8 ms·

Just a side note: this was #1, as it should be, and a few right-wingers very very obviously flagged it for political reasons and knocked it entirely off the fro

by Bud 7y ago

Just a side note: this was #1, as it should be, and a few right-wingers very very obviously flagged it for political reasons and knocked it entirely off the front page. Which should be actionable.

burfog 7y ago
It might not be exactly political. We seem to get about a dozen articles per day on climate change and that just gets tiresome. Dedicated climate change blogs are elsewhere. When I look at the new articles just now, 3 out of 30 are obviously about climate change. That's 10%, which is absurd. I probably missed several, because I just looked at headlines. Of course people are going to play whack-a-mole with that. Flipping your judgement around, did you like the article for political reasons? We could equally well say this: "a few left-wingers very very obviously upvoted it for political reasons and spammed it on to the front page. Which should be actionable." We're not supposed to be doing political battle on Hacker News. There were other articles that could have been used, without beating a dead horse. Here is one, with an insightful comment section, that doesn't needlessly push the climate guilt trip: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/07/16/university-of-alaska-faces-major-budget-cuts-could-drop-40-degree-programs/ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/07/16/university-of-alas... Even better would be an article that actually lists the degree programs being kept and cut. There should be some concern about the loss of research that would help with petroleum extraction and mining, or a confirmation that those important programs are safe. There could be some mention of HAARP.
dang 7y ago
I'm afraid that's not accurate. (Isn't it fascinating how something that didn't happen can be "very very obvious"?) Rather, a moderator downweighted it because this story has had several major discussions on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20383708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20383708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20479471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20479471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20548701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20548701 No important story ever feels like it gets enough discussion on HN, because frontpage space is the scarcest resource here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20scarce https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... It's important to avoid repetition because the goal of the site is to gratify curiosity. When there's an ongoing story, one test we apply is whether there is significant new information in a new submission: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... In this case I don't think the bar was met.
- Bud 7y ago
  Thank you for taking all that time to clarify this for me.

by Bud 7y ago

Just a side note: this was #1, as it should be, and a few right-wingers very very obviously flagged it for political reasons and knocked it entirely off the front page. Which should be actionable.

burfog 7y ago

It might not be exactly political. We seem to get about a dozen articles per day on climate change and that just gets tiresome. Dedicated climate change blogs are elsewhere. When I look at the new articles just now, 3 out of 30 are obviously about climate change. That's 10%, which is absurd. I probably missed several, because I just looked at headlines. Of course people are going to play whack-a-mole with that. Flipping your judgement around, did you like the article for political reasons? We could equally well say this: "a few left-wingers very very obviously upvoted it for political reasons and spammed it on to the front page. Which should be actionable." We're not supposed to be doing political battle on Hacker News. There were other articles that could have been used, without beating a dead horse. Here is one, with an insightful comment section, that doesn't needlessly push the climate guilt trip: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/07/16/university-of-alaska-faces-major-budget-cuts-could-drop-40-degree-programs/ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/07/16/university-of-alas... Even better would be an article that actually lists the degree programs being kept and cut. There should be some concern about the loss of research that would help with petroleum extraction and mining, or a confirmation that those important programs are safe. There could be some mention of HAARP.

dang 7y ago

I'm afraid that's not accurate. (Isn't it fascinating how something that didn't happen can be "very very obvious"?) Rather, a moderator downweighted it because this story has had several major discussions on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20383708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20383708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20479471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20479471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20548701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20548701 No important story ever feels like it gets enough discussion on HN, because frontpage space is the scarcest resource here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20scarce https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... It's important to avoid repetition because the goal of the site is to gratify curiosity. When there's an ongoing story, one test we apply is whether there is significant new information in a new submission: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... In this case I don't think the bar was met.

Bud 7y ago
Thank you for taking all that time to clarify this for me.