9 ms·

I actually got the impression that HN has already been under-weighting those posts. I noticed that often virus submissions are sorted below other submissions wi

I actually got the impression that HN has already been under-weighting those posts. I noticed that often virus submissions are sorted below other submissions with lower scores submitted longer ago.

altacc 7y ago
There does seem to be a disparity between the number of posts found via search vs those that reach the front page. I've been quite relieved that HN has, so far, been a relatively calm oasis in an ocean of Covid-19 dominated media. I'm not seeking to put my head in the sand, but I find the constant coverage elsewhere numbing.
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
one of my submissions about the restaurants and service industry yesterday[1] got flagged several times and it puzzled me tbh. Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media (across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of "believers" and "non-believers". How sensitive people get about the topic (of COVID19) is almost frightening because this isn't any more about a pandemic but whether what somebody who has an opinion signals about it. People who believe in the danger are quickly labeled liberals/democrat, or conservative if they don't believe in the danger. This. Is. Nuts! There is a real problem at our door. And it's not chickenshit such as a few people "believing in chemtrails" or that "evolution is a hoax", but whether this virus and the news around it are actually real. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125
- mantap 7y ago
  This is only temporary. When the coronavirus starts knocking on your door, everybody is a believer.
  - DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
    it seems we're witnessing a strange situation, where a large part of society is going through the "5 stages of grief" collectively, not all at once but with individuals distributed across the stages.
  - ic4l 7y ago
    As they say "ignorance is bliss"
- smt88 7y ago
  > Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media (across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of "believers" and "non-believers" This is absolutely untrue anywhere that I visit. There's literally one entity trying to downplay the risks, and it's the Trump Administration -- and it's not even all of it! Members of the administration are "believers" as you put it. No serious person thinks this is a hoax.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    There’s a wide gulf between “this is a hoax” and “you know, this isn’t totally unprecedented and I think some of these measures are ill-considered over-reactions”. Specifically, I think the idea that this can be “contained” by political boundaries drawn on maps is utterly ridiculous. (I’m in favor of social distancing and trying to make the inevitable pandemic take longer, but somehow that gets spun into fantasies of containment.)
    - _-___________-_ 7y ago
      100% agree. But voicing the idea that some of the actions being taken might be overreactions gets very strong reactions about "burying your head in the sand" or "being in denial". The worst part is that after it's blown over, the same people will be saying how we dodged a bullet and it would have been a lot worse if the extreme measures hadn't been taken, with no self-reflection over which measures worked and which made no difference (and were actively harmful in other ways, like economic damage - which can have a direct and significant impact on people's lives).
  - ethanwillis 7y ago
    It's not just the Trump administration. Plenty of the people in my social networks who lean left believe it's "just a flu" or "not that bad" and "overblown"
  - tasogare 7y ago
    I have the impression the downplaying is the major trend in Europe as well, so no, it’s not something limited to the Trump administration. It is telling that Taiwan, which is super close geographically and culturally to China has now less cases than Italia, France and Germany. I’ve been there at the end of January when the thing started to be on TV and the difference in gov and public reaction with my country is huge. Taiwan: 99% people outside wearing masks starting from the first days, government putting money to open a new mask factory, mask rationing so that they are available with healthcare card, some people limiting their move, people putting themselves in quarantine when coming back from China. France: every media and the government saying there is no problem for more than a month, even when a close European country closed some schools. People going their live as usual even in regions with lot of cases. No quarantine, no border control. My family reaction: the virus is overrated, complaining about events cancelled (the trend just started this week), goes to public events even now. Japan: government and people actions in-between West and East. Japan handled the ship semi-seriously, yet started taking other measures really lately. People bought every masks and toilet paper rolls out there, government did nothing so that we can each have some. Gel available at most shop or public place. Some information here or there about the importance of washing hands.
- xenonite 7y ago
  Haha, in Germany it is the other way round. Lets simply say, people who liked Obama and dislike Trump are rather _not_ afraid of the virus.
  - pille 7y ago
    Why would we simply say that? I’m in Germany and I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
    - vertis 7y ago
      Not disagreeing with you, but there is a real difference between say the way Bangkok and Munich are treating it (I have recently been in Bangkok, now in Munich). In Bangkok 90%+ of people are walking around with masks (a combination of P2/N95 and surgical masks), hand sanitizer at the door of every shopping center. Security guards using temperature guns on everyone that enters a building. I went for a massage and the receptionist used a temperature gun on me. Here in Munich, it's invisible, except for a whole bunch of people that are working from home. Both are fairly close to hotspots, and yet there are very different behaviors.
      - xenonite 7y ago
        Exactly, the German mainstream/government mainly is "no fear", and the opposition naturally criticizes that the wrong decisions have been made, and that the state is not ready. At the same time, the German mainstream/government criticizes the Trump presidency. All the same seems to happen in the USA, however the other way round: again, the opposition bolsters fear and criticizes the government for not being ready. However the opposition=democrats, hence the fearful criticize Trump at the same time. Conclusion: * the Trump critics in the USA overstate the risk of SARS-CoV2 * the Trump critics in Germany downstate the risk SARS-CoV2
- hef19898 7y ago
  For me, it is much more complex and nuanced. The reason why I flagged the occasional COVID-19 related staroy was two-fold: there was the story itself, usually they tend to be weak on facts, numbers and science and heavy on assumptions, unfounded opinion. And then were the comments, even on HN they had an uncomfortable tendency to rely on Youtube videos and the like. The underlying message tended to be "Chinese authorties are lying, it is much worse and it will spread everywhere because there is no protection and the WHO / CDC tc. don't know what they are talking about". Exactly the one thing we don't need, panic and fear mongering. On the other hand you had the "it will just be a flu". Both sides are wrong. But it is impossible to get through with facts. Also, the comments and posts referencing the WHO and so on were clearly the minority. SO, if you ask me the online marketing of the WHO sucks. I just had the illusion that a site like HN could, you know, help to do something against the "we are all gonna die" panic. Turned not to be the case. Hence the flagging. And as a final note, I simply read one too much comments from programmers who thought to have built a model of the epidemic over the weekend, that was so much better than anything the true experts came up with, because he knew how to code. But nobody, neither Google or Facebook nor individuals came forward with a plan or an idea how to get stuff from the CDC / WHO / Johns Hopkins and the like on the very top of Googl results and Youtube. And I have the suspicion that there a some people on HN who have a rather good idea how that could be done.
  - cactus2093 7y ago
    Not sure how you can say both sides are wrong. It is now spreading widely outside of China and most of the west is very much not ready.
    - hef19898 7y ago
      Yeah, it has spread to most countries by now. Thing is, Italy had the virus in the wild since January from what I understood. What ever that tells us about it. Regarding readiness, I have the impression that we are pretty prepared by now., Europe at least, o idea how things are in the US or Canada. Measures are in place to slow the spreading of the virus, known cases are quaratined one way or the other. And besides some nut jobs starting to hord pasta and toilette paper the supply situation in Germany seems to be rather good so far. Until the WHO or CDC or other eqivalent bodies aren't crying out that these measures aren't enough I consider them to be enough. I'm raher sure, so, that I absolutely don't listen to any politicians or other pulic functionaries talking pubicly about it.
- dang 7y ago
  I don't think it's so hard to understand why users would flag that. The title is baity, and the top subthread is a generic discussion about the virtues of Canada.
philshem 7y ago
Curiously, I saw the Sam Altman post on the front page a couple days ago, but then it quickly disappeared and I couldn't re-find it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22513316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22513316
- dang 7y ago
  Users flagged it.
  - philshem 7y ago
    Thanks for sharing. I wanted to know more about the HN moderators and was pleased to read your profile in the New Yorker from 2018[0]. Keep up the good work. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...
muzani 7y ago
I see about 2-7 posts on it a day, all saying the same thing. They're great for raising awareness - I learned that I shouldn't touch my face from HN. But anyone who downloads a filter for it would know that anyway. edit: to be more precise, it looks like 5 on Ask HN today and one on the main page (this thread)
dang 7y ago
When there's a major ongoing story, HN gets flooded with submissions about it, the majority of which just hammer on the same nail and add little that is new or interesting. During such waves, moderators downweight follow-up submissions unless they contain significant new information [1]. If we didn't, the front page would consist of stories about this one theme. Worse, that would accelerate the problem, since once they saw this, people would start submitting even more stories about that one theme. (There's a CS term for this situation—I want to say thundering herd, but is that accurate?) We hit on this strategy after the Great Snowden Storm of 2013 [2], when many users justly complained that HN was overrun with stories that, though not strictly dupes, were filling the front page with dupiness. It has since proven itself through many epidemics, no pun intended. You can also derive it from first principles. The thing we're optimizing for is intellectual curiosity [3]. Curiosity withers under repetition [4], so the most important thing for HN to avoid is being predictable. To a first approximation, you can say that HN is ok to the degree that it's unpredictable. But since a page of random numbers would do that even better, it's more precise to say that it needs the right balance of familiarity and unpredictability. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20snowden&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repet&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repeat&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- maps7 7y ago
  I don't think I have heard "Curiosity withers under repetition" before. Is that something observed on HN over time or is it something that has been studied? Either way I can see it working successfully on HN in comparison to other sites I visit that are just the same thing over and over.

I actually got the impression that HN has already been under-weighting those posts. I noticed that often virus submissions are sorted below other submissions with lower scores submitted longer ago.

altacc 7y ago

There does seem to be a disparity between the number of posts found via search vs those that reach the front page. I've been quite relieved that HN has, so far, been a relatively calm oasis in an ocean of Covid-19 dominated media. I'm not seeking to put my head in the sand, but I find the constant coverage elsewhere numbing.

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago

one of my submissions about the restaurants and service industry yesterday[1] got flagged several times and it puzzled me tbh. Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media (across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of "believers" and "non-believers". How sensitive people get about the topic (of COVID19) is almost frightening because this isn't any more about a pandemic but whether what somebody who has an opinion signals about it. People who believe in the danger are quickly labeled liberals/democrat, or conservative if they don't believe in the danger. This. Is. Nuts! There is a real problem at our door. And it's not chickenshit such as a few people "believing in chemtrails" or that "evolution is a hoax", but whether this virus and the news around it are actually real. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125

mantap 7y ago
This is only temporary. When the coronavirus starts knocking on your door, everybody is a believer.
- DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
  it seems we're witnessing a strange situation, where a large part of society is going through the "5 stages of grief" collectively, not all at once but with individuals distributed across the stages.
- ic4l 7y ago
  As they say "ignorance is bliss"
smt88 7y ago
> Covid19 is being aggressively framed by the political parties and media (across the world not just US) to divide the public into camps of "believers" and "non-believers" This is absolutely untrue anywhere that I visit. There's literally one entity trying to downplay the risks, and it's the Trump Administration -- and it's not even all of it! Members of the administration are "believers" as you put it. No serious person thinks this is a hoax.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  There’s a wide gulf between “this is a hoax” and “you know, this isn’t totally unprecedented and I think some of these measures are ill-considered over-reactions”. Specifically, I think the idea that this can be “contained” by political boundaries drawn on maps is utterly ridiculous. (I’m in favor of social distancing and trying to make the inevitable pandemic take longer, but somehow that gets spun into fantasies of containment.)
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    100% agree. But voicing the idea that some of the actions being taken might be overreactions gets very strong reactions about "burying your head in the sand" or "being in denial". The worst part is that after it's blown over, the same people will be saying how we dodged a bullet and it would have been a lot worse if the extreme measures hadn't been taken, with no self-reflection over which measures worked and which made no difference (and were actively harmful in other ways, like economic damage - which can have a direct and significant impact on people's lives).
- ethanwillis 7y ago
  It's not just the Trump administration. Plenty of the people in my social networks who lean left believe it's "just a flu" or "not that bad" and "overblown"
- tasogare 7y ago
  I have the impression the downplaying is the major trend in Europe as well, so no, it’s not something limited to the Trump administration. It is telling that Taiwan, which is super close geographically and culturally to China has now less cases than Italia, France and Germany. I’ve been there at the end of January when the thing started to be on TV and the difference in gov and public reaction with my country is huge. Taiwan: 99% people outside wearing masks starting from the first days, government putting money to open a new mask factory, mask rationing so that they are available with healthcare card, some people limiting their move, people putting themselves in quarantine when coming back from China. France: every media and the government saying there is no problem for more than a month, even when a close European country closed some schools. People going their live as usual even in regions with lot of cases. No quarantine, no border control. My family reaction: the virus is overrated, complaining about events cancelled (the trend just started this week), goes to public events even now. Japan: government and people actions in-between West and East. Japan handled the ship semi-seriously, yet started taking other measures really lately. People bought every masks and toilet paper rolls out there, government did nothing so that we can each have some. Gel available at most shop or public place. Some information here or there about the importance of washing hands.
xenonite 7y ago
Haha, in Germany it is the other way round. Lets simply say, people who liked Obama and dislike Trump are rather _not_ afraid of the virus.
- pille 7y ago
  Why would we simply say that? I’m in Germany and I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
  - vertis 7y ago
    Not disagreeing with you, but there is a real difference between say the way Bangkok and Munich are treating it (I have recently been in Bangkok, now in Munich). In Bangkok 90%+ of people are walking around with masks (a combination of P2/N95 and surgical masks), hand sanitizer at the door of every shopping center. Security guards using temperature guns on everyone that enters a building. I went for a massage and the receptionist used a temperature gun on me. Here in Munich, it's invisible, except for a whole bunch of people that are working from home. Both are fairly close to hotspots, and yet there are very different behaviors.
    - xenonite 7y ago
      Exactly, the German mainstream/government mainly is "no fear", and the opposition naturally criticizes that the wrong decisions have been made, and that the state is not ready. At the same time, the German mainstream/government criticizes the Trump presidency. All the same seems to happen in the USA, however the other way round: again, the opposition bolsters fear and criticizes the government for not being ready. However the opposition=democrats, hence the fearful criticize Trump at the same time. Conclusion: * the Trump critics in the USA overstate the risk of SARS-CoV2 * the Trump critics in Germany downstate the risk SARS-CoV2
hef19898 7y ago
For me, it is much more complex and nuanced. The reason why I flagged the occasional COVID-19 related staroy was two-fold: there was the story itself, usually they tend to be weak on facts, numbers and science and heavy on assumptions, unfounded opinion. And then were the comments, even on HN they had an uncomfortable tendency to rely on Youtube videos and the like. The underlying message tended to be "Chinese authorties are lying, it is much worse and it will spread everywhere because there is no protection and the WHO / CDC tc. don't know what they are talking about". Exactly the one thing we don't need, panic and fear mongering. On the other hand you had the "it will just be a flu". Both sides are wrong. But it is impossible to get through with facts. Also, the comments and posts referencing the WHO and so on were clearly the minority. SO, if you ask me the online marketing of the WHO sucks. I just had the illusion that a site like HN could, you know, help to do something against the "we are all gonna die" panic. Turned not to be the case. Hence the flagging. And as a final note, I simply read one too much comments from programmers who thought to have built a model of the epidemic over the weekend, that was so much better than anything the true experts came up with, because he knew how to code. But nobody, neither Google or Facebook nor individuals came forward with a plan or an idea how to get stuff from the CDC / WHO / Johns Hopkins and the like on the very top of Googl results and Youtube. And I have the suspicion that there a some people on HN who have a rather good idea how that could be done.
- cactus2093 7y ago
  Not sure how you can say both sides are wrong. It is now spreading widely outside of China and most of the west is very much not ready.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Yeah, it has spread to most countries by now. Thing is, Italy had the virus in the wild since January from what I understood. What ever that tells us about it. Regarding readiness, I have the impression that we are pretty prepared by now., Europe at least, o idea how things are in the US or Canada. Measures are in place to slow the spreading of the virus, known cases are quaratined one way or the other. And besides some nut jobs starting to hord pasta and toilette paper the supply situation in Germany seems to be rather good so far. Until the WHO or CDC or other eqivalent bodies aren't crying out that these measures aren't enough I consider them to be enough. I'm raher sure, so, that I absolutely don't listen to any politicians or other pulic functionaries talking pubicly about it.
dang 7y ago
I don't think it's so hard to understand why users would flag that. The title is baity, and the top subthread is a generic discussion about the virtues of Canada.

philshem 7y ago

Curiously, I saw the Sam Altman post on the front page a couple days ago, but then it quickly disappeared and I couldn't re-find it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22513316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22513316

dang 7y ago
Users flagged it.
- philshem 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I wanted to know more about the HN moderators and was pleased to read your profile in the New Yorker from 2018[0]. Keep up the good work. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

muzani 7y ago

I see about 2-7 posts on it a day, all saying the same thing. They're great for raising awareness - I learned that I shouldn't touch my face from HN. But anyone who downloads a filter for it would know that anyway. edit: to be more precise, it looks like 5 on Ask HN today and one on the main page (this thread)

dang 7y ago

When there's a major ongoing story, HN gets flooded with submissions about it, the majority of which just hammer on the same nail and add little that is new or interesting. During such waves, moderators downweight follow-up submissions unless they contain significant new information [1]. If we didn't, the front page would consist of stories about this one theme. Worse, that would accelerate the problem, since once they saw this, people would start submitting even more stories about that one theme. (There's a CS term for this situation—I want to say thundering herd, but is that accurate?) We hit on this strategy after the Great Snowden Storm of 2013 [2], when many users justly complained that HN was overrun with stories that, though not strictly dupes, were filling the front page with dupiness. It has since proven itself through many epidemics, no pun intended. You can also derive it from first principles. The thing we're optimizing for is intellectual curiosity [3]. Curiosity withers under repetition [4], so the most important thing for HN to avoid is being predictable. To a first approximation, you can say that HN is ok to the degree that it's unpredictable. But since a page of random numbers would do that even better, it's more precise to say that it needs the right balance of familiarity and unpredictability. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20snowden&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repet&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repeat&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

maps7 7y ago
I don't think I have heard "Curiosity withers under repetition" before. Is that something observed on HN over time or is it something that has been studied? Either way I can see it working successfully on HN in comparison to other sites I visit that are just the same thing over and over.