[dang]

> "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" actually covers each and every topic in the world.

Not every story gratifies intellectual curiosity. Some (like celebrity gossip) gratify social curiosity. Others (like many political articles) gratify a desire for agitation, or victory. Others (like promotional pieces) are meant to gratify the author's desire for attention, or business.

It's true that people disagree about what meets the HN standard based on what they themselves find interesting, and it's impossible to give these terms a precise definition. On the other hand, they're not just arbitrary, either, the site has evolved some informal but pretty coherent standards over the years, and there are editors whose job it is to make judgment calls and who try hard to strike the right balance for the community.

What I hope is crystal-clear, though, is that HN is not just for articles about startups and technology. The curiosity we value here is polymathic.

[davidw]

I don't think it's an unfair question: clarifying what's intended by "intellectually gratifying" would help a lot of people. Left so vague, some portion of people seem to find, say, political hit pieces to be absolutely fascinating.

To me it's about learning something new that I didn't know and maybe hadn't even thought about before. If it's about politics or economics or by Reason.org or Krugman, it's probably part of an argument, and not written for the sake of conveying an interesting fact.

[dang]

Sure. We clarify that all the time, in lots of comments (including the one you just replied to) and also at [1] and [2]. I like your clarification too. It reminds me of [1]:

What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be deeply interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger, underlying trend, then perhaps it could be.

The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be quieter.

What I don't want to do is try to come up with some pseudo-precise definition that everybody (including me) would immediately find fault with. That said, if you or anyone wants to suggest an addition to [1] and [2] that would add substantial clarity, we'd love to hear it at [e-mail].

p.s. But I don't really think it's definitional underspecification that leads people to post political hit pieces and so on to HN. I think those things are going to get posted regardless of how perfect the guidelines are; and other people will upvote them regardless; and other people—hopefully enough other people—will flag them. And moderators will do the rest. This tug-of-war between upvotes and flags is characteristic of HN's front page and goes on all the time. Some fluff is always going to sneak through temporarily.

1. http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

2. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html