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Y-Combinator is obviously also on that list. From top story to second page in an hour. I do hope that move was organic and not manipulated with privilege...

• davidw 10y ago
  Probably got flagged by people as politics. Which it is. This topic comes up regularly, and no one convinces anyone. Some people are convinced that they took uuurrr jawwbs, and others are convinced that even immigrants are human beings who ought to have a shot at life in the US if they are willing to work hard.
  • harry8 10y ago
    And most probably have a more nuanced and sophisticated view of the issue beyond such finger painted sketches. It if really is flagged as "politics" that would be a shame and would certainly reflect badly on y-combniator given the founders broadcast of their views on the matter. The whole concept of "flagged as politics" is actually absurd in this forum. I wonder if what you say is true and how one would find out.
    • grzm 10y ago
      I think the "flagged as politics", though it does happen (in particular during and around the "Political Detox Week" experiment) is more a misnomer in general. Submissions are sometimes flagged because members think the resulting discussion will likely produce much more heat than light. Given the number of comments, in this case I think the discussion may have triggered the "overheated discussion detector" algorithm, which will move a submission down.
      • harry8 10y ago
        Seems highly unlikely given the the number of posts if such a threshold is fairly applied, don't you think? Obviously this is a policy that has direct ramifications on the business interests of the founders of YCombinator. They probably ought to be careful if they really are interfering in moderating.
        • grzm 10y ago
          From what I've observed, there's no conspiracy going on here. The mods are very open about the actions they take, and in the case of YC-related topics, have removed automatically applied weights and user-flagged actions to ensure they are discussed, even while flame wars rage on. Human psychology being what it is, we pay attention to what happens to topics that interest us, in particular if it's negative. This gives us a biased view. I think if you were to do a study of submissions on HN, it wouldn't likely support a view that the mods or the HN algorithms are doing anything untoward. (I'd personally be interested in seeing such a report regardless of the results.) I think I may have been unclear when I mentioned the number of comments with respect to triggering the overheated discussion detector: I think its based on comment rate rather than absolute number. (The exact rules of the site aren't open.) Yesterday a post was sitting at number 1, with a comparable number of votes to the one in the number 2 slot. As the number of comments skyrocketed (over a hundred in a couple of hours), it plummeted in rank even as it continued to be upvoted. And the topic had nothing to do with YC or even business, for that matter. There is one other behavior that may be at play. User flags will affect ranking even prior to the '[flagged]' tag appearing. This could also be the case for either of these submissions. Also, please be aware that flagging is nearly always a result user flags, not interference by the mods. Likewise, the algorithmic actions are automatic, not reviewed and applied by mods on a case by case basis. I've seen reference to the mods adding weight to a post, but this I believe is few and far between. I haven't seen this mention in months. And from a practical standpoint, the mods are just two guys. They do their best in tending to the forums, but they're not watching the site 24/7. They're not reviewing every submission.