Today is a sad day. A great man died, and we should honor that. This may sound cold hearted, but I come to Hacker News to read interesting discussions about tech and startups, not to see 30 articles about the same issue. Several articles discussing the event would be perfectly fine, but this has become absurd.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the death of someone like Steve Jobs taking up room on the front page of HackerNews. Look at the the current top 5 stories:
Steve Jobs has passed away. (apple.com): 2393 points, 282 comments
Apple RIP Logo design (jmak.tumblr.com): 265 points, 16 comments
Steve Jobs has died (marketwatch.com): 776 points, 59 comments
The Steve Jobs I Knew (allthingsd.com): 343 points, 8 comments
President Obama on Steve Jobs (whitehouse.gov): 361 points, 38 comments
Completely reasonable. Such attention for someone who was important to the tech industry as he was is precisely what I'd expect from a place like HN. A bit high on the points : comments ratio, but this isn't exactly a story that will lead to long drawn-out flame war (at least I'd hope not), so that too is understandable.
But it steadily declines from there: at the time of writing, the remaining 25 Jobs stories on the front page have 116 comments combined. If no one has anything interesting to say about these stories, then it doesn't seem like a far-fetched interpretation that there's nothing interesting in them, either, so why are they being upvoted?
Give people a moment. Steve Jobs has been a very prominent figure in the high-tech industry for 4 decades, since the dawn of the personal computer. He has not only watched but in many cases husbanded the transformation of the computer from an industrial device to a personal computer to sci-fi worthy pocket and tablet computers. His passing is worth a few hours of minor inconvenience in discussing other topics on HN (just advance to the next page or two, it's not exactly a chore).
I disagree. I had no interest reading other tech news that day and actually found such stories strangely out of place, like they were pre-scheduled and an editor forgot to pull them.
Do you really believe it's intentional? I think it reflects quite beautifully on the importance of the contributions Jobs made to technology and what an inspiring character he was.
Would you complain about flowers blocking the sidewalk? Just give it time.
[+] [-] xorglorb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ordinary|14 years ago|reply
I don't think there's anything wrong with the death of someone like Steve Jobs taking up room on the front page of HackerNews. Look at the the current top 5 stories:
Steve Jobs has passed away. (apple.com): 2393 points, 282 comments
Apple RIP Logo design (jmak.tumblr.com): 265 points, 16 comments
Steve Jobs has died (marketwatch.com): 776 points, 59 comments
The Steve Jobs I Knew (allthingsd.com): 343 points, 8 comments
President Obama on Steve Jobs (whitehouse.gov): 361 points, 38 comments
Completely reasonable. Such attention for someone who was important to the tech industry as he was is precisely what I'd expect from a place like HN. A bit high on the points : comments ratio, but this isn't exactly a story that will lead to long drawn-out flame war (at least I'd hope not), so that too is understandable.
But it steadily declines from there: at the time of writing, the remaining 25 Jobs stories on the front page have 116 comments combined. If no one has anything interesting to say about these stories, then it doesn't seem like a far-fetched interpretation that there's nothing interesting in them, either, so why are they being upvoted?
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] John212|14 years ago|reply
Give us all a few hours.
[+] [-] pbreit|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tspiteri|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burgerbrain|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ricardobeat|14 years ago|reply
Would you complain about flowers blocking the sidewalk? Just give it time.
[+] [-] burgerbrain|14 years ago|reply
There are not even other posts in the new feed for me to read or vote up.
[+] [-] pbreit|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] palish|14 years ago|reply
How have I never heard or /classic 'til now? Thanks!
What's different about the ranking algo?
[+] [-] radicalbyte|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FlowerPower|14 years ago|reply
My comment tastes aweful doesnt it? Just like 30 fucking posts on the same thing.