Then this comment should be flagged. It (a) reduces the intelligence of the discussions on HN (b) pushes more worthy comments down below the fold, (c) encourages similar pithy comments, and (d) makes those who would otherwise make intelligent comments less likely to comment.
This is the kind of one-liner that perhaps Jon Stewart would make...and while there is nothing wrong with The Daily Show, I thought that we, the HN community, are collectively better than that.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm just sick of wading through pithy one-liners on HN.
I felt a small amount of humor -- indeed, what a small attempt it was, I didn't consider it that amusing -- was welcome in the thread discussing the shortcomings of the accompanying infographic. Unless you'd like to have a serious discussion about the shortcomings of the accompanying infographic? I'm not sure there's much intelligence to be had in a discussion responding to "Wow is that ever a terrible infographic".
Can we discuss its poor choice of color? Its lack of visual appeal? The obvious selection of a Home Depot paint swatch to represent Google's old index, and what that means for their database technology? Not really. Not in response to "Wow is that ever a terrible infographic".
I'd be hesitant to flag everything that you don't initially understand. Cut HN some slack, we're intelligent people and we enjoy humor as much as the next man. I certainly appreciate when someone makes me chuckle in the comments, and I'd loathe HN if that went away by your hand.
Given something like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1403672 is it HN that has to change, or the person in the chair? I realize your time may be valuable, but you don't have to read everything and get offended by its presence -- including my comment.
Ah, sorry. My bad, I didn't get the joke from the start. I thought you were simply saying the infographic was so vague that it looked similar to the Bohr model, but I guess you're also adding in the fact that the Caffeine user emits a quanta of energy after a successful search....? Or am I still not getting it?
Re my general complaint about one-liners, it could well be that I'm just not getting any of them....
Again, my apologies for jumping the gun. I shouldn't have been so forthright in saying your comment should be flagged.
Yeah, actually, I think my rant is more due to the fact that I don't think I get the joke...is it possible to get an explanation from somebody who gets the joke, rather than just being modded down?
Is the joke "hey this diagram looks like that diagram"?
Yes, nothing to get angry about (I probably came across too aggressive), but I believe that the prevalence of pithy-one-liners like these (which get massive upvotes), reduce the quality of HN for reasons listed above. And I don't think I'm the only one: I noticed my comment fluctuate wildly between +6 and -4 over the course of a couple of hours...there's many others who feel the same way, even though we are now in the minority.
Regardless of what pg says, there's many of us that feel that HN has slowly decreased in quality over the last two years (that's putting it diplomatically). Perhaps the time has come to fork HN.
This is the kind of one-liner that perhaps Jon Stewart would make...and while there is nothing wrong with The Daily Show, I thought that we, the HN community, are collectively better than that.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm just sick of wading through pithy one-liners on HN.