HACKER Q&A
📣 billme

What Is “Good” & “Bad” HN


First, like many, truly value HN, respect the mods, community, YC, etc.

Asking “what is good & bad HN?” - because I am guessing like many, I read dang’s comments, once in awhile glance through his recent comments, but I never gotten in habit of reading all his comments, or at least trying to follow his meta-HN comments.

Dang posted this comment to a submission made early today — and honestly curious what tips the community has on finding and/or writing good posts for HN; here’s dang’s comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239567

  👤 lma22 Accepted Answer ✓
I'll speak to comments mores than posts.

Good HN is sourced, maturely explained viewpoints, that have "meat" to them. "Meat" being a thesis and supportive dialog. Or, at minimum, personal experiences that enhance the discussion at hand.

Bad HN is puns, harsh politics, humor, and dismissive language. Examples: "Nah, [my subjective viewpoint]", "correlation is not causation", "I feel attacked", etc. These comments clutter the comment section, add nothing to the discussion, and brings HN down ten pegs. It also invites those in who want to chat without understanding the topics and/or reading the articles. Reddit is a prime example of this.

👤 billme
Stating the obvious, there’s also these official HN pages on the topic.

Approach to Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

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

FAQS:

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

👤 veddox
Be ready to learn. Many if not most HN discussions attract at least a few commenters who are really experts in that field - sometimes world experts. (Of course, they also attract a lot of people who obviously aren‘t, and most people will be somewhere in between.) You‘re welcome to put your reasonable opinion out there, but keep sufficient humility to accept that you may have been mistaken.