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The original HN post got flagged and removed from HN homepage. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12533757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12533757 250

by alecco 10y ago

The original HN post got flagged and removed from HN homepage. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12533757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12533757 250 points (more than this post at the moment)

Mao_Zedang 10y ago
Be nice to see an explanation from our moderating overlords
- dang 10y ago
  You mean your moderating servants? At the time, there were multiple posts of the same story competing for attention, so a mod marked all but one as a dupe. But then that surviving one got heavily flagged. We reduced them at one point (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12534542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12534542) but the flags kept coming. I think what's going on here (and what I just told the other moderators) is that this is one of those times when our standard practices around things like dupes and downweights—e.g. for political controversies—don't apply. This doesn't happen very often, perhaps once every couple weeks. In such cases the community will is unmistakeable, the story will keep coming up until it gets an airing, and our job is to let that happen. I like it much better when we call these right from the beginning, but what are the odds that an r/conspiracy Hillary investigation would turn into a solid HN thread? Too small for the human eye, and no set of moderation rules can operate at that fine a grain.
  - douche 10y ago
    This happens with every single story that touches on this subject. Over the course of the summer it's happened time after time - the flag brigade gets almost all of them. After the flag-killed story today was reset, it still never showed up on the main page, despite hundreds of votes, although it did show up on /classic.
    - dang 10y ago
      Sure; nearly all those stories are off topic for HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I assume this one's different because of the Reddit connection.
      - Mao_Zedang 10y ago
        When content moderation rules like these are infrequently enforced they cant be taken seriously.
        dang 10y ago
        If this is 'infrequently' I'm not sure what we do all day! Moderation consistency is impossible, because we can't come close to reading everything here. We do our best.
    - misja111 10y ago
      I noticed the same. For instance: not so long ago there was a story on HN that reported the fact that Google's autocomplete suggestions have a strange bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton, which doesn't seem reflect the popularity of the suggested sentences. It got flagged quickly and removed. Probably because the source was sputnik.com, a Russian news site. But the phenomenon that was reported was true, it was easy to verify by yourself. I don't see why these kind of posts should be flagged and removed. Maybe you don't agree with their content, but then why not have a discussion about them? In this case I would have been interested in hearing an explanation for those autocomplete suggestions.
alecco 10y ago
Now this thread is below the fold showing 254 points on the FP and when you get in it says 312 Screenshots http://sli.mg/a/wMhiQp http://sli.mg/a/wMhiQp
- dang 10y ago
  I'm confused about what you're trying to point out here, but if there's a question I'd be happy to answer.
  - alecco 10y ago
    How did the thread suddenly drop below the fold? How was the thread marked as 254 points on the home page and at the same time 312 inside the thread? Thanks
    - dang 10y ago
      The thread dropped because users flagged it. The 254/312 isn't what I'm seeing and ought to be impossible given how the software works. Can you reproduce it?
      - tanderson92 10y ago
        The user is using a popular HN plugin which lists "254" as the number of comments, not number of points. See the second photo for another place the "254" comments is displayed. The user is likely misunderstanding how the plugin works.
        alecco 10y ago
        Yeah, I'm an idiot. I see it now. Apologies. But I saw the sudden drop from top 4 to below the fold within minutes. Way too fast.

by alecco 10y ago

Mao_Zedang 10y ago

Be nice to see an explanation from our moderating overlords

dang 10y ago
You mean your moderating servants? At the time, there were multiple posts of the same story competing for attention, so a mod marked all but one as a dupe. But then that surviving one got heavily flagged. We reduced them at one point (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12534542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12534542) but the flags kept coming. I think what's going on here (and what I just told the other moderators) is that this is one of those times when our standard practices around things like dupes and downweights—e.g. for political controversies—don't apply. This doesn't happen very often, perhaps once every couple weeks. In such cases the community will is unmistakeable, the story will keep coming up until it gets an airing, and our job is to let that happen. I like it much better when we call these right from the beginning, but what are the odds that an r/conspiracy Hillary investigation would turn into a solid HN thread? Too small for the human eye, and no set of moderation rules can operate at that fine a grain.
- douche 10y ago
  This happens with every single story that touches on this subject. Over the course of the summer it's happened time after time - the flag brigade gets almost all of them. After the flag-killed story today was reset, it still never showed up on the main page, despite hundreds of votes, although it did show up on /classic.
  - dang 10y ago
    Sure; nearly all those stories are off topic for HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I assume this one's different because of the Reddit connection.
    - Mao_Zedang 10y ago
      When content moderation rules like these are infrequently enforced they cant be taken seriously.
      - dang 10y ago
        If this is 'infrequently' I'm not sure what we do all day! Moderation consistency is impossible, because we can't come close to reading everything here. We do our best.
  - misja111 10y ago
    I noticed the same. For instance: not so long ago there was a story on HN that reported the fact that Google's autocomplete suggestions have a strange bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton, which doesn't seem reflect the popularity of the suggested sentences. It got flagged quickly and removed. Probably because the source was sputnik.com, a Russian news site. But the phenomenon that was reported was true, it was easy to verify by yourself. I don't see why these kind of posts should be flagged and removed. Maybe you don't agree with their content, but then why not have a discussion about them? In this case I would have been interested in hearing an explanation for those autocomplete suggestions.

alecco 10y ago

Now this thread is below the fold showing 254 points on the FP and when you get in it says 312 Screenshots http://sli.mg/a/wMhiQp http://sli.mg/a/wMhiQp

dang 10y ago
I'm confused about what you're trying to point out here, but if there's a question I'd be happy to answer.
- alecco 10y ago
  How did the thread suddenly drop below the fold? How was the thread marked as 254 points on the home page and at the same time 312 inside the thread? Thanks
  - dang 10y ago
    The thread dropped because users flagged it. The 254/312 isn't what I'm seeing and ought to be impossible given how the software works. Can you reproduce it?
    - tanderson92 10y ago
      The user is using a popular HN plugin which lists "254" as the number of comments, not number of points. See the second photo for another place the "254" comments is displayed. The user is likely misunderstanding how the plugin works.
      - alecco 10y ago
        Yeah, I'm an idiot. I see it now. Apologies. But I saw the sudden drop from top 4 to below the fold within minutes. Way too fast.