Can we also skip the submissions asking people not to post things instead of just letting the community decide the same way it's been done for years?
In this particular case the poster is being very reasonable: no lame submissions. "Joel on Coal" is a good example. That might have been funny as h*ll back when Joel was blogging. Now that he's no longer blogging, it doesn't work nearly as well as a satire. But it is funny, and perhaps worth an upvote nearly any other day of the year.
But on this day? No. It isn't actually going to "fool" anyone. April first isn't a generalized satire day, it's about pranks. And "Joel on Coal" isn't a prank, nobody is going to read that and wonder if Joel Spolsky is writing about Coal.
p.s. If you pranked me by pretending that HN has a good track record for dealing with OT submissions, I say "well-played" and redouble my argument in favour of moderating April 1st submissions: Your comment is funnier than most of the so-called prank posts I've seen.
Why? Let's talk about this.
EDIT: I wonder if there's an analogy here for democracies and recent US legislation: the most important things to moderate are the things that are popular but subtly undermine the site's purpose.
(Oh noes! I've added politics to a meta-discussion! [dons asbestos long johns and ducks])
Why? Let's talk about this.
MetaFilter (one of the longest-running communities on the web) has a policy where all meta talk goes to a separate silo (MetaTalk) so that discussions on actual topics don't get derailed. StackOverflow does the same thing.
A good idea for HN?
Why, indeed. I suggest this needs careful consideration.
Why not? What's so bad about them?
A submission is are only annoying if it is upvoted often enough, but then, there are obviously enough people out there who don't find it "lame".
So saying "don't post lame submissions" is essentially the same as saying "don't post submissions which I personally don't like".
Solving the problem of users voting up stupid stories and ruining the S:N ratio was one of the founding goals of HN. It is supposed to be a different kind of content, not just whatever the masses think is funny — and we need to try to ensure that or the site will become no better than Slashdot.
HN does this in a few ways:
1. Most people finding HN find it through pg's articles and through Y Combinator, which already means they're probably alright.
2. HN's loop works well. We only discuss interesting things, downvote comments don't say anything intelligent, even if they're funny jokes, etc. Therefore, people who aren't interested in intelligent conversations find somewhere else to go. Keeping HN alive and kicking.
I don't think that I'm asking people not to post stuff I don't like. For one think I like some of the stuff I'm asking people not to post. Yes, I like lame jokes. I don't think "lame" and "dislike" are strongly correlated. If people upvote something, it could be popular yet lame in some way. And if people don't want to see it on HN, they might still like it.
Here's an example. I like puns. I especially like spur of the moment puns. But quite honestly, puns are usually a fairly low form of joke. They rarely have any kind of serious insight into the human condition. I don't mull over puns and repeat them as anecdotes years later.
So, I can tell you that something to do with a pun would be (a) enjoyable to me, but (b) lame, therefore (c) I wouldn't submit it to HN, I'd probably tweet it.
We aren't really discussing puns, but i use them to try to illustrate the idea that there are things that I might like or you might like that are funny and fun and worth repeating, but they don't necessarily belong on HN. I don't blame you for liking such things, just as I'm not ashamed of enjoying a pun.
So perhaps "lame" is a bad word, because it is pejorative. Perhaps the suggestion might be "Don't post April Fool stories that lack any real insight or clever prank that takes you in." Lame might be the wrong word.
But I think the idea is worth discussion, the question of whether there are things someone likes that shouldn't be on HN. I agree that the rule "Don't post stuff I don't like" is wrong, as is any proxy for that idea.
And thank you for raising an interesting question.
But on this specific day, which is a "holiday" in some sense, I think it's alright to submit jokes. That's because a lot of us members who use HN as their only (tech) news source, do want to see these posts. And it's only for one day, anyway. Analogy - on other holidays, or on other special occasions, things to do with the occasion come up a lot. Honestly this is just from memory, but I'm guessing that on Christmas, there are plenty of threads with holiday greetings and wishes, resolutions for New Year's, etc. Even though many people here (including me) don't celebrate Christmas, I don't think there's anything wrong with special occasions "clouding" the home page.
* By the way, the fact that Reddit-style one-liners are usually downvoted shows that the spirit here is still pretty much the old HN spirit. No "moderation" necessary, the community usually does its part.
Too much melodrama from everyone. Lame April Fools 'news' is created and submitted every year, we all know it's coming, so maybe just avoid discussion sites for a day and move on.
Good one!
No. See: http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html. In particular "The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting."
I think we have a few years left before HN becomes Reddit.