Poll: Should we ban TechCrunch?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625255

by andr • 17 years ago

87 129 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Do you feel newbies are being misled? Isit not the case that older hands are sufficiently aware of TC's proclivities? Is it not enough simply to flag the contributions when they are clearly wrong, or down-mod stupid, irrelevant or content-free comments?

What would banning them add? Is it impossible that they might yet say something useful?

axod8• 17 years ago

>> "Is it impossible that they might yet say something useful?"

I'm struggling to remember the last useful TC 'article'. Any example?

edit: It's quite hard to remember a TC article that didn't mention twitter also ;)

Maybe it'd be better to just create 2 front pages - one with everything, and one which removes some of the less useful gossip sites.

I agree with the OP - in the last few months TC seems to have descended into gossip and rumor.

quellhorst3• 17 years ago

The last useful techcrunch article I recall was them covering the youtube website before anyone else.

aj4• 17 years ago

Agreed. But how much does that benefit outweigh the obvious negative? And is the amount of bile being spewed by the TechCrunch writers good for the startup community?

alek2• 17 years ago

You can't downvote submissions and TC is great at linkbait headlines, which get upvoted before people read the actual post. That's the problem.

axod8• 17 years ago

Agreed. And you can't undo an upvote :(

RiderOfGiraffes2• 17 years ago

You can flag submissions, you can learn not to up-mod something before you actually read it, and you always just not click on the link!

There's a parallel here with language choice. Some languages let you shoot yourself in the foot, and others try desperately to protect you. Newbies might need and benefit from the protection, power users often get frustrated at being prevented from doing things.

My principle is: when there's a balance to achieve, don't forbid things.

pmjordan• 17 years ago

This suggestion may seem a little odd, but how about only enabling the up arrow once the URL has been visited? (via that javascript visited link colour trick, perhaps) It won't stop deliberate thoughtless upvoting, but nothing will.

noonespecial• 17 years ago

I'm gonna go with ban but not categorically. I'd guess most of us have TC in our RSS feeds. We don't need reposts to HN for every new blurb that comes along. Rarely there is an interesting tidbit that merits discussion here. Rarely. We don't really need to use HN as an aggregator.

That said, the voting system does a decent job of keeping excessive TC off the front page. Lets just agree to think about the kind of discussion that can be had about each TC submission and act accordingly.

progLiker• 17 years ago

I'm reading it in an rss reader, and likes it, it's tech porn. I can live with banning, but I hope for the sake of the readers here that banning be overruled when they come up with some really interesting stuff, which may happen. That makes me a voter for moderation of TC, but against rigid banning.

bakineggs• 17 years ago

You could do what I do and just not click on any link to a TechCrunch article.

aj4• 17 years ago

What's the bet that if this poll is for the ban, there will be a negative post about HN? :))

markessien• 17 years ago

TechCrunch is a value source of information. When you ban all different voices, you end up with a site where everyone is saying exactly the same thing all the time, and it will increasingly attract the same type of demographic. This will result in an intellectual mono-culture.

ujal• 17 years ago

What is the purpose of this ban? To tell: TC we dont like you!?

pierrefar• 17 years ago

My suggestion is to limit the number of stories that can be submitted and/or made popular in a day. So if one story makes it to the front page in the past 24 hours, news submissions from the same site are disabled.

The time period can be manipulated (12 hours, one week, whatever).

This will limit the effect of TC and a few other sites that are very frequent front-pagers without merit IMHO.

Tichy• 17 years ago

That seems rather random. What if there actually are two good articles from the same site within 24 hours?

alexk3• 17 years ago

If you don't like TechCrunch, "ban" it for yourself, why do you need a collective approval for this? Sorry, I think HN does not deserve polls like this one.

axod8• 17 years ago

In that case, why is valleywag banned?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160704

Collective screening of linkbait/spam articles is useful IMHO.

apgwoz2• 17 years ago

because it's banned, I just had this great nostalgic moment. "Remember when ValleyWag used to clog news.yc with crap?" Glad those days are behind us.

alexk3• 17 years ago

Yes, screening is OK, but banning the whole site just because you don't like them is nonsense.

adnam• 17 years ago

Banning TechCrunch would be awkward for pg.

quellhorst3• 17 years ago

Instead of a ban, we should allow users to create filters. I would filter TechCrunch and codinghorror.

delano• 17 years ago

The world already has a Reddit.

Hexstream• 17 years ago

IIRC PG doesn't want to implement that because the quality of the front-page would presumably diminish if people could selectively ignore sources of low quality for themselves.

quellhorst3• 17 years ago

How do you explain not being about to down-vote submissions?

uggedal• 17 years ago

A less than 10 line Greasemonkey script would solve that.

jmonegro2• 17 years ago

Ditto, ditto, ditto. I was about to suggest the same thing.

jmonegro2• 17 years ago

Oops, this was meant to be a reply to the filters suggestion. Sorry.

streety• 17 years ago

There are a number of Yahoo Pipes filters set up ready to go. Useful if your gateway into HN is through rss.

cubicle67• 17 years ago

Would it be possible to have a list of 'I don't want these' sites in our profiles, so I'm able to enjoy HN without every 8th link being for TC, but other more masochistic readers can have all the TC they can endure?

mooism2• 17 years ago

Maybe, but we still have to decide whether or not to show them to anonymous readers.

geoffw8• 17 years ago

I'm afraid I happen to like TechCrunch.

Techcrunch is a news outlet, it writes about what people want to read. The internet is MUCH bigger than you and I my friend.

kierank• 17 years ago

Twitter is clearly getting more TC coverage than any other startup in existence...On top of that, TC covers random and uninmportant events such as a 104-year old woman using Twitter (followed by a denial), an astronaut using Twitter (followed by a denial), a cat using Twitter, Kanye West not being happy with Twitter, ad nauseam.

This happened with Facebook too and to some extent Youtube. In my opinion TC are doing the same as most of the media:

People join X social networking site

Media writes about X site

People feel positive with a "hey, they're talking about X, I use X. This publication/site is relevant to me" feeling

More people join X

raganwald• 17 years ago

I see a lot of comments discussing the quality of TC's scurrilous writing. May I suggest you ignore that? TC itself is almost irrelevant to the question of banning. Even if it is false, linkbaiting dreck. Instead of considering the quality of the links, try looking at the quality of HN discussions about those links.

Do HN discussions add insight and interest? Do they raise or lower the quality of discourse here?

Some discussions devolve very quickly into name-calling, negativity, and mindlessness. Some elevate into insightful observations and positive debate. Look at the discussions and think about whether HN should encourage or discourage them.

My thought is that if TC discussions on HN are positive, there should be no ban regardless of the quality of the links. But if there is a preponderance of negative discussions around its links, it may be in HN's interests to simply walk away without any further ado.

enneff• 17 years ago

If I were less time-poor I would resume maitaining a set of Greasemonkey scripts to filter out Tech Crunch and the like from HN and aggregation/community sites I visit. However it would be nice if PG would whip up a user-specific "ignore-these-domains" field in the user prefs. (Just a text box for a comma-separated list would suffice.)

The thing that annoys me about TC is that their headlines are so inflammatory that I just have to click them to find out what they're beating up now, and always instantly regret it. Perhaps the key is developing better self-control.

CalmQuiet• 17 years ago

A ban would allow no incentive for them to change their behavior.

As it is, the up/down voting gives them feedback on an post-by-post basis as to what matters to HNers. [ Just in case they care. ]

In regard to one post: Let's not "protect" noobs from "bad info" - except to the extent that we noobs can see what the overall HN population thinks of value of specific articles. That is the power of what HN has to offer to begin with! --and it gives more feedback about specific articles (e.g., if there is no (or few) upvotes) than if no feedback at HN existed about particular posts.

alek2• 17 years ago

HN's total traffic is 1/12th of TechCrunch's. I doubt HN visitors click on many ads, either. So I don't think our opinion will strongly affect TC's editorial policy. I'm sure their style is a very concious decision.

swombat3• 17 years ago

I think we should ban polls about banning TechCrunch.

ivan_ah• 17 years ago

lol...

axod8• 17 years ago

Lets go the whole hog and ban comments suggesting we ban polls about banning TechCrunch.

samson• 17 years ago

axod, I'm starting to think you've got a vendetta against TechCrunch. Did they give your startup a bad review?

ivankirigin2• 17 years ago

threads like these are why polls like these are bad. I'm serious, this is a reddit thread.

HouseTrip• 17 years ago

Let's get crazy and ban comments that suggests we ban comments suggesting we ban polls about banning TechCrunch. -> not funny anymore I guess :-)

Dauntless• 17 years ago

What the hack is your problem? If you don't like it then don't vote it. Who are you to impose your will over everyone else?

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

First off I am not a fan of TC at all - I actually do read some of the articles but only through 3rd linkage.

That said I think CHOICE is a good thing. For example I filter CodingHorror and TechCrunch (and a few others - Seth Godin is the only major one that springs to mind) for a variety of reasons. I chose not to view them. But some people do like to read them (even if it is just for a laugh ;)). If you want to ban them there is a Userscript to filter them, if not, then dont :D

I personally have lost all respect for TC recently: poor reporting, poor sourcing, extreme attention grabbing headline, petty squabbling and generally insulting pointless stuff :P But that is just my opinion, others might find it relevant! Were hackers not censors.

ahoyhere4• 17 years ago

You can ban all the sites you like, but it won't stop the decline of critical thinking on HN.

colins_pride• 17 years ago

What do you mean?

jbm2• 17 years ago

I am not sure what loss of "critical thinking" you are referring to.

I don't think anyone is losing mental marbles, nor do are stories getting that bad. (Admittedly, I couldn't stand the stories a month or two, but things seem to be on the upswing again). The discussion is usually interesting for any highly-moderated story on the front page.

Ironically, questioning the mental prowess of other posters without mentioning a rationale for it contributes to a decline in quality of the conversation taking place. Maybe you could be more specific?

ahoyhere4• 17 years ago

There's no loss of "mental marbles," that implies insanity rather than a lack of a faculty most people don't have to begin with.

Are individual people losing it? Probably not.

But I point out logical inconsistencies where I see them, and when people miss the big picture (which is often) of a given problem or discussion.

Take the once-a-week discussion of pro-formal ed/anti-formal ed. It's always the same, the same ego-stroking and ego-defense, and most people are clearly working purely off their own biases, without even the benefit of having read any of the professional criticism / praise of the systems in place in the US, or learning theory, or theory of achievement, so on & so forth.

They talk to talk, since they are convinced of their own genius. This is "expressing yourself" at its worst.

Commentors are unfamiliar with basic rhetorical principles - calling certain things 'ad hominem' when they are genuinely relevant observations that have to do with the person, claiming that facts are pure and all that must be considered, falling prey to obvious bids for trolldom (time_management), etc., etc.

All of the above has, in my opinion, increased a lot in the past year & even last 6 mos. (Not to mention the shifting of content towards more & more regurgitated 'productivity porn,' tired old pablum that you could get from any 20-year-old Anthony Robbins tape or 60-year-old Peale book, or even older classical advice manuals.)

The alternative is that I'm suddenly a much deeper thinker than I was, and I don't think that's the case.

peterhi• 17 years ago

All we should really be asking for is that the site that a link is to is clearly labelled. Most Coding Horror links are marked as such, as are TC links. Perhaps this could be built into HN so that when people forget to put it in it will still be indicated.

But is it really such a big deal, don't click on the TC links and if you end up on TC just use the back arrow. Nothing too difficult is it?

TweedHeads2• 17 years ago

Submariners, payperpost, fud, propaganda and astroturfing are plaguing HN lately, even if people don't want to acknowledge that obvious fact.

They are like a disease, we better find a cure before it is too late.

pg10• 17 years ago

Can you give me some examples?

chanux2• 17 years ago

We shouldn't be biased. Techcrunch links are sometimes crap, sometimes good. So completely banning wouldn't do any good.

Let's solve it the HN way. Just don't up vote what you don't like. OK, you say, "I don't, but they get votes somehow". That, my friend, is _probably_ because community is polluted.

TweedHeads2• 17 years ago

What would stop ten or twenty shills from an "interested party" to upvote all their stories to get to the front page?

One you detect that pattern you should ban them to avoid further spreading of bad behavior.

And I am not talking about TC only...

pg10• 17 years ago

If so it's been polluted from the beginning, because TC articles have always gotten votes here.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=81

uptown• 17 years ago

So you say their referencing Twitter too much is justification for banning their content ... then you use a Twitter post to back up another one of your points? That's funny.

senko• 17 years ago

When I see link to TC or CodingHorror (and a few other sites') post, I first read all the comments here on HN.

Even if the story is complete garbage, one can find good insights in the discussion inspired by it; often with enough data so that I don't even need to read the original if I don't think it worthwhile.

With a blanket TC ban, I'd either miss out on a good bits (if I didn't follow TC feed directly), or be more annoyed (if I did follow it and read most of what they post).

So I think the commentary here is much better filter of good vs crap than any ban or automatic filter would do.

macco• 17 years ago

I really don't like TC, but I am against banning.

vitriolize• 17 years ago

No one seems to be commenting about the fact you can vote for both which I just did. Call me undecided.

TC sucks, but banning sites kinda goes against the whole free speech, freedom of information thing.

I'd support built-in content filters on an opt-in basis. That sounds like a good idea.

chanux2• 17 years ago

Oops.. I think I just voted twice for no & once for yes.

nazgulnarsil• 17 years ago

that depends on what we're getting out of techcrunch links. are the links linkbaity and generally lacking in content? absolutely. do said stories generate any interesting insight from commenters on HN? absolutely.

I think the solution is that when techcrunch covers something that merits discussion, find a different source to link to as the discussion seed.

jlees• 17 years ago

I don't think we should ban anything on HN. Surely the 'collective wisdom' approach taken by a community like this is such that if the prevailing wind is anti-TC, then TC posts simply won't get upvoted?

Ah, for a perfect community.

hs• 17 years ago

yc is in bed with tc, you won't get too far with this

dunk010• 17 years ago

They're crap, but I'd prefer we keep with freedom of speech...

davidw• 17 years ago

I'm against banning TC (and think this poll doesn't really matter too much in any case, as it's entirely up to pg), but how would TC being banned from HN impinge on their freedom to say what they want? 'Freedom of speech' does not imply that anyone has to transmit what you say.

ilitirit• 17 years ago

I think that people should just start flagging posts they don't want to see.

If people are already doing that, then it could mean the HN has grown beyond what the early adopters consider to be the critical mass.

shimonamit• 17 years ago

1) I had a comment censored after (politely) correcting the author on a technical fact in one of his posts.

2) Yes, the quality of this blog is definitely declining and taking on more of a gossipy tone.

But no, I would not ban TechCrunch. Sometimes they have interesting stuff. Instead I would focus on trying to find better methods for HN to attract and mold a better community. That's the real challenge.

loincloth• 17 years ago

The classy man's "yes" vote is made by... are you ready?... not. reading. TechCrunch.

o.O

And then obviously not linking to it, etc. Show some respect for freedom.

GrandMasterBirt• 17 years ago

The simple fact of the mattter is... just make a blog post: "TC sucks ass" and make it good. It gets voted up, and vuala unofficial ban since nobody gives a shit.

numbchuckskills• 17 years ago

Why don't we print out all of the TC posts over the last year, publish them into several volumes, distribute to all the "YES" voters, and then we can have an extravagant TC post burning party? I can coordinate snacks.

wavesplash• 17 years ago

The problem isn't TechCrunch as a whole. It's just that Mike has stopped caring so he's constantly gaming the system just to create drama. In effect he's personally become the new Valleywag.

vaksel• 17 years ago

Will never happen. pg and YC get too much free media exposure due to techcrunch covering YC companies.

chollida1• 17 years ago

Perhaps all news.ycombinator.com needs is a hide link like reddit has so that these stories don't take up mindshare for the folks who don't want to see them.

mstefff• 17 years ago

we all read the site so why bother posting it here too?

john-grimes• 17 years ago

No use using bias in your board to avoid bias in the articles it links to.

rmason• 17 years ago

TechCrunch is opinionated, they have favorites. Controversy sells and Arrington and crew are masters at it. Just don't click on the TechCrunch posts if they bother you.

joecode2• 17 years ago

Actually, the general low quality of articles on Techcrunch is a good reason not to ban them here. Usually they have one good/important article every day or so, and having them linked to from here saves me the trouble of sorting through the junk over there.

btilford• 17 years ago

If it cuts down on the useless spam in my reader do it. Honestly HN needs to categorize things 80% of the news here I could care less about (i.e. twitter, startup 9,000,001, I had a company that failed, bla bla)

pg10• 17 years ago

Andr, what site do you think is a better source of news about startups?

tptacek4• 17 years ago

Hacker News.

pg10• 17 years ago

Different sense of "source." We're the table of contents, not the articles. I meant source in the sense TC is.

gojomo3• 17 years ago

Everything substantial that TC reports is also reported elsewhere -- sometimes before TC, sometimes just after TC. It could be salutary for HN if people prefer submitting alternate sources for the same stories (either because of a ban or without one). The bad stories wouldn't get an automatic TC bounce, while the good stories would still rise on their own merits. (The distracting and controversial part of the signal that is 'TC' would be filtered out.)

In so doing, there's a chance we could recreate here the original core of TC -- TC as it was in 2005/06, when it reported like a warm and enthusiastic newswire for all startups... before the pursuit of links and clicks led to all the pot-stirring, soap-opera, friends-and-enemies dross that now dominates TC.

mighty• 17 years ago

It's not so much that there is or isn't a better source of news about startups. It's that the stories from TechCrunch that make it over here and get voted up have a high probability of being linkbait ("X Will Kill Y!") or about some Arrington-induced/centric drama. That they're allowed to persist here goes against the Broken Windows strategy of preventing social decay.

Is banning TC necessarily the best solution? Maybe not, but we don't have another solution available that's doing the job. There might also be some throwing the baby out with the bathwater here, which seriously depends on how much TC is a source of news (for HN, specifically) that can't be had anywhere else. I'm not inclined to say that they are a significant source of such news for HN.

devin• 17 years ago

Yes && No

Yes because I /personally/ don't care for it.

No because not all of /us/ do.

lleger• 17 years ago

I've got a love-hate relationship with Techcrunch.

I love it because it's so big and it has a lot of good, breaking news.

I hate it because they're terrible journalists who have a lot of problems with writing style and logic.

tlrobinson• 17 years ago

For the last time: NO.

Most of the articles on TC are boring, so I don't subscribe to their RSS feed. The few interesting ones do get posted to Hacker News.

So instead of banning this site or that site, just focus on making sure good articles get the to front page, and flag the TC articles that you feel aren't worthy.

ankhmoop• 17 years ago

The prevalence of linkbait Coding Horror, TechCrunch, and Rails-Drama articles has resulted in a significant reduction in my daily reading of HN. I'm interested in reading and commenting on informed, insightful articles.

TechCrunch, Coding Horror, and Rails-Drama are not insightful, often factually incorrect, always incendiary -- linkbait flytraps for junior technologists.

mingyeow• 17 years ago

Wow, this poll is as polarizing as techcrunch

sounddust• 17 years ago

I'd be fine with banning TC for the simple reason that every time I see a TC story on HN, I've already read it. There's no sense in seeing it twice, especially since nearly every single TC story is promoted to the front page.

I think that 100% of HN members are aware of TC, and have already chosen whether to put it in their feed reader or not.

knightinblue• 17 years ago

Ok, so it's basically half and half.

Now what?

rms• 17 years ago

Is it mainly new or low karma users voting a particular way on the poll?

Also see the first time this was asked, including appropriate response from Arrington. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=181539

pg10• 17 years ago

People who voted to ban TC had an average karma of 350 and accounts 318 days old, and people who voted against it had an average karma of 562 and accounts 367 days old.

    > (let voters (map !2 ((item 625256) 'votes))  
        (list (round (avg (map [karma _] voters)))  
              (round (avg (map [days-since (uvar _ created)] voters)))))
    (350 318)

16 people have so far voted both to ban TC and not to:

    > (let novoters (map !2 ((item 625257) 'votes))  
        (len (keep [mem _ novoters] (map !2 ((item 625256) 'votes)))))
    16

aj4• 17 years ago

Um, I noticed that you the item number you used was 625256 but the URL has 625255 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625255)

But then I have no idea what language or query that is so I probably misunderstood

juvenn• 17 years ago

I do think TechCrunch's articles are getting boring and boring

wlievens• 17 years ago

Actually, I think HN serves as a TC filter. TC articles that show up on HN are typically (though not always) the better ones.

Poll: Should we ban TechCrunch?

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