Sorry pal, if a clearly political post can appear on HN with copious upmods even though such a post is clearly against guidelines, I can break guidelines as well and meta-comment about its lack of relevancy to HN in general.
>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics...If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
You are precisely the type of person I mention in relation to the wikipedia effect.
> ...that of people that feel it is their god-given right to arbitrate some self-selected rules of the community they inhabit and prevent all newcomers from playing in their playground.
So we can either follow guidelines to the letter, in which case pg should rename that to rules, and we should all flag posts like the China/Copenhagen one (and my posts regarding reddit and about half your posts for not being of interest to business technologists)
Or we can regard the guidelines for what they are, directors of discussion in this digital salon.
But I can play your game if you like, I can flood HN with garbage submissions to every dog and pony show I find remotely interesting (even against guidelines) to boost my karma and then downvote and flag everybody else who does the same. Or we can use HN for what it's intended for, as a discussion forum for interesting business and technology news.
To my understanding, the modding/submission/flagging system is intended to create interesting discussion, not to create karma.
HN (the community) has to decide if karma is what's important or discussion is what's important. I've already outlined why I think the current system emphasizes karma over discussion. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013330 I was hoping that HN was not just another reddit/digg.
I think you're still missing the point, now obsessively so. The intent behind the guidelines is much more complicated than the words of the guidelines themselves.
Then that intent should be on the guidelines page, and not in the imagination in your head...period. I think pg does a good job at relaying the intent of how he thinks things should work in his various essays. I disagree with him on some fine points. He wants more civility, I want more directness. I also don't want people to pretend to be civil in voice and absolutely uncivil in action.
Furthermore, guidelines are not rules:
Since you have trouble understanding the difference betwixt the two:
I think you can probably tell by now I really don't give a rats ass about my karma, to the chagrin of people that think I'm only whining about mod points -- but I do care about interesting discussion (which includes meta-discussion). You seem to think discussion is only interesting if it follows some rule-set you've invented that really has nothing to do with the intent or words of the guidelines of HN or even in most cases (as provided by citations) to yourself unless it's particularly convenient for you to pull them out to suppress voices you don't want to hear -- such as mine.
As I've outlined, mod points and abuses of the voting system can suppress interesting discussion exactly as it has done here both by encouraging non-interesting discussion and by discouraging dissenting voices. You are even aware that the voting system is open to abuse! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013389 Yet here we are, with you participating in your own support and participation in an abuse of the system.
You've provided nothing even remotely interesting along the lines of meta-discussion regarding this topic in all of your previous posts that I could be bothered to read through except pedantic reference to the guidelines page from time to time. At the very least I supplied an alternate voting and comment scheme (which is perhaps a poor scheme, but I'm open to it being up for debate, at least it's some ideas). Most assuredly you don't like it since it would force people such as yourself to be bothered to provide some commentary and not just whore karma.
Comments
> You missed the rule I was referring to.
Sorry pal, if a clearly political post can appear on HN with copious upmods even though such a post is clearly against guidelines, I can break guidelines as well and meta-comment about its lack of relevancy to HN in general.
>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics...If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
You are precisely the type of person I mention in relation to the wikipedia effect.
> ...that of people that feel it is their god-given right to arbitrate some self-selected rules of the community they inhabit and prevent all newcomers from playing in their playground.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The relevant word is guidelines.
Despite the guideline on the topic. There is an very vigorous and ongoing discussion about this effect.
Works Cited: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=303605 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=508801 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=575032 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=406293 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=164901 (perhaps one of my favorite posts on the topic from about 2 years ago). http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=744475 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=409659 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=88898 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=76469 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011841 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=994418 and on and on and on...at least since I've started reading HN a couple years ago.
So we can either follow guidelines to the letter, in which case pg should rename that to rules, and we should all flag posts like the China/Copenhagen one (and my posts regarding reddit and about half your posts for not being of interest to business technologists)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011915 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011368 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011306 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011337 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1009130 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1009177 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1007640 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1007289 etc.
or your submissions
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1007183 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1005924 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1002837 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=975046 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973940 etc.
You even seem aware of this effect yourself http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=937446 !
Or we can regard the guidelines for what they are, directors of discussion in this digital salon.
But I can play your game if you like, I can flood HN with garbage submissions to every dog and pony show I find remotely interesting (even against guidelines) to boost my karma and then downvote and flag everybody else who does the same. Or we can use HN for what it's intended for, as a discussion forum for interesting business and technology news.
To my understanding, the modding/submission/flagging system is intended to create interesting discussion, not to create karma.
HN (the community) has to decide if karma is what's important or discussion is what's important. I've already outlined why I think the current system emphasizes karma over discussion. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013330 I was hoping that HN was not just another reddit/digg.
I think you're still missing the point, now obsessively so. The intent behind the guidelines is much more complicated than the words of the guidelines themselves.
First off, Happy Holidays!
Now back to arguing about something...
Then that intent should be on the guidelines page, and not in the imagination in your head...period. I think pg does a good job at relaying the intent of how he thinks things should work in his various essays. I disagree with him on some fine points. He wants more civility, I want more directness. I also don't want people to pretend to be civil in voice and absolutely uncivil in action.
Furthermore, guidelines are not rules:
Since you have trouble understanding the difference betwixt the two:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3Aguidelines
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3Arule
I think you can probably tell by now I really don't give a rats ass about my karma, to the chagrin of people that think I'm only whining about mod points -- but I do care about interesting discussion (which includes meta-discussion). You seem to think discussion is only interesting if it follows some rule-set you've invented that really has nothing to do with the intent or words of the guidelines of HN or even in most cases (as provided by citations) to yourself unless it's particularly convenient for you to pull them out to suppress voices you don't want to hear -- such as mine.
As I've outlined, mod points and abuses of the voting system can suppress interesting discussion exactly as it has done here both by encouraging non-interesting discussion and by discouraging dissenting voices. You are even aware that the voting system is open to abuse! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013389 Yet here we are, with you participating in your own support and participation in an abuse of the system.
You've provided nothing even remotely interesting along the lines of meta-discussion regarding this topic in all of your previous posts that I could be bothered to read through except pedantic reference to the guidelines page from time to time. At the very least I supplied an alternate voting and comment scheme (which is perhaps a poor scheme, but I'm open to it being up for debate, at least it's some ideas). Most assuredly you don't like it since it would force people such as yourself to be bothered to provide some commentary and not just whore karma.