Are these kinds of articles a new breed of rage bait? They keep ending up on the front page with thriving comment sections, but in terms of content they're pretty low in nutritional value.
So I'm guessing they just rise because they spark a debate?
There’s barely any debate, people don’t answer each other; It’s rather about invoking the wonder and imagination of everyone’s brain. Like spatial conquest or an economic crisis: It will change everything but you can’t do anything immediately about it, and everyone tries to understand what it will change so they can adapt. It’s more akin to 24hrs junk news cycle, where everything is presented as an alert but your tempted to listen because it might affect you.
The hidden fallacy in your comment is that there is such a thing as "news that is really relevant for you".
This isn't all that different than saying that it would be nice if someone else did your thinking for you -- which is a totally fine thing to want, but let's not get confused.
"News that is relevant for you" is a concept made up by advertising companies to legitimize them in having power over what you see. Because if they presented it plainly, you would be rightly alarmed.
“Eternal September or the September that never ended was a cultural phenomenon during a period beginning around late 1993 and early 1994, when Internet service providers began offering Usenet access to many new users. Before this, the only sudden changes in the volume of new users of Usenet occurred each September, when cohorts of university students would gain access to it for the first time, in sync with the academic calendar.”
You can get to the front page easily with dozen upvotes, like from your colleagues and friends. Sadly, that's possibly the only way to get your post some attention here now.
I would disagree. It’s true that scouring the New section reveals a lot of hidden gems, but I know from experience that one in every 20-30 of my submissions ends up on the frontpage.
I once read here on HN that a good metric for filtering controversial comment sections is number of upvotes/comments. If it's bellow one, the thread is probably controversial.
Neither, that's up to your individual preference. Although I think that controversial threads have more noise, but sometimes provide a more enjoyable read.
The front page has an algorithm that is "less noise, more news" but if you go to the /active page, you get more conversation-driven submissions. I tend to load both up and refresh every few hours.
> The FAQ notes that submission rank is impacted by "software which downweights overheated discussions." A good rule of thumb for this effect is when the number of comments on a submission exceeds its score. Moderators can overrule the downranking for appropriate, not-actually-a-flame-war discussions.
This comment has even lower nutritional value. It's just a "dislike" with more words. You could have offered your counterarguments or if you're too tired of it but still feel you need to be heard, you could have linked to a previous comment or post of yours.
I mean, are you gonna die on a hill defending every low-quality content in HN? Because I think it’s perfectly OK to call it out so that moderators can notice and improve. You seem to think that readers have an inherent responsibility to salvage someone else’s bad article.
So I'm guessing they just rise because they spark a debate?