"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."
I used to agree with these principles, but in the long run it will cause HN's demise. It was fine when we used to be a low-traffic website, but I think these guidelines don't scale very well. The most upvoted stories are the ones which everybody agrees upon, not the most interesting ones.
But who am I to complain? I don't contribute that much either.
This is exactly what I was thinking when I asked this question. It seem that since Hacker News has gained more traffic > more submissions > more activity the quality of interesting has got a lot larger... perhaps it's the point system that encourages people to submit any old thing that they think is interesting in pursuit of more points, community status, etc...
"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."