ok, so i've had this on my mind for some time now, and i'm going to highjack this thread in hopes of getting this out there.

Hackful has sort of shot itself in the foot by trying to use HN as a medium to expose itself. for a long time now HN has started to cross the line from a place for people to share ideas and experiences with running a startup to a place for people to link to tutorials and hot topics in the tech world, or high ranked questions from SO (i'm guilty myself). I really don't see why we do this, we have r/programming, et al for that. HN is a place to talk about statups.

look at Hackful. I ran through the first 3 pages and here are the topics. i broke them down by irrelevan, relevant, and something i call the grey area, where it could go either way. the count is very off. i could only pick 20 out of 45 posts as 100% startup relevant. or course my opinion is my opinion and i'm sure there are people who will argue that my lists are debatable, and they are, but that's not the point. the point is that it is not 100% on topic, and we need to figure out a way to fix this.

one way is for the community to have the correct mindset and get involved and fixing the issue: 1) don't post irrelevant topics. 2) if we see off topic posts - since there isn't really a way for us to stop that now - just ignore them and let them disappear. we come to HN to read about startups, if we want programming info, tutorials, etc then there are other places to go (reddit, so, etc).

another option is to go sort of the reddit-route and allow for subs. that's an option, but again we would be diverging from the original purpose of this site.

just shooting out some thoughts, and trying to make us think about where we're going with HN.

irrelevant list: (count = 11)

8 reasons for switching to Git(blog.fournova.com)

Git cheat sheet(blog.fournova.com)

How we are using Big Data to solve Social Travel(tripl.tumblr.com)

The switch from apache to nginx(news.ycombinator.com)

Top 10 IT skills in 2012(ciozone.com)

Nicnack for easy multicast testing(adventuresinfabric.posterous.com)

Only 6% of Wikipedia Readers Have Ever Edited Wikipedia Content !!(thetecnica.com)

Tech in "Hollywood Edition"(aaronklein.com)

Teach yourself Git in two minutes(jperla.com)

Show Hackful: Browser Based Strategy Game (Spoils Rotten)(spoilsrotten.com)

Show Hackful: My Digital Guidebook Startup (Artworm)(artworm.hillsbede.co.uk)

relevant list: (count = 20)

Show HF: Cubecolor, a fancy HTML5 colorscheme generator(plainas.github.com)

Dutch startup is building the most simple customer support software in the world(apo.io)

Startupbootcamp to shape up Berlin(venturevillage.eu)

Ask HE: What are the missing pieces of the European ecosystem?

15 startups from Berlin - there is more than Soundcloud, Wooga and Amen(netzwertig.com)

Who is missing from this list of young entrepreneurs to watch in 2012?(yourhiddenpotential.co.uk)

Twitter developer teatime in Berlin(techberlin.com)

Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki - We Have A Problem(arcticstartup.com)

Show HE: My first RoR-app... a platform for winning a dribbble invite.(showwwdown.com)

Berlin Startup Jobs. Marketplace For Inspiring Jobs(berlinstartupjobs.com)

Marketplace for Startup jobs in Berlin(berlinstartupjobs.com)

SEO Tool & Collectible Card Game. Boost Website Traffic - SERPs & Spyders(serpsandspyders.com)

Ask Hackful: Do UK angel groups work?(t.co)

Flagons Den Beginners' Poker(london.flagonsden.com)

EatSocial - 2nd Feb(eatsocial.net)

A local European Angel List

London needs a place for hackers to hang out

Citymapper - Find your way FAST(citymapper.co.uk)

Show Hackful: adscaped - Monetisation without compromise(adscaped.com)

Digital Shoreditch festival 2012(digitalshoreditch.com)

grey list: (count = 14)

Ask HE: Is the source open?

Hacker News

Tell HE: Hackful sounds (and looks) too much like Hateful

Hackful Team: API please?

Who registered @hackful? Can we have it please?(twitter.com)

Hackful Team: Can we have a daily roundup email please?

Is it ok to post articles in other european languages?

Tell HE: Please improve the contrast between comments and comment-attributes

Hackful Team: RSS feed please!

Founder of german ridesharing startup gives his car away (flinc.org)

Facebook S1 Filing (Official IPO Document)(sec.gov)

Whispero(whispero.com)

Longform - for lovers of essays(longform.org)

Openbrand(eu.techcrunch.com)

Edit: cleaned up the links