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Comment by kelvin0 | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it, why is this on HN? I would like to understand how some irrelevant posts get traction? Please explain? Is it that the poster has 2K+ Karma?

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If I wanted to stretch it, I'd say that these young fellas "hacked" the English to achieve their goal, but, really, isn't life a little more interesting when things don't always go according to script, e.g. not every post on HN is another "Powder and Diaper Your Baby with Rust"-esque post?

>but, really, isn't life a little more interesting when things don't always go according to script, e.g. not every post on HN is another "Powder and Diaper Your Baby with Rust"-esque post?

If I wanted to read about random factoids, I'd go to /r/TIL. I come here for Rust. I flagged the OP FWIW because it's not related to hacking and it's not even news.

It's merely supposed to be 'of interest' to hackers. Clearly it was, for some at least. Should we flag articles about space telescopes, or medical devices? Just because they're not strictly about computers?

Typically the space telescopes and medical devices articles are related to startups. Those are okay. Startups and tech, that's the bread and butter of hacker news. Anything else is just weird and I don't see why anyone would post about it or read it. What does it matter what some british kids did in the 1850s or whenever? It doesn't help anyone become a better entrepreneur or hacker.

> It doesn't help anyone become a better entrepreneur or hacker.

I disagree. Such stunts are well-known tradition in hacker culture as well.

Downvote it and move on.

Stay calm and Wave

...you can't downvote posts. I flagged it, which is similar. I came to the comments to see why it was posted, and responded to the comment I did to elucidate the viewpoint of people who don't like this being posted.

Why comment at all? Just downvote/upvote and move on.

The number of non-hacking/non-news articles on HN that I've ended up enjoying is much, much higher than the number of times I've agreed with an HN comment complaining about a non-hacking/non news article.

Yes indeed.

I would add that anything that stimulates interest in WWI is good. While WWII and on are more studied, so much of the 20th century is founded in WWI and its genesis I think its essential to get a good understanding of it (if you're into this sort of thing, of course).

Somewhat coincidentally, I recently started my serious, systematic study of it. E.g. right now I'm working through the English book that's the single, detailed history of all naval actions in what was truly a world war: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870212664/

It's an interesting post that appeals to our inquisitive nature.

Interesting in which sense? Even if I liked it, it is only humor and does not have nothing to do with "hackers". I'm not a better developper or I do not know what will help to launch a startup after reading this. Hacker News is not the Huffington Post.

Hacker news is not developer news or startup news. I'm a hacker, and I liked this, therefore it should be here. Read the site's mission statement.

Of course hackers all like the same things, and you represent them perfectly? Therefore what you judge relevant is also hacker relevant ... nice.

I'm telling you why I upvoted it. If I don't represent hackers perfectly, why are you asking me?

It actually is a hack in a sense. It's a social engineering attack, for fun.

It's an excellent example of hacking a social system, merely as a prank and with no damage to any individual, and follows a long history that goes back to MIT hacking (http://hacks.mit.edu/ and http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html).

In other words, it has a lot to do with "hackers" and is a very interesting and relevant piece of history. I agree it won't help you start your startup though; get back to building things and talking to people! :-)

Precisely I think that it shows you in a funny way, how far talking to people can take you.

I'd say it's a fascinating social manipulation, but mostly it just satisfies my own intellectual curiosity.

The HN guidelines on what to submit:

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

The HN guidelines on asking why something was posted:

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

It might be worth reading through the HN Guidelines. They're pretty concise: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can't find a guideline that's meta enough to tell me not to mention the guidelines, but I've blundered in worse ways before.

HN is great because of the people that lurk here, not because it is great resource for anything.

Posted this a few months back, it never got the attention the 'hoax' got. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation So all the reasons stated for this post apply to this earlier one, yet some HN posts get 'flushed' down as soon as they appear ... why? How?

There is reason why in Western Europe WWI is still known as The Great War. The only thing that rivals the Western Front in its scale is the Eastern Front in WWII.

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