Please don't post unsubstantive comments or be a jerk on HN. It only makes things worse, and you can make your substantive points without this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

HN is for anything that gratifies intellectual curiosity: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Historical and/or unexpected materials are welcome here! Having them on the site is a long tradition. (As is the "why is this on HN" comment, of course.)

It sounds like you know your Orwell - want to share something about that?

Posted 9 times before but only a couple threads with comments, and not many of those:

George Orwell: Why I Write (1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7901401 - June 2014 (9 comments)

George Orwell: Why I write - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3122646 - Oct 2011 (1 comment)

Ok, we'll make the title say programmable instead.

Url changed from https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/22/france-confirms-data-breac..., which points to this.

I've taken the "captured on film" out of the title above and used representative language from the article. If someone can suggest a better (more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again. (But the subject is interesting whether on film or not, let alone "for the first time".)

  Heavy slop (5+ patterns) · 105 sites · 21%
  Mild (2–4) · 230 sites · 46%
  Clean (0–1) · 165 sites · 33%

Can we have a list of the "clean" ones please? Actually, if you give me a list of the IDs for all 3 categories, I'll make URLs for each that people can browse.

If the community feels that the division is useful, then we can maybe take you up on your offer to open-source the project, and perhaps find a way to use it on HN itself.

Love the idea. Let me get to this over the weekend and open-source it, then ping you via email.

Related:

https://news.ycombinator.com/showlim (<-- this is what many accounts without much HN history now see, and it's responsible for the downtick to the right on OP's chart)

Ask HN: Please restrict new accounts from posting - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47300329 - March 2026 (515 comments)

Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47045804 - Feb 2026 (425 comments)

Thanks for this.

Related:

Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27333260 - May 2021 (494 comments)

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html