HN Explorer

Tell HN: "This isn't relevant to HN"

6 points by jpwagner ↗ HN
For whatever reason, I get particularly peeved when I see a comment to a submission that says "This isn't relevant to HN!" So I decided to contribute my 3 step process on how to decide if a given post is relevant to HN:

1. Do I know or have I ever known anyone who'd be interested in the article?

This one for me is key. Everyone I've met has something to offer as a "hacker" and I don't segregate into hacker v non-hacker. Just about everything passes this test unless I'm in a foul mood :)

2. Would that interested person benefit from reading this submission or would they have something to contribute to benefit other interested people?

This one is clearly opinion. Luckily HN handles opinion pretty gracefully...

3. Vote.

If I think there's benefit I'll upvote (or lazily do nothing) and if I think there's harm, I'll flag.

That's it! Simple.

Now, in the future, if I see a comment that says "This isn't relevant to HN!" I'll mentally translate it to the sum of the following:

1. I have no friends

2. I don't have anything to contribute

3. There's a flag button?

Happy commenting!

3 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 19.3 ms ] thread
swolchok
This has been traditionally handled by linking to and quoting http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

rewind
Let's apply that to this posting:

1. No. 2. N/A. See #1. 3. Done.

But I have lots of friends and I'm in a great mood. Weird.

jpwagner
Let's apply that to your comment...

turtles all the way