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Comment by omouse | Hacker News Reader

No more lists please. Especially ones that re-iterate what has been said before and on many other websites.

Give me 5 good reasons why HN shouldn't have any more lists.

1) Lists are a staple of Digg, and the quality of overall submissions has gone down on Digg, while the number of lists in general is on the rise. There may be a correlation here... lets not find out

2) See point 1

C) According to the following (silly) patent by Channel Intelligence (oxymoron?), it is a list that is stored in a database on a computer - you might be increasing PG's liability - http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6917941

100) 0111001101100101011001010010000001110000011011110110100101101110011101000010000000110001

v) Lists in general are less well thought out than an article yet are more readable. Combined, I think this takes away from the "stickiness" of an article, because I can quickly skim through it, get the point of an list and move on - with that information barely registering.

+xii for such an aggressive numbering scheme!

if you google for [binary]"see point 1" this message pops up as the only result

If you can't come up with those yourself, you're doing it wrong.

[edit: folks, if you're going to mod down a joke, at least tell me why it isn't funny...]

I despise the facile and mocking reuse of negative catchphrases, like "you're doing it wrong" or "epic fail". It's just a playground taunt.

Sigh. It was an extension of the joke in the parent, based on the elaborate "25 reasons you're doing it wrong" (or whatever, I'm too lazy to look up the link) list that was high up in the rec list yesterday and the day before, and much maligned. So you see? I, too, (ahem) despise the facile and mocking reuse of negative catch phrases.

I guess subtle humor is just an epic fail on this site.

I, personally, try to save my clever comments for reddit. I attempt to abstain, here, unless I can say something that's germane, insightful, and original; or at least is a question I hope will provoke replies with those characteristics. Of course, if I can make it clever as well, all the better.

1) One data point does not a correlation lend.

2) Voting on individual and particular comments on HN is arbitrary and capricious. You win some and you lose some for no fault of your own, or for that matter, for any particular cleverness on your part on a particular comment you made.

3) Only when the votes on many comments are aggregated that we can elucidate a particular trend.

Understood... but even getting the reference, and understanding part of your intent was to mock that 'doing it wrong' tone, I'd rather not feed that meme at all.

Lists are for authors who can't figure out what's important and emphasize it. It's just a long, monotone drawl that abdicates some thinking.

That's why lists are coming from sites like Lifehack and Cracked, which are really sorta second-rate sites to begin with.

Oh mouse, I see where you're coming from as most "list articles" lack value and insight worth of HN, but I disagree with you that a ban on their genre is the solution.

Y'see, lists aren't inherently bad in and of themselves. If essays (like pg essays) are programs, list articles are like pseudo-code: they're bite-sized tidbits that give you an outline of what the author thinks the major points of his writing is about.

The problem with lists is usually two-fold:

If the list lists trivial and common-sense ideas without telling you why or how that works, it has very little value. This type work best as an element inside of an essay or as supporting arguments for another single central idea.

On the other hand the list items are non-trivial, the list format works against a full fleshing out of the non-trivial idea : the readers' focus is diluted by the other points and the points each get so long that the whole article is essentially a series of essays, boring the reader to tears.

Lists are powerful; use with caution.

I'm waiting on someone to comment with a "listified" version of one of pg's essays. I'd do it if I had more time.

you know it's impossible everybody to know what everyone has read.

re-iterate, the principle of learning

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