4 ms·

Agreed - a little more thought about the relevance of items would be a service to us all. However i am also concerned about the reverse face of this problem. I

by bdfh42 16y ago

Agreed - a little more thought about the relevance of items would be a service to us all. However i am also concerned about the reverse face of this problem. I have detected a couple of relevant and interesting posts that have been flagged by enough folks to get them auto-deleted. The suspicion must be that the posts have been flagged by HN users who disagree with the opinions of the author. This surely is even less acceptable.

davidw 16y ago
For example? Were they "on topic" without using that "anything that's intellectually stimulating" escape clause?
- bdfh42 16y ago
  Example: This post http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/06/law-enforcement-has-apparently-become.html http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/06/law-enforcement-has... was deleted when first posted. I reposted it the next day because the opinion was well argued (agree or not). hank Williams' subsequent post responding to the deletion on HN was not well informed and (correctly) did not show up here as far as I know.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    As a counterpoint; I consider that an example of the sort of thing that we should be flagging into oblivion. I flagged it. Badly argued, outright wrong in many places, an ongoing part of his anti-Apple rants (which have cluttered up HN before) - no thanks! (I though his domain had been banned but apparently not)
  - brk 16y ago
    FWIW, I didn't flag that article, but I'm really tired of Hank Williams, and probably would have flagged it if I had seen it. His first few blog posts seemed to be mildly thought provoking on a slow day, but the last several I've seen from him have been a little too high tinfoil-hat rhetoric. In short, I don't think Hank has much of value to add that doesn't already exist 100 times over on other C-string blogs on the internet, so I'm not terribly surprised any links to his site get killed here.
    - norswap 16y ago
      To have a contrast here, what do you think of Gruber's posts ?
      - ErrantX 16y ago
        I've not flagged any of his articles yet (well maybe one a few months back, now I consider it) but I stopped upvoting them a while ago.
      - illumin8 16y ago
        Gruber's posts, while definitely pro-Apple, are very well written and technically insightful, so I have no problem up-voting them if they are good. Whether you agree with Gruber's world view or not, the man has a pretty good grasp on what is coming out of Apple, which arguably, is leading innovation in a lot of computer related fields at the moment.
      - jokermatt999 16y ago
        I've gotten extremely sick of him on HN. Not just because I dislike his writing style, but also because it inflames the Pro-Apple/Anti-Apple debates. I'll admit that I frequently get sucked into these, but it's not the kind of discussion I come to HN for.
  - recoiledsnake 16y ago
    I notice it that some Apple fanboys seem to be the most sensitive and maybe suffer from some persecution complex... no wonder they take any measure necessary to bury content. Anyway, I didn't think article posts could be flagged and deleted here. I thought voting would take care of that. If this happens on a regular basis I might consider stopping visiting this site. Edit: Inspite of people trying to teach me a lesson by downvoting me, let me point out the guideline from HN: >If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. Some people using it as a 'downvote' link to bury content that they don't like (digg style) are just plain abusing the system just because they cannot take criticism against their favorite company.
    - bradleyland 16y ago
      Flagging is a means of voting. Once you've reached a specific karma threshold, a 'flag' link appears next to articles and posts. Too many flags and something gets removed.
      - raganwald 16y ago
        Flagging is NOT a means of downvoting. If there was a downvote, downvote would mean "On topic for HN, but I don't want to read it." Flag would mean, "Off topic for HN whether I want to read it or not." For example, I enjoy free-riding, but I would flag most articles about it. Except maybe an article about how the North Shore movement got started by people building secret trails and using ladder bridges and other contrivances to sculpt trails over unrideable terrain... That's hacking of a sort.
    - epochwolf 16y ago
      We can't down vote articles so there is a flag link. The only way to get an article that shouldn't be on the front page off is to flag it and hope it gets enough flags to kill it or a moderator comes along and kills it.
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      If something makes it over 10 votes no amount of flagging will kill it. Before that it is open season. You're also being unfair about "Apple Fanboys" - I'm somewhere between fanboy and apathetic (i.e. it doesn't worry me) and even I am tired of Hank Williams rants. Ultimately majority rule wins; if some of us flag things to death then so be it. It only happens on particularly bad articles such as that one.
  - mquander 16y ago
    I would absolutely flag that if I came across it (which I didn't.) I think it was poorly argued, disingenuous flamebait. (It never mentions the obvious retort, which is that the high profile of the cases in question, not a Batphone at Apple or AT&T, led to the criminal investigations.) If it was posted with the original headline, that would be even worse. In addition, not a single thing in the post was interesting or original; it was just agitating about old news with the same anti-authoritarian slant present on every website ever.
    - Goladus 16y ago
      Flagging stuff because you personally think it's poorly argued, disingenuous flamebait is a bit dangerous. I can't tell you the number of times I've read some article that's been upvoted dozens of times that I think is a piece of garbage. (For example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1392140 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1392140). That doesn't mean I should flag it for deletion and try to force my view of the world on everyone. I just point out the flaws and move on. If you want to ignore me that's your loss. You should try to use a more objective standard when flagging posts. Flagging is easily abused should be a last resort.
      - mquander 16y ago
        I sympathize with your viewpoint, but I'm not convinced it's correct. If there were a downvote, I might have downvoted it, but not flagged it. However, there's only a flag. I try to use the flag to mean "off-topic" or "very low quality", and preferably both. I think the post under discussion was both -- it certainly wasn't technical or informational, and was it really newsworthy or intellectually interesting to anyone? (Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but by "anyone" I hope I mean "the vast majority of the readership.") I really don't like the "point out the flaws" approach. There's no way I would pollute a comment thread on a reasonable post with a discussion of why I think the post is no good, unless it was really bad and I was just trolling. I think that would lead to a pretty undesirable level of noise if it were commonplace. I guess that my feeling is -- in a community with no full-time moderators who can look at every post, users have to shape the community in a way they consider reasonable, and in my experience online, taking out the trash is a really important part of that. There might be some unfortunate subjectivity in the process, but I think it beats the alternative of doing nothing. (Anticipation: You may say, don't flag anything, but upvote many more things to indicate what you prefer. Unfortunately, there aren't really a huge amount of great posts that I feel stand out from the average decent posts, and I want to be able to really encourage the great ones in particular. Upvoting so many posts would seem like I was diluting my real preference, so I don't do it; I reserve the upvote for the top 10% or so of my quality range. I don't know if this is really rational, though.)
  - norswap 16y ago
    Pro-apple and anti-apple biggotry really gets tiring.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      Let's generalize: Pro-_____ and anti-_____ bigotry is tiresome.
  - epochwolf 16y ago
    I flagged your submission for all the reasons ErrantX listed. I've read 4 articles from that site that have been submitted recently and I flagged every one of them after reading them. This website has finally caused me enough grief to justify flagging without reading the next time it pops up. This it the first website to receive this treatment from me.

by bdfh42 16y ago

davidw 16y ago

For example? Were they "on topic" without using that "anything that's intellectually stimulating" escape clause?

bdfh42 16y ago
Example: This post http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/06/law-enforcement-has-apparently-become.html http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/06/law-enforcement-has... was deleted when first posted. I reposted it the next day because the opinion was well argued (agree or not). hank Williams' subsequent post responding to the deletion on HN was not well informed and (correctly) did not show up here as far as I know.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  As a counterpoint; I consider that an example of the sort of thing that we should be flagging into oblivion. I flagged it. Badly argued, outright wrong in many places, an ongoing part of his anti-Apple rants (which have cluttered up HN before) - no thanks! (I though his domain had been banned but apparently not)
- brk 16y ago
  FWIW, I didn't flag that article, but I'm really tired of Hank Williams, and probably would have flagged it if I had seen it. His first few blog posts seemed to be mildly thought provoking on a slow day, but the last several I've seen from him have been a little too high tinfoil-hat rhetoric. In short, I don't think Hank has much of value to add that doesn't already exist 100 times over on other C-string blogs on the internet, so I'm not terribly surprised any links to his site get killed here.
  - norswap 16y ago
    To have a contrast here, what do you think of Gruber's posts ?
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      I've not flagged any of his articles yet (well maybe one a few months back, now I consider it) but I stopped upvoting them a while ago.
    - illumin8 16y ago
      Gruber's posts, while definitely pro-Apple, are very well written and technically insightful, so I have no problem up-voting them if they are good. Whether you agree with Gruber's world view or not, the man has a pretty good grasp on what is coming out of Apple, which arguably, is leading innovation in a lot of computer related fields at the moment.
    - jokermatt999 16y ago
      I've gotten extremely sick of him on HN. Not just because I dislike his writing style, but also because it inflames the Pro-Apple/Anti-Apple debates. I'll admit that I frequently get sucked into these, but it's not the kind of discussion I come to HN for.
- recoiledsnake 16y ago
  I notice it that some Apple fanboys seem to be the most sensitive and maybe suffer from some persecution complex... no wonder they take any measure necessary to bury content. Anyway, I didn't think article posts could be flagged and deleted here. I thought voting would take care of that. If this happens on a regular basis I might consider stopping visiting this site. Edit: Inspite of people trying to teach me a lesson by downvoting me, let me point out the guideline from HN: >If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. Some people using it as a 'downvote' link to bury content that they don't like (digg style) are just plain abusing the system just because they cannot take criticism against their favorite company.
  - bradleyland 16y ago
    Flagging is a means of voting. Once you've reached a specific karma threshold, a 'flag' link appears next to articles and posts. Too many flags and something gets removed.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      Flagging is NOT a means of downvoting. If there was a downvote, downvote would mean "On topic for HN, but I don't want to read it." Flag would mean, "Off topic for HN whether I want to read it or not." For example, I enjoy free-riding, but I would flag most articles about it. Except maybe an article about how the North Shore movement got started by people building secret trails and using ladder bridges and other contrivances to sculpt trails over unrideable terrain... That's hacking of a sort.
  - epochwolf 16y ago
    We can't down vote articles so there is a flag link. The only way to get an article that shouldn't be on the front page off is to flag it and hope it gets enough flags to kill it or a moderator comes along and kills it.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    If something makes it over 10 votes no amount of flagging will kill it. Before that it is open season. You're also being unfair about "Apple Fanboys" - I'm somewhere between fanboy and apathetic (i.e. it doesn't worry me) and even I am tired of Hank Williams rants. Ultimately majority rule wins; if some of us flag things to death then so be it. It only happens on particularly bad articles such as that one.
- mquander 16y ago
  I would absolutely flag that if I came across it (which I didn't.) I think it was poorly argued, disingenuous flamebait. (It never mentions the obvious retort, which is that the high profile of the cases in question, not a Batphone at Apple or AT&T, led to the criminal investigations.) If it was posted with the original headline, that would be even worse. In addition, not a single thing in the post was interesting or original; it was just agitating about old news with the same anti-authoritarian slant present on every website ever.
  - Goladus 16y ago
    Flagging stuff because you personally think it's poorly argued, disingenuous flamebait is a bit dangerous. I can't tell you the number of times I've read some article that's been upvoted dozens of times that I think is a piece of garbage. (For example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1392140 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1392140). That doesn't mean I should flag it for deletion and try to force my view of the world on everyone. I just point out the flaws and move on. If you want to ignore me that's your loss. You should try to use a more objective standard when flagging posts. Flagging is easily abused should be a last resort.
    - mquander 16y ago
      I sympathize with your viewpoint, but I'm not convinced it's correct. If there were a downvote, I might have downvoted it, but not flagged it. However, there's only a flag. I try to use the flag to mean "off-topic" or "very low quality", and preferably both. I think the post under discussion was both -- it certainly wasn't technical or informational, and was it really newsworthy or intellectually interesting to anyone? (Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but by "anyone" I hope I mean "the vast majority of the readership.") I really don't like the "point out the flaws" approach. There's no way I would pollute a comment thread on a reasonable post with a discussion of why I think the post is no good, unless it was really bad and I was just trolling. I think that would lead to a pretty undesirable level of noise if it were commonplace. I guess that my feeling is -- in a community with no full-time moderators who can look at every post, users have to shape the community in a way they consider reasonable, and in my experience online, taking out the trash is a really important part of that. There might be some unfortunate subjectivity in the process, but I think it beats the alternative of doing nothing. (Anticipation: You may say, don't flag anything, but upvote many more things to indicate what you prefer. Unfortunately, there aren't really a huge amount of great posts that I feel stand out from the average decent posts, and I want to be able to really encourage the great ones in particular. Upvoting so many posts would seem like I was diluting my real preference, so I don't do it; I reserve the upvote for the top 10% or so of my quality range. I don't know if this is really rational, though.)
- norswap 16y ago
  Pro-apple and anti-apple biggotry really gets tiring.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Let's generalize: Pro-_____ and anti-_____ bigotry is tiresome.
- epochwolf 16y ago
  I flagged your submission for all the reasons ErrantX listed. I've read 4 articles from that site that have been submitted recently and I flagged every one of them after reading them. This website has finally caused me enough grief to justify flagging without reading the next time it pops up. This it the first website to receive this treatment from me.