Tell HN: No, it really isn't turning into Reddit
I don't think these critics are destructive members of the community, nor is my intention to berate anyone.
However, I see a lot of people ignoring one of Hackers News' very few guidelines--"Please do not ask if HN is turning into Reddit if your account is under one year old"--to ask if HN is turning into Reddit even though their account is under one year old.
"How is this hacker news?"
They always get downvoted, the "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" guideline always gets cited, and the wasted time makes me wish there were a way for the critics to just understand instead of making those comments. This is my (likely futile) attempt at promoting that understanding.
I have asked "How is this hacker news?" exactly once in the paltry 412 days that my account has been active (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1175891), and I understand why people are motivated to ask. However, the average critic has their "relevance threshold" calibrated far too low. Either that, or it is measuring relevance to the wrong standard.
The part in our guidelines about "gratifying intellectual curiosity" must be taken seriously. Hacker News likes to learn about anything unintuitive that we usually take for granted, such as how drowning doesn't look like drowning (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835), or about where the five-day work week came from (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1494361). These articles have nothing to do with programming, and many of them have nothing to do with running a startup, but they are appropriate for Hacker News, because they challenge our preconceptions and, above all, make us think.
I would like to see a reversal in this trend. I want someone to look at the next thread about the iPhone's antenna and ask, "How is this hacker news?"
I would rather have 10 posts that don't mention programming but make me question my assumptions about the way things work, than 5 posts that are all re-affirming my existing knowledge that PHP has crappy OO support, or that Jason Calacanis is a blowhard, or that the gorram app store is a tradeoff between consistency of experience and freedom of development.
I am not a veteran member of Hacker News, and I do not presume to know "what is best for the community." I have recorded in this post nothing more than my completely non-expert opinion about what makes Hacker News enriching in the hopes that it inspires a few would-be doomsayers to rethink their approach to what this site is for.
To everyone, whether you have been here 1 day or 1 year: The next time you are about to ask if something is appropriate, wait 10 minutes and see what kind of comments are posted. If nothing makes you stop and think for even a second, maybe then you can be more certain that your criticism is justified.