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And now it got crossed off the front page of Hacker News... sad. @Dang - was this flagged by users? Seems crazy that it had 30 points in 20 minutes and now it'

by jobu 11y ago

And now it got crossed off the front page of Hacker News... sad. @Dang - was this flagged by users? Seems crazy that it had 30 points in 20 minutes and now it's gone. Zuckerberg's statement on this seemed really well written. The "Black Lives Matter" vs. "All Lives Matter" has been discussed endlessly, but he had another great point about crossing out the Black Lives Matter being essentially the same as silencing free speech.

minimaxir 11y ago
The submission was flagkilled. I vouched for it since despite what people may think about BLM, Zuckerberg's response is important and relevant.
- Larrikin 11y ago
  I really would like to know the rationale behind the people trying to flagkill it
  - tizzdogg 11y ago
    I think its probably the exact same rationale as crossing out "Black Lives Matter". Though if I'm being more charitable, most likely some people see this as a political article which shouldnt be on HN (whether you feel that way is probably correlated to your opinion of Black Lives Matter).
    - wpietri 11y ago
      That is indeed quite charitable, given that the story is about Facebook, startup culture, and the direct actions of one of the most prominent people in tech. If somebody only objects to political articles when it's politics they don't like, I'd be curious as to how they resolve claiming to be against politics while energetically politicizing something.
  - tzs 11y ago
    I was tempted to flag it, since it is just taking Gizmodo's article and adding a bit of Techcrunch idiocy to it, like the statement that Facebook is "notoriously white". Facebook is slightly less white than the US population. The topic of the article is fine for HN, in my opinion, despite being political, but that doesn't mean we should settle for a crappy article. Hence, the temptation to flag this one and let a better submission get the focus.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > I was tempted to flag it, since it is just taking Gizmodo's article and adding a bit of Techcrunch idiocy to it, like the statement that Facebook is "notoriously white". Facebook is slightly less white than the US population. "Notorious" means famous for something seen in a negative light. It doesn't actually mean that you have the trait in a unusual degree, only that you are particularly well-known and negatively reacted to for the trait. It may be inaccurate to describe Facebook as "notoriously white", but the fact that they are somewhat less white, proportionally, than the US population doesn't actually demonstrate that. (It might be a basis for arguing that, if they are notoriously white, the notoriety is not deserved, but that's a different issue.)
- jobu 11y ago
  Thanks! Looks like it's back. Flagkilling this post strikes me as an interesting statement about how divisive race can be - even for this demographic (i.e. mostly well-educated tech people) As a side note, it would be very interesting to see some information and statistics about the flagging on HN.
dang 11y ago
What you're seeing is the usual tug of war between upvotes and flags that happens with controversial stories on hot topics.
- Kinnard 11y ago
  Is there anyway to decrease the opacity? Knowing when a tug of war is happening vs when a story is just not important/not popular is compelling/valuable/meaningful. https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/the-value-of-downvoting-or-how-hacker-news-gets-it-wrong/ https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/the-value-of-downvoti... I'm not just a moralist(though I think it's obvious there are moral points here) I'm building an HN clone.
  - danso 11y ago
    That might even cause more of a tug of war, tbh...I don't feel transparency would really help in these cases, though I say that only because in my anecdotal survivor-bias-affected short-term memory, just as many controversial social issues posts are allowed to stay up on top as are flagkilled. And I don't think there's an "ideal" balance, in that everyone has a different ideal balance. But anything that makes it obvious that a flamewar is going on would just exacerbate it. Seems to be the case with Reddit. For me, my own "flag" is if a post has as many comments as upvotes...in fact, I assumed that this was something that would auto-downmod a front page submission.
    - Steko 11y ago
      Transparency would show how people are using the feature and we could have an honest discussion about the appropriateness based on that. Instead we have to draw our own conclusions which incentivizes a cynical spiral that "the other guys are abusing it so I should too".
- Steko 11y ago
  What you're describing reads to me as "abuse of the flagging feature". Is the point of the flagging feature to be a nuclear downvote when you disagree with something?
Redoubts 11y ago
> Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is asking his employees to stop being ignorant and racist (my words, not his) Gee, I wonder why this submission was flagged, with a lead sentence like this.

by jobu 11y ago

minimaxir 11y ago

The submission was flagkilled. I vouched for it since despite what people may think about BLM, Zuckerberg's response is important and relevant.

Larrikin 11y ago
I really would like to know the rationale behind the people trying to flagkill it
- tizzdogg 11y ago
  I think its probably the exact same rationale as crossing out "Black Lives Matter". Though if I'm being more charitable, most likely some people see this as a political article which shouldnt be on HN (whether you feel that way is probably correlated to your opinion of Black Lives Matter).
  - wpietri 11y ago
    That is indeed quite charitable, given that the story is about Facebook, startup culture, and the direct actions of one of the most prominent people in tech. If somebody only objects to political articles when it's politics they don't like, I'd be curious as to how they resolve claiming to be against politics while energetically politicizing something.
- tzs 11y ago
  I was tempted to flag it, since it is just taking Gizmodo's article and adding a bit of Techcrunch idiocy to it, like the statement that Facebook is "notoriously white". Facebook is slightly less white than the US population. The topic of the article is fine for HN, in my opinion, despite being political, but that doesn't mean we should settle for a crappy article. Hence, the temptation to flag this one and let a better submission get the focus.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > I was tempted to flag it, since it is just taking Gizmodo's article and adding a bit of Techcrunch idiocy to it, like the statement that Facebook is "notoriously white". Facebook is slightly less white than the US population. "Notorious" means famous for something seen in a negative light. It doesn't actually mean that you have the trait in a unusual degree, only that you are particularly well-known and negatively reacted to for the trait. It may be inaccurate to describe Facebook as "notoriously white", but the fact that they are somewhat less white, proportionally, than the US population doesn't actually demonstrate that. (It might be a basis for arguing that, if they are notoriously white, the notoriety is not deserved, but that's a different issue.)
jobu 11y ago
Thanks! Looks like it's back. Flagkilling this post strikes me as an interesting statement about how divisive race can be - even for this demographic (i.e. mostly well-educated tech people) As a side note, it would be very interesting to see some information and statistics about the flagging on HN.

dang 11y ago

What you're seeing is the usual tug of war between upvotes and flags that happens with controversial stories on hot topics.

Kinnard 11y ago
Is there anyway to decrease the opacity? Knowing when a tug of war is happening vs when a story is just not important/not popular is compelling/valuable/meaningful. https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/the-value-of-downvoting-or-how-hacker-news-gets-it-wrong/ https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/the-value-of-downvoti... I'm not just a moralist(though I think it's obvious there are moral points here) I'm building an HN clone.
- danso 11y ago
  That might even cause more of a tug of war, tbh...I don't feel transparency would really help in these cases, though I say that only because in my anecdotal survivor-bias-affected short-term memory, just as many controversial social issues posts are allowed to stay up on top as are flagkilled. And I don't think there's an "ideal" balance, in that everyone has a different ideal balance. But anything that makes it obvious that a flamewar is going on would just exacerbate it. Seems to be the case with Reddit. For me, my own "flag" is if a post has as many comments as upvotes...in fact, I assumed that this was something that would auto-downmod a front page submission.
  - Steko 11y ago
    Transparency would show how people are using the feature and we could have an honest discussion about the appropriateness based on that. Instead we have to draw our own conclusions which incentivizes a cynical spiral that "the other guys are abusing it so I should too".
Steko 11y ago
What you're describing reads to me as "abuse of the flagging feature". Is the point of the flagging feature to be a nuclear downvote when you disagree with something?

Redoubts 11y ago

> Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is asking his employees to stop being ignorant and racist (my words, not his) Gee, I wonder why this submission was flagged, with a lead sentence like this.