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Comment by steven2012 | Hacker News Reader

steven2012

HN is privately run by pg. He's allowed to set the rules whichever way he wants.

Just because the author wants it to be run a certain way doesn't mean that it should. If he doesn't like how it's done and thinks that issues that he believes are important should be discussed, he should make his own news aggregator site, instead of trying to hijack an already-established site for his own agenda.

If the majority start disagreeing with the curation of HN articles, then they will leave to other places, like reddit. And frankly, I'm not sure that pg even cares if this happens, he didn't start HN to increase his popularity or his influence.

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Uh no. You can criticize HN while also claiming pg has the right to do what he wants. Oh look, the article does just that:

"Hacker News is a privately run site and nobody's under any obligation to change how they choose to run it. But the focus on avoiding conflict to such an extent that controversial stories receive less exposure than ones that fit people's existing beliefs doesn't enhance our community. "

Oh look, I never once said the author wasn't allowed to criticize the way HN was run. I said that if he wants something different, then do it himself instead of trying to hijack HN for his purposes.

I think I agree with what you mean, but I only agree in practice if this thread was started and is being contributed to by the OP. He can't control if an HNer submits this.

That's nonsense as management advice. The best way to implement a superior solution is to convince someone to implement it not do it yourself. Delegate!

If you have a better way to shovel stuff in bags, the most efficient and profitable way to implement "shovel stuff in bags 2.0" is to convince the guy in charge of 1.0 to upgrade, not go to the immense effort of creating a competitor, or start shoveling yourself. At least not as the very first step.

If you want to make a competitor, just do it, you don't need "cover" of some minor 1.0 vs 2.0 issue. Either way its not workin.

I might have missed something (honestly) but where exactly is the author hijacking anything? Are you suggesting that posting meta-discussion about HN on HN itself is hijacking HN? (And it's not your fault if it's upvoted.) If so that seems a bit crazy.

The statement "X can do what they want with their Y." is simply ceding to X that which was already his.

The statement "X can do what they want with their Y BUT they shouldn't because Z" is ceding to X that which was already his, and in the same breath revoking that cession. Essentially: They don't have to change it, but they should change it.

Consider instead: "BUT this isn't what I'm looking for in a community, and it's not a community in which I will continue to participate - I encourage others to do the same."

That statement would have both acknowledged the owner's right and done so without attempting to indirectly dictate what the owner should do with his property.

But if he intervenes at this point it will spoil the emergent complexity of the community, and hence the beauty he has created per his revolutionary treatise "Hackers and Painters"

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