Comment by hmwhy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hmwhy | Hacker News Reader

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I really don't want to say this in an uncivil way but can people please stop spamming Hacker News with these articles full of cherry-picked scientific studies from New York Times or can their posts be automatically weighted less if their goal is to promote articles from NYT?

It's really frustrating having to spend a couple of minutes to read seemingly interesting articles only to find out a few minutes later it's probably someone writing for his own gain (well... popular media).

The first scientific journal article that is linked to appears to use the word "parental" to refer to the relationship between a child and her/his parents instead of, and as suggested in the article, between parents (see "parental warmth" and "parental restrictiveness" in the abstract of the journal article). The second scientific journal article that is linked to is used to argue that "architects and scientists were compared with their technically skilled but less original peers"—but the article that is linked to only mentions architects (apologies, but not actually too sorry, if it's actually because of the pay wall and that the authors did not mention scientist in the abstract).

This is probably considered an emotional, and potentially uncivil, response. But it's really, really frustrating. Just because some guy has a PhD doesn't mean what they write is credible when they quote scientific journals—I know plenty of people who have PhDs but what they say are far from credible.

I mean, is it even at all surprising that people who are subjected to an environment with more conflicting views (both good and bad) of any kind are probably less likely to comply and think more?

EDIT: expansion of why I think the interpretation of the first article I mentioned is wrong and cherry-picked. Added emotional sentiment at the end.

This is not an "article," it is an opinion piece, published in the opinion section of the Times.

An opinion piece is kind of like a Medium post- the view of an author with a clear point of view. Often explicitly by someone in the field or with an "axe to grind". This is a feature not a bug. They are giving experts a forum for debate.

An "article" should be more neutral, more widely sourced, and reports the opinions of others vs the author. (It goes without saying that this is clearly messy and you can't remove all bias.)

I see this frustration about "opinionated articles" incredibley often in critiques of opinion pieces in major newspapers and I can only assume that is because "how to read a newspaper" is a skill which is not taught and also because the web with its direct links makes identifying the differences harder.

The clue here that this is an opinion piece is the "Review" section of the NYT, and the identifying bio at the end about the author.

I'm not sure I should engage here, but since I submitted the article and you seem to have a big problem with it and consider it "spam" I'll just say:

1) I have no agenda to promote the NYT (feel free to check my submission history)

2) I personally have never seen anything like a "spamming" effort with respect to NYT articles here. If you have, perhaps consider it was a transient cluster of articles (which can happen from time to time for entirely benign reasons)

I'm sorry the article frustrated you, and I think it's fine to point out possible problems with cited studies.

I think you have every right to engage—not least because I started my response emotionally to begin with (and thinking why there are so many "good" NYT articles all the time).

I honestly did not mean to offend you in particular and, given what you said, I really am regretting having made an emotional response without considering and qualifying all parts of my arguments now—I did not consider the possibility that one may or may not have considered (and/or may or may not have the technical insights into) all the references in the article when I commented. I would have shared something that I think is interesting without understanding all parts of it.

Please accept my sincere apology for lumping everyone together (in fact, maybe there really isn't anyone who want to promote articles and people just happen to read NYT more often than any other sources), and I really didn't meant to offend you by venting my frustration. :(

EDIT: typo. Clarification.

No offense taken — and I think you bring up a good point about the study. Have a good day :)

Newspapers like NYT have successfully hacked hacker news into getting a lot of its attention. A really high proportion of the front page comes from newspapers, and what I've noticed these past years is that the comment threads and articles for these newspaper stories are both of really mediocre quality.

Most of these stories are disguising ephemeral, unproven theories under the guise of longer term truths.

Not to mention that after reading a few you get blocked by their paywall...

I agree.

I've submitted a Ask HN: ban nytimes lately - and got banned. Ive also sent an email to moderator asking for a feature that allows the ban of domains per user.

Note that I've actually enjoyed this post, but anyway, if someone wants to read nytimes, he knows where to find it.

EDIT: what's my opinion precisely you may ask? I think those are not hacker news per the guidelines. They are often general - good - but not really surprising. Therefore they are kinda platitude.

EDIT2: currently, there is 2 newyorker.com, 2 nytimes.com, 2 economist.com on the front page. And it's like that every day lately.

Probably a better practice than commenting here about is:

1. Flag articles you don't want here.

2. Don't participate in discussion of those articles, not even to talk about how you don't want them here.

3. Submit, upvote and comment on things you do want here.

I used to self post my own writing fairly regularly. I mostly have stopped. I don't feel it really goes well even though I posted stuff for a time in part because some people said they wanted to hear from me. I am still trying to figure out what exactly to write about these days, having recently abandoned a bunch of projects.

And I am saying that to try to make the point that what people say they want or don't want in comments seems to have a poor signal to noise ratio. I haven't personally found it to be a reliable indicator of what works on HN.

A much stronger indicator of interest or lack thereof boils down to "voting with your feet" as a means to indicate what isn't wanted here and "voting with your wallet (attention)" as to what is wanted here.

Give attention to things you want here. Starve other things of attention. Even if it doesn't have a notable impact on what appears on the front page, it will positively impact your experience of the site

  Flag articles you don't want here.

This is how unexplained flagging (there are no categories to explain why a reader is flagging) becomes a problem. People then flag articles that they simply disagree with, as opposed to using flags only to signal inappropriateness (spam, language, duplication, self-promotion, etc.).

For example, Craigslist used to have different flags for different reasons, e.g. Prohibited by policey, Spam, Illegal Content, Wrong Category, Sex for Money, etc. Now it's a unary, generic flag only.

HN has a counter measure: vouching. So if something gets flagged, people who think it doesn't deserve to be can counterweight it with a vouch.

I am old and cranky and at a point where I would rather see more of that than more off topic pissing and moaning about what one or two individuals would like to see or not see here. It's lots of sound and noise, but no real action. I am suggesting they take action because my experience suggests that's both more effective and more satisfying.

But, then, in some sense, I am being a hypocrite. I probably should have just flagged and downvoted their off topic, annoying comments rather than trying to make suggestions.

So, whatever.

I probably should have just flagged and downvoted their off topic

You did the right thing.

You didn't "get banned". Users flagged the submission, presumably because it was off topic.

>if someone wants to read nytimes, he knows where to find it

If someone wants to discuss the merits of a particular NYT article they think may be of interest to this community with this community then this is the place to do it.

Sure but lately "of a particular NYT article" has become a lot of articles.

Imagine the front page of HN is filled with articles like that, would you still read HN? I dont think so. Therefore, those articles are at the bottom of the standard and instead of more of them, we want less.

Well, if the front page was filled with articles of any one particular type/subject, I wouldn't still read HN. The diversity, such as it is, is part of the attraction. (Anyway, I'd way rather not have endless BTC articles than NYT articles.)

Although [disclosure] I didn't actually read the article. How many people do that regularly on here? Often I figure the discussion here is more interesting, more worth my time, more intellectual-curiosity-gratifying, ranging over more associated topics and questions, than the original article. Plus the top-voted comment, as here, often offers a TL;DR.

At times it's gotten so bad I've been tempted to write a scriptlet that matches nytimes items on the front page to flag and then hide them.

Most of the time, its contentious rehashing of tired old rhetoric, and it crowds out more interesting material.

I agree 100%.

I hate these NYT articles and those from other similar publications, but the silver lining is that I spend much less time checking Hackernews and more on things I enjoy.

> I know plenty of people who have PhDs but what they say are far from credible.

Reminds me of fun quote from a polemical essay written by a professor from Boston College:

"I have verified over and over again the principle that there is only one thing needed for you to believe any of the 100 most absurd ideas possible for any human being to conceive: You must have a Ph.D."

I block myself from all sites that Media Bias Fact Check has on any of their lists of biased sources. It has greatly improved my experience of the internet, similar to hiding YouTube comments. I'd rather waste a few seconds clicking an unreadable link, than waste a few minutes reading something I don't want to be influenced by.

I visited their site. I'm intrigued. I'm curious what sites you have left after doing this? Where do you find yourself getting world news, for example?

I no longer read the NYT, Washington Post, Fox, CNN, etc.

Reuters is my main source of financial and world news, and it's mostly for productive reasons. On Twitter I try to follow people who are knowledgeable in their domain, and I frequently get exposure to current events through them. Bonus points to follow two experts in the same domain who think differently, and see what they say about the same thing. For random political stuff, I like Snopes and factcheck.org.

Overall, I care much less about the news than I used to. There are many societal issues that interest me but I have learned that keeping up with minute to minute noise is a waste of time. I can read in-depth things that describe broad trends and useful facts, and prefer that to my old addiction to the news. It's not just to avoid getting influenced by biased stuff, but to avoid wasting time.

I wonder why I got downvoted. Thought I was being pragmatic and useful; who knows?

I completely agree. Post studies directly, as opposed to mainstream media interpretations of selected studies, especially from political outlets like NYTimes.

I wish HN had less political content, although I think the community does a good job flagging political content off of the front page.

My destop browser and RSS reader have links to NYT removed. Unfortunatley, the browser plugin I made to do it doesnt work on mobile Firefox and I havent cared enough to fix it. Every NYT article I've accidentally opened on my phone since has only reenforced my decision to put them in the list, especially when I see "Click to load full article".

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