4 ms·

And in less than an hour, this post is flagged and removed from HN first page (with >160 votes). It is very difficult to have any kind of rational discussion if

by amenod 8y ago

And in less than an hour, this post is flagged and removed from HN first page (with >160 votes). It is very difficult to have any kind of rational discussion if people feel threatened by it. It is a controversial topic, but that doesn't mean that we should shut up the sides we disagree with.

0815test 8y ago
> And in less than an hour, this post is flagged and removed from HN first page (with >160 votes). Well, if this is what it takes to stop the outrage cascades from taking over HN too, I'm quite fine with it. It's not like the article was telling us anything we didn't already know - no point in just rehashing the same old stuff over and over.
- _carl_jung 8y ago
  I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. If there's "no point", then I'd expect it not to be upvoted. Obviously HN finds it relevant otherwise it wouldn't have been the top post.
  - krapp 8y ago
    > I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. It's less about protecting the readership from inflammatory information as protecting the community from inflammatory discussion, because it is true that there are a number of people here who are too sensitive about certain topics to be able to discuss them civilly. Hacker News is fine when discussing technical issues (as long as a certain language doesn't come up) but as soon as you see a topic relating to feminism, political correctness, race, gender, American politics, etc... it seems to be a toss up whether that thread will turn out to be worthwhile or yet another flaming garbage fire of polemic nonsense. That said, while I can understand why threads like this get flagged, it's worth pointing out that flagging a thread doesn't block the comments in it from appearing on the comments page afaik, while hiding a thread does. So if people just don't want to see the discussion at all it's preferable to hide it and leave it be when it clearly already has some traction.
    - MaxBarraclough 8y ago
      I'm constantly impressed by the quality of discussion here. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say HackerNews is the best calibre open forum anywhere on the web. If it can't be discussed on HackerNews, it can't be discussed anywhere. The problem of polemic nonsense (nicely put) is at the scope of society, not HackerNews. I'm not being flippant. If you can think of another online forum that would do a better job, please name it. Slashdot? Reddit? I don't think so. As far as I can see, the discussion in this thread seems civil and thoughtful. I second _carl_jung. It just isn't necessary. Beyond that, it's not healthy to deem an important topic to be simply out of bounds to discuss. Is that the route to well-considered positions? I realise I'm arguing from a position of relative ignorance here though. Perhaps there was a flood of spam and trolling that's been removed.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  > Well, if this is what it takes to stop the outrage cascades from taking over HN too, I'm quite fine with it. I would guess that what it takes to stop outrage cascades is heavy handed moderation of the comments that promote it, either you agree with them or not. E.g. all outrage comments ends as dead either they believe in AGW or not. With a few exceptions [0] I find it better to hold a reasonable concersation with people I disagree with than making them martyrs. I personally think it would be extremely much more useful to discuss hot topics openly, remove flagging privilege for people who abuse it to flag honest questions (just look how short time it takes from a poor soul asks an honest question about actual numbers in a climate thread before downvotes and flags pile up because "just asking questions" is always just a tactic.) Same with a lot of other stuff. Just on my way home I had a very interesting discussion with a former UN soldier who disagrees with me on a topic that interests both of us. But it was interesting because I'm actually listening to verify if I'm missing something, and I guess it was interesting for that other person as well because even if I objected to a couple of points I did so by pointing to verifiable information that could nuance tjat persons opinion (if they wanted) instead of saying "you are wrong". [0]: for a good example I personally don't argue with actual nazis - but you might find me trying to talk sense into people who get called nazis but are really just unreasonably worried about immigration or aren't too good with statistics.
sridca 8y ago
Flagged posts still appear in https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/
- trobertson 8y ago
  And on https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active
- masonic 8y ago
  Or just set showdead=Yes in your HN profile.

by amenod 8y ago

0815test 8y ago

> And in less than an hour, this post is flagged and removed from HN first page (with >160 votes). Well, if this is what it takes to stop the outrage cascades from taking over HN too, I'm quite fine with it. It's not like the article was telling us anything we didn't already know - no point in just rehashing the same old stuff over and over.

_carl_jung 8y ago
I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. If there's "no point", then I'd expect it not to be upvoted. Obviously HN finds it relevant otherwise it wouldn't have been the top post.
- krapp 8y ago
  > I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. It's less about protecting the readership from inflammatory information as protecting the community from inflammatory discussion, because it is true that there are a number of people here who are too sensitive about certain topics to be able to discuss them civilly. Hacker News is fine when discussing technical issues (as long as a certain language doesn't come up) but as soon as you see a topic relating to feminism, political correctness, race, gender, American politics, etc... it seems to be a toss up whether that thread will turn out to be worthwhile or yet another flaming garbage fire of polemic nonsense. That said, while I can understand why threads like this get flagged, it's worth pointing out that flagging a thread doesn't block the comments in it from appearing on the comments page afaik, while hiding a thread does. So if people just don't want to see the discussion at all it's preferable to hide it and leave it be when it clearly already has some traction.
  - MaxBarraclough 8y ago
    I'm constantly impressed by the quality of discussion here. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say HackerNews is the best calibre open forum anywhere on the web. If it can't be discussed on HackerNews, it can't be discussed anywhere. The problem of polemic nonsense (nicely put) is at the scope of society, not HackerNews. I'm not being flippant. If you can think of another online forum that would do a better job, please name it. Slashdot? Reddit? I don't think so. As far as I can see, the discussion in this thread seems civil and thoughtful. I second _carl_jung. It just isn't necessary. Beyond that, it's not healthy to deem an important topic to be simply out of bounds to discuss. Is that the route to well-considered positions? I realise I'm arguing from a position of relative ignorance here though. Perhaps there was a flood of spam and trolling that's been removed.
reitanqild 8y ago
> Well, if this is what it takes to stop the outrage cascades from taking over HN too, I'm quite fine with it. I would guess that what it takes to stop outrage cascades is heavy handed moderation of the comments that promote it, either you agree with them or not. E.g. all outrage comments ends as dead either they believe in AGW or not. With a few exceptions [0] I find it better to hold a reasonable concersation with people I disagree with than making them martyrs. I personally think it would be extremely much more useful to discuss hot topics openly, remove flagging privilege for people who abuse it to flag honest questions (just look how short time it takes from a poor soul asks an honest question about actual numbers in a climate thread before downvotes and flags pile up because "just asking questions" is always just a tactic.) Same with a lot of other stuff. Just on my way home I had a very interesting discussion with a former UN soldier who disagrees with me on a topic that interests both of us. But it was interesting because I'm actually listening to verify if I'm missing something, and I guess it was interesting for that other person as well because even if I objected to a couple of points I did so by pointing to verifiable information that could nuance tjat persons opinion (if they wanted) instead of saying "you are wrong". [0]: for a good example I personally don't argue with actual nazis - but you might find me trying to talk sense into people who get called nazis but are really just unreasonably worried about immigration or aren't too good with statistics.

sridca 8y ago

Flagged posts still appear in https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/

trobertson 8y ago
And on https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active
masonic 8y ago
Or just set showdead=Yes in your HN profile.