I Quit Hacker News

It certainly does seem that HN has become increasingly more political in recent days. Yes, I can understand a post on body-scanner technology and it's applications to travel security, but do we really need to see blog posts about how person n opted out, or how person x experienced an unusual pat-down? Yes, for Americans (and non-Americans alike), these are important issues, but HN does not need to become an aggregate site for stories such as these.

There is a strong commitment by the community to prevent the site becoming like digg, reddit, or slashdot. Losing focus on the topics that brought us here in the first place (technology, startup culture, and programming) is the first step on that path in my opinion.

All I can ask is please, try not to submit/vote up stories which are not particularly related to tech. It's not what I'm interested in discussing in this particular venue.

Or maybe I'm just in the minority. I guess time will tell.

P.S. Just because you put the word "Hacker" in your article/title, doesn't mean it belongs here.

This sentiment, which I would caricature as "the hoi-polloi are polluting our elite discussions" is risible. Enlightenment and insight comes from listening to a variety of sources, not all of them agreeable. Set up your own invite-only community and see how quickly the discussions become stilted and predictable.

It may well be true that the threshold for stories appearing on the front page needs to be revised, but if you only ever read the front page then you are also doing nothing to select stories of quality and relevance to appear there. Perhaps you should personally be doing more to raise the quality of the front page in whatever direction you feel appropriate.

And yes, I am a newcomer.