Ask HN: Dang – May we please have multiple threads for askjob types? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Dang – May we please have multiple threads for askjob types?

10 pointssamstave10 comments

This thread has evolved multiple times since inception (I was among the early who asked for a "who wants to be hired" thread.)

Now the threads get >500 comments some times...

May we please have a couple categories of threads - not every single engineer on HN (most of them are) not "Rockstar Whatever Hacker Term is loud these days) <-- and there are a ton of project/product manager, SWE, Security, blah blah blah... devops folks....

FLAGS, TAGS, or different threads for these?

I love the simplicity of HN, but does anyone find it kind of odd that for these threads, HN has literally the tech community as its beck and call...

This particular function could evolve.

(I've been on HN for 15+ years... I appreciate a lot of the nostalgic facility, however: change gunna change, and just as adding the whos hiring thread was a tumultuous change that took some course corrects... Its time to put a bit more planning in this.)

I am not a senior SWE. MANY are, and I shield/guide/assist them from a lot of distractions through tech management, and have managed incredible teams.

There are other roles and silos and verticals on HN, May we please branch this thread out a little further?

Maybe dang could structure the existing posts a little better. Maybe the top comment in each thread is the category (SWE / SRE / SET / Whatever) and jobs are posted under that. Maybe dang could even lock the top level of comments so you're forced to post under those top level comments.

That way you can just collapse the roles you don't care about, but it doesn't result in a lot of threads spamming the main feed.

I think this is the AAA step forward.

Setup the thread.

Parent comment for categories.

Let all us technical-idiots plinko to the right spot :) (We are all geniuses and idiouts on our own personal specturm)

'samstave:

The guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) ask us

* Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something. Send it to hn@ycombinator.com.

* Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put *asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.

It makes sense that for some 'ask or tell us something' that guideline should not apply.

And by posting (that type of suggestion) and not following the rule HN gets to also review what others think in terms of an idea.

And DANG or any mod can then reply if they want and others can see the reply. Instead of either ignoring or having a conversation or engaging with only one person.

As a general rule in business - my personal belief - born out over a very long time in business - is that you should not limit people when they are giving you free advice or suggestions using their own time. [1]

[1] If someone writes to the CEO of a business or an organization the proper response is not "Please send that to 'suggests@companyname.com" it's "thank you very much for the input we appreciate it".

Those things are all true.

If what 'samstave is looking for is feedback from the mods, they should do as the guidelines ask and email hn@. If they're looking for feedback from the HN community, they should address the community. There are plenty of Ask HNs about that. 'samstave by their own admission has been a member of HN for over 15 years, and should be well accustomed to the guidelines and expected behavior.

Dear @gzrm,

I am quite familiar with the way the mods email with me specifically, and with @dang.

They call me out on shit over 15 YEARS <--- - asterisks of dealing with pushing a little bit...

-

That said, I am --- specifically --- looking for feedback from the community - I am 15 years deep in the mod actions on HN, and I am no coward to set my opinion out there to be decimated by others' opinions, I welcome this.

@DANG has my full contact info and does, has and will reach out when he sees me pushing the lines.

You're no spring chicken, so please, speak to the problem <--asterisks at hand and not crit me on my crit of the HN front-end... which I stand by my word: Yes, we need to uphold the web of past.

However, THROUGH that web <-- Extra oomph! - we have come to a new version of information sharing...

One where your grammatical tropes of 'offensive prose' are obsolete...

Evolve your method. You called me out on grammar and literally added nothing to the idea. Cheers!

I don't think it is only for engineering jobs. Go ahead post any type of job that you want to be hired for. I have seen people doing that and even contacted some myself. I personally would love to see more roles like PM,Customer Success etc but not sure why you need a separate Ask HN thread for that.

My guess is the hiring threads exist as a pressure relief valve.

Exist to reasonably contain we-are-hiring and someone-please-hire-me submissions.

Basically I think they exist to gently moderate an intellectually dull class of economically motivated submissions and to lump HN’ers upvote to the top of the front page together in a short window.

—-> which doesn’t exactly answer your question.

More directly, the current method is the simplest thing that might work.

Part of working is avoiding making HN a job board.

Tags are a moderation load.

Even in the best case, two people will tend to tag things differently…or apply many tags for maximum reach.

Maybe hack something up to meet your expectations?

Good luck.

While we're on the subject can we have a separate thread for hardware jobs/companies? I know that an idea like this can bifurcate into numerous subcategories and I'm also aware that HN isn't really a job board given that it wasn't build in mind for that purpose. However, a trial run with a general category such as "Hardware" would at least be a good test/start.

There are 3rd party sites for just that. E.g https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/

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