to hacker news for awhile -- just
checked, i formally joined 168 days ago -- but i had been reading hacker news
for a year or more before i guilted myself into joining and that was just so i
could respond to something i had read.

only recently have i stepped up to the plate and started posting links to
articles i come across in my daily news dredge and if and when appropriate,
made comments on news items that piqued my interest.

but it is in search of your kind of posts that i come to a news aggregation
site like hn because i do want to see what the comments are -- they act like a
reality check -- so please, don't despair. i am sure there are a lot of people
like me who check the "new" section and are able to discover what you have
posted before it gets locked. and now you have me thinking that probably most
of the stuff i post, get nixed too. cuz only once did i notice something i
posted show up in the first 5 pages, but it like #60 and it only got that far
because the article was being trashed.

so you go me wondering if i should just go back to being a free-rider. posting
and commenting on hn takes a lot of time and effort, probably better spent
elsewhere.

------
dragonwriter
I think this is a mostly useless complaint due to lack of specificity in two
key respects. First, it fails to identify what in the HN "commenting policy"
is supposedly to blame for the problem, and second, it fails to propose a
change that would resolve the problem that could then be the focus of a
discussion of whether the change is a net improvement.

Other than the fact that the author clearly doesn't like that the one
particular story was flag killed, there's no substance and just a lot of
nonspecific complaint and emotional language.

That's not to say that I don't think that HN tends to focus on stories of
interest to white upper middle class to upper class people with deep interest
in technology and/or the tech industry, but I don't see the article offered
here as offering anything constructive with regard to tthat.

------
bob917
I disagree with any policy that stands in my way.

