A comment complaining this was obviously written by an AI, and the standard template is a tell. A philosophical observation about what that says about the state on online discourse. Link to the Dead Internet Wikipedia page.
A poor attempt at joining the convo too late because I don't browse /new like everyone else. No one upvotes, and I question my intelligence for the 3rd time today.
> Cherry-picked quote from the article cut off too early
Bad faith argument that could only be made by not reading further into the article or cutting the quote off before it answers the exact question/argument posed here.
Comment asking the previous commenter in a passive aggressive manner whether they had actually read the article, without providing any further context or counter to the argument made.
A suspiciously highly upvoted psyop disguised as lengthy diatribe authoritatively waxing poetic in a tone that conflates the thing that has been linked with everything that is wrong with humanity but that can be boiled down to empty platitudes that end up tiring the average reader and successfully prevents more people from engaging with the content.
A comment the adds nothing to the discussion but derails the conversation with an anecdotes from the writers childhood because how this topic vaguely reminds them of something kind of similar.
A comment disagreeing with the central argument, presenting factual evidence for why it’s mistaken. Downvoted for an hour before balancing back out to a score of 2.
A snide and vitriolic remark that observes on how the first paragraph actually addresses the concern of the person which hasn't read the article. A further continuation on this being representative of the state of modern online discourse.
Since I haven't actually read the article I'm just going to note that the title obviously wasn't cryptic enough to get me to take action on it; I'm not saying this to brag, the brag is totally accidental like.
A comment making a subtle point about something discussed in the middle of the article that languishes near the bottom of the page because nobody read the full article.
A link to the HN discussion from when this was already posted here 6 months ago, possibly to be helpful, but also possibly as an attempt to admonish others for not knowing this is a repost.
A note from the original author, possibly even a minor nerd celebrity, expressing surprise at this making the HN page and gratitude for those that rediscovered and reposted it.
Link to HN guidelines with following quote pasted below:
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
A related comment to mention the perceived good performance of the website and how the web would be much better if such simple and performant designs were more prevalent.
A second paragraph vaguely taking aim at every common framework and library used and why they're all the real fundamental problem.
Repeat the title 3 times in the first 3 lines then again as the start of the next paragraph.
Fill the rest of the article assuming this is the readers first day on planet earth. Like, an article about a CPU architecture should start with the early history of mathematics.
Deranged comment that has only a vague connection to the article topic, but allows me to explore a thought that I had beforehand, poorly formatted and stream-of-consciousnessy because this is not a blog post or even a linkedin article, it's a random comment buried in the depths of the internet and I wrote it for myself.
Continuation of the thoughts from the first paragraph and repetition, because either I forgot what I had and had not written, but also because the flow of the thought naturally brings me back to the main thesis, as if solving a mathematical problem and then going backwards to the original problem statement with a different technique for verification. Deranged poorly formatted comment that only barely connects to the topic at hand, which I only read the first part of anyways.
An unnecessarily long comment that rambles on about a simple core point, that could be summed up in one sentence but has excessive detail added to ensure that everyone gets it.
(Are sentences like this akin to literary quines? The sentence describes its own purpose/function, while also fulfilling that function. It feels like constructing one should be easy, but ends up being harder than it looks.)
A comment from someone who knows or knew the author or was part of the project sharing details that makes readers feel like they've just been handed backstage passes.
I guess I am too honest to go down the click-bait title stuff. I would love to get more traffic too my web site, but not this way. I prefer to write up interesting hardware of software projects, but i'm in the middle of writing another sci-fi epic and there are only so many projects you can juggle :-)
> with reference to original text written in the blog
some random thoughts on it and facts about it being literally infinitesimally low chance that this would ever occur irrespective of the fact that somehow it did
An opposing comment that is vaguely on-topic only so that the commenter can talk about themselves and their n=1 experience that they incorrectly extrapolate onto everyone else in the world
Feels similar with cold email.I used to think it was mostly about better copy or subject lines, but lately it feels like timing matters way more. Same message, different moment, completely different outcome.
Have you seen cases where timing mattered more than the message itself?
Fox News used to be awful in this respect, with ledes such as "(Important thing) happens in (unnamed city)". Now they name the city. So that trick apparently backfired. It seems to have died out, along with "One weird trick..." articles.
New York Times opinion articles, though, have become worse. Today, "This May Be the Most Important Medical Story of the Decade". It's not.
Bonus mention of a pg essay which the commenter clearly only read the title of.
Describing its own structure,
Hoping for upvotes.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47727104
A Technical Blog Post by a Big Name Expert - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326511 - March 2013 (189 comments)
A compelling title that is cryptic enough to get you to take action on it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43219556 - Feb 2025 (112 comments)
A Hacker News thread where every comment describes itself - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38451203 - Nov 2023 (74 comments)
A request for others to add to the list.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47721995
Bad faith argument that could only be made by not reading further into the article or cutting the quote off before it answers the exact question/argument posed here.
http://bradconte.com/files/misc/HackerNewsParodyThread/
Discussion (589 points, 189 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326511
A reminder that saying Hacker News is turning into Reddit is explicitly against the rules here, delivered in an unnecessarily condescending manner.
It is especially effective because he is doing all the things he is describing at a high level.
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
A second paragraph vaguely taking aim at every common framework and library used and why they're all the real fundamental problem.
Fill the rest of the article assuming this is the readers first day on planet earth. Like, an article about a CPU architecture should start with the early history of mathematics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G025oxyWv0E
Continuation of the thoughts from the first paragraph and repetition, because either I forgot what I had and had not written, but also because the flow of the thought naturally brings me back to the main thesis, as if solving a mathematical problem and then going backwards to the original problem statement with a different technique for verification. Deranged poorly formatted comment that only barely connects to the topic at hand, which I only read the first part of anyways.
(Are sentences like this akin to literary quines? The sentence describes its own purpose/function, while also fulfilling that function. It feels like constructing one should be easy, but ends up being harder than it looks.)
> a quote from the article
A link to something relevant or interesting to add or support a point [1]
An opinionated comment or personal anecdote.
[1] the link from above
> An opinionated comment or personal anecdote.
Counter opinion or added nuance. [1]
[1] A link for support or to demonstrate a counterexample.
Also that: I never saw HN being so playful before.
[0] https://medium.com/@hondanhon/this-is-a-think-piece-78618692...
The article itself was in fact delightful once I zoomed out a bunch.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
a secondary comment explicitly explaining why this comment’s author downvoted the parent.
That wasn’t a comment about up/downvotes. It was a comment without up/downvotes.]
Oh. What? How did I get here? No comment here.
>Fletcher Munson: [sunnily, on homecoming] Generic greeting!
>Mrs. Munson: [warmly] Generic greeting returned!
>[they kiss and chuckle at each other]
>Fletcher Munson: Imminent sustenance.
>Mrs. Munson: Overly dramatic statement regarding upcoming meal.
>Fletcher Munson: Oooh! False reaction indicating hunger and excitement!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117561/quotes/
----
Title of the song
Naive expression of love
Reluctance to accept that you are gone
Request to turn back time and rectify my wrongs
Repetition of the title of the song
some random thoughts on it and facts about it being literally infinitesimally low chance that this would ever occur irrespective of the fact that somehow it did
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.
<insert favorite bigoted insult here>
Selective Study Confirms Already Held Prejudice.
It makes a good companion to;
Outlier Study Upends Conventional Wisdom.
A niche reference almost no one gets, except one
I did enjoy this, though. Even the title worked.
Group 1: A thinly veiled straw man that buckets everyone I disagree with, along with an attempt to appear as if I'm being unbiased
Group 2: The group I put myself in and provide better arguments for why this perspective is correct.
Vague motte and bailey statement that gives me plausible deniability when someone criticizes my analysis.
Have you seen cases where timing mattered more than the message itself?
Fox News used to be awful in this respect, with ledes such as "(Important thing) happens in (unnamed city)". Now they name the city. So that trick apparently backfired. It seems to have died out, along with "One weird trick..." articles.
New York Times opinion articles, though, have become worse. Today, "This May Be the Most Important Medical Story of the Decade". It's not.