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Define "removed". There are three possibilities that could be considered "removed": 1) the post fell off the 'new' posts page. This is normal, the 'new' post
by pwg 7y ago
Define "removed".
There are three possibilities that could be considered "removed":
1) the post fell off the 'new' posts page. This is normal, the 'new' posts page is simply a reverse time ordered list of posts. So a sufficient number of new posts arriving quickly will push any given post off the first page of new items onto subsequent pages of the new list.
2) the post made it to the HN front page, but then disappeared from the HN front page. Posts make it onto the HN front page by receiving up votes from users, and the algorithm has some time based considerations that it uses to decide if a post qualifies to be one of the posts listed on the first section of the front page. The speed with which upvotes arrive, and how many upvotes in total, seem to have a bearing on a post being on the main page. So if this is the case, it is possible it got enough upvotes rapidly enough to make it to the main page, but did not receive enough additional upvotes once there to remain eligible to be on the front page. This is also normal, and is just how HN's front page algorithm works.
3) the third possibility is the post was flagged. In this case, a sufficient number of users pressed the "flag" link on the post to cause the software to mark it "flagged" and remove it from view. Note that you need a certain level of karma points before you gain the ability to flag a post. If the post was flagged, however, you would see that fact in the 'submissions' section under your account name. The post title will begin with "[flagged]" if this is what occurred. This is also normal, however the guidelines indicate that flagging should generally be used for spam or off-topic posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) so if the post was flagged, you might consider comparing the post's contents with the guidelines to see if it might have been considered off-topic or spam by some.
- ijpsud 7y agoHi, I'm not sure if what you've posted is a copypasta, but did you read the post? I linked to the post so you can see that it's not flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707365 It's a post with a link to theinformation.com which is quite reputable so far as I know. It is paywalled, but I don't think those are banned from HN. I also mentioned that it is not my post, but your point #3 is written as if it's mine. As I mentioned in the reply to the first commenter, it was on the home page (obviously, due to the 15 points in 30 minutes, as I mentioned), and then was gone when I went back to find it. Is there any way to ping a mod to see why this might have happened? I don't think I can just write @dang or /u/dang, right?
- dylz 7y agoI would be unsurprised if it was also just downvoted a lot because the article is not readable without login.
- ijpsud 7y agoIf that were the case, wouldn't it have a low score? Instead of 17 votes? I regularly see theinformation.com posts highly upvoted on HN and as far as I know they're all paywalled. Also, it's not on the first 12 pages of the homepage, so there's basically no chance that this hypothesis could explain it, because it would have gotten down-voted to the second or at most third page, and then slowly drifted to later pages as the recent-ness component drags it down. Unless HN's algorithm is really different to Reddit's, that is.
- kick 7y agoThe actual reasoning has been listed already (you were close!), but I figure I might as well chime in to clear up a misconception: Posts can't be downvoted, only comments.
- dang 7y agoOf course you can! Email us at hn@ycombinator.com. As I explained above, that would have been much better. The answer to your question was as simple as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22708065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22708065, but when people bring questions like this up in the threads I feel obliged to write an explanation from first principles.