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Comment by kirse | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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