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Ask HN: Why is the Peter Thiel Trump donation story buried by HN?
The story http://nytimes.com/2016/10/16/technology/peter-thiel-donald-j-trump.html has been submitted multiple times but each time it was flagged and removed. It made it twice to the front page https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716678 with many points and comments but still got removed... Given that Thiel just became a part time advisor of YC that's a weird coincidence.
- nostrademons 10y agoI would bet it's because all political stories get buried on HN. Per HN guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pesenti 10y agoGiven that Thiel is one of the most prominent figure in the tech world + a YC advisor this is a valid tech story.
- basch 10y agotangentially, but its not about tech policy. so unless you are planning on doing business with him, and this changes your mind, why do you consider it tech news. people come here for javascript framework debates, not updates on people flushing money away.
- atom-morgan 10y agoOh get the hell out of here. Political stories are on HN all the time.
- nostrademons 10y agoThey frequently rise to the top of the front page (because politics always rises to the top of everything...it's the nature of politics to grab your emotions and encourage you to do something) and then they frequently get killed (because a number of users flag them down once the discussion starts generating more heat than light).
- piotrjurkiewicz 10y agoFew weeks ago there were constantly at least 5/30 pure political stories on the main page. And this wasn't a problem. They weren't flagged or manually 'downweighted' by moderators like now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715332). But these stories were mostly anti-Trump...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jerf 10y agoPerhaps they changed their policies. Isn't it nice to be able to go somewhere and not discuss the same [series of colorful expletives expunged] topics we can discuss everywhere else? It's not like HN has much of a unique take on the topic, at least from what I've seen. Well, except for maybe being more generally grammatical than the usual set of flamewars. But it's still the usual set of flamewars.
- dang 10y agoI doubt this very much. The practices around how we moderate HN have been pretty stable for a long time, including about politics. There are fluctuations for various reasons, but not huge swings or shifts. If it appears so, it's likely because of (a) sample bias plus (b) whatever the bias is that always makes people feel like their side is being treated unfairly. We're thinking about taking HN a conscious step further away from political stories, actually. But I think it would be a mistake to do that because of behavior during an election season, since that's such skewed data.
- rdiddly 10y agoWhen Peter Thiel funds the World's Worst Startup it's totally HN-worthy! (LOL)
- bobsgame 10y agoI'm not very political and I haven't decided who to vote for yet, but I don't understand why the tech industry is so anti-Trump. He seems like a relatively sincere and smart guy to me, and some of his policies seem to be better for business. Is it because of tougher immigration laws? Are there other reasons based on his policies, or is it mostly just emotional?
- snarfy 10y agoHe's too unstable to be anywhere near the big red button.
- rpiguy 10y agoYet the alternative announced we should shoot down Russian jets over Syria? Even Jill Stein recently said Hilary is more likely to bring us to nuclear war. ... see this is why political posts get flagged. Back and forth we could go, to no end.
- gotofritz 10y agoSo you should let Russia do whatever they want? When did the US became a country of pansies?
- solipsism 10y agoHe seems like a relatively sincere and smart guy to me I challenge you to post one quote from Trump that "seems smart".
- bobsgame 10y agoI watched a few of his recent speeches and a lot of what he says seems pretty reasonable. I think he started out being more extreme to grab attention and now that he's got momentum he's mellowed out and actually developed rational policies. Most people are very emotional about it and seem to have knee-jerk reactions, so I'd like to hear from people who actually read his finalized policies and have specific criticisms about them, not just referencing scandals.
- sean_patel 10y ago(At the risk of getting downvoted by HN folks...) Isn't it obvious? It's because Peter Thiel is a part-time partner at Y Combinator. > I’m delighted to announce Peter Thiel is joining YC as one of the (now 10!) part-time partners. Source: http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-peter http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-peter Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Y_Combinator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Y_Combinator
- sctb 10y agoModerators have not intervened on these donation stories. They received a number of flags from users who believe they don't belong on Hacker News, probably because political stories are specifically called out as off-topic by the submission guidelines. (See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716673)
- pesenti 10y agoTo the HN mods. Now how do you explain that this post got flagged and removed...?
- sctb 10y agoWhen a story says [flagged], it's because users flagged it.
- pesenti 10y agoSo a handful of users can decide to bury a subject even though a great majority of HN users find it useful? This post is within the HN guidelines (it's not about politics it's about HN processes).
- gotofritz 10y agoThat's how user generated content works.
- piotrjurkiewicz 10y agoHow many flags are required to kill a link with, let's say, 50 points? Is this less than 50?
- mcknz 10y agoIt's getting flagged because people are tired of reading about Donald Trump and tired of reading about Peter Thiel. I doubt there's any larger conspiracy.
- Redoubts 10y agoThis is partly why I like hckrnews.com as my front page. Stories that are flagged yet have massive upvotes still appear there, and I'm happier for it.
- RockyMcNuts 10y agoThiel was on the fence about donating earlier, but Trump's alleged acts of serial sexual predation, accusations that Hillary was on drugs and should be in jail, that people are rigging the election in the media and at voting booths...it took those to really seal the deal! more on-topic, seems problematic for the tech community when prominent tech folks take a strong stand against free speech, for authoritarian anti-free-press candidates. (while claiming libertarian leanings, to boot!)