While I also find the comments more compelling than the links themselves, sometimes a thread degenerates and gets marooned on Pointless Island. It helps to be able to identify PI from a distance and hence stay away.
When that happens, you (and everyone!) are welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com. We mark such subthreads off topic, which ranks them much lower—but we don't always see them. I hate showing up to a thread a day late and finding pointlessness at the top!
This is a tragedy-of-the-commons dynamic. Individuals can be well-intentioned and even mostly rational and we still end up with these suboptima. That's why it's necessary for someone like us to come through and do the vacuuming. Point us there and we'll do it, and send you a nice reply as well.
dang|9 years ago
This is a tragedy-of-the-commons dynamic. Individuals can be well-intentioned and even mostly rational and we still end up with these suboptima. That's why it's necessary for someone like us to come through and do the vacuuming. Point us there and we'll do it, and send you a nice reply as well.