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> This is an interesting and in-depth article that was inappropriately flagged. I've switched off the flags. Consider that people are not flagging it because "

> This is an interesting and in-depth article that was inappropriately flagged. I've switched off the flags. Consider that people are not flagging it because "it's a follow up article", but because a) it's Bloomberg, ergo hard to believe b) it's the seven billionth "minorities in tech" story in the past month c) it's not going to create an interesting comment section d) they don't find it as interesting as you do. It's your site of course, but if "moderators build the front page" is the new modus operandi, I'll be disappointed.

dang 6y ago
I don't think any of these arguments works in this case. (a) HN has had many good submissions from bloomberg.com (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=bloomberg.com%20points%3E30&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). We go by article quality, not site quality (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%20%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). There's nothing hard to believe about this article. If there were, the solution would be to provide correct information or specific counterarguments. Obviously we're not going to ban bloomberg.com. (b) I addressed this point thoroughly in the comment you're replying to. (c) You probably shouldn't complain about the comment section's interestingness while contributing to lowering it. It remains to be seen how interesting this thread will end up being. One reason we try to focus on the most substantive articles is that they usually lead to better comments. (d) Plenty of users, to judge by upvotes, find this article interesting. Those who flagged it presumably didn't. The tug of war between upvotes and flags is one of the axes around which HN turns. It works surprisingly well, but it's not perfect. It has failure modes, and human intervention is the only way to address them. (e) HN is a moderated/curated/however you want to call it kind of site. It always has been. HN's system is built out of three subsystems: the community, the software, and moderation. They interact in complex feedback loops. All three are necessary and all three have their limits.
- luckylion 6y ago
  You'll probably see that the Bloomberg articles you reference are news reports, not original research/opinion. Don't forget that Bloomberg regularly and knowingly spreads literal fake news, for example the whole "Huawei bugged Vodafone's equipment" debacle.
  - dang 6y ago
    This article is original reporting. They interviewed 20 black tech leaders. The people they're quoting could hardly be more credible. There are just as many reasons to dismiss every other large media outlet. You may have a bee in your bloomberg bonnet, but there are just as many bees in NYT bonnets and all the other bonnets. Obviously we're not going to ban all those sites; what we're going to do instead, hopefully, is pick the best articles and discuss them thoughtfully. Shallow/generic site dismissals aren't that, so please stop.
  - rvz 6y ago
    Also don't forget the 'fake news' reported by Bloomberg on Apple and Amazon server spy chips: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17936968/apple-amazon-deny-servers-chinese-spy-chips https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17936968/apple-amazon-den...
AlexandrB 6y ago
> they don't find it as interesting as you do I thought the remedy for this was not upvoting rather than flagging.
kgraves 6y ago
s/hackernews/dangnews/
- dang 6y ago
  I understand the impression, but the truth is that no one knows how to make a forum that runs without moderation/curation while remaining interesting and surviving growth. I wish we did; it would be awesome. I could work on the code instead of writing tedious comments and getting accused of opposite things by angry people. If it makes you feel any better, I'm always looking for ways to relax control and intervene less, partly because control and intervention are work, and partly because I like the Tao Te Ching. I wrote about this point upthread too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23543970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23543970, particularly the last bit.
  - pstuart 6y ago
    dang, as the recipient of admonishments from you, I can only say: thank you. Your work ensures this site retains its high value. That may read as a suck-up but it's genuine gratitude -- this is my go-to site and the value comes from the dialog here, far more than the articles themselves.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
wbronitsky 6y ago
> b) it's the seven billionth "minorities in tech" story in the past month I would urge people to stop and question that if they are tired of the "billion"s of stories about BIPOC, what must BIPOC be feeling about their systemic erasure from many facets of our society, including journalism and entrepreneurship. This article allows us to think about and discuss those issues. The article is not hard to believe, is one of substance that I find interesting, and the content of the comment section is not the only arbiter of what should go on Hacker News. I would suggest that Occam's Razor is a better tool here; a small number of people who want to silence the idea the article presents are trying to silence it.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > I would urge people to stop and question that if they are tired of the "billion"s of stories about BIPOC, what must BIPOC be feeling about their systemic erasure from many facets of our society, including journalism and entrepreneurship. That's not an argument, I believe. I'm sure some white supremacist can drown you in a torrent of "White Genocide" articles, but that doesn't make it any more real. I'm not going to argue any of it though, I don't want to get banned, and this is a topic where HN is too much like Reddit at the moment. The Powers That Be have decided that it's what is supposed to be seen: so be it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- olivermarks 6y ago
  What's BIPOC?
  - olivermarks 6y ago
    I looked it up - according to the NYT 'black, indigenous people of color'. Based on this shouldn't the correct wording for 'black lives matter' be 'BIPOC lives matter'? Surely people of color and indigenous people are taking offense at this?
duxup 6y ago
> because a) it's Bloomberg, ergo hard to believe I don't buy into this theory that all Bloomberg content must be difficult to believe by default. There have been bad articles but I don't see a reason to automatically discount all articles.
baq 6y ago
> It's your site of course, but if "moderators build the front page" is the new modus operandi, I'll be disappointed. uh. nothing new about it. it makes this site great.

dang 6y ago

I don't think any of these arguments works in this case. (a) HN has had many good submissions from bloomberg.com (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=bloomberg.com%20points%3E30&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). We go by article quality, not site quality (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%20%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). There's nothing hard to believe about this article. If there were, the solution would be to provide correct information or specific counterarguments. Obviously we're not going to ban bloomberg.com. (b) I addressed this point thoroughly in the comment you're replying to. (c) You probably shouldn't complain about the comment section's interestingness while contributing to lowering it. It remains to be seen how interesting this thread will end up being. One reason we try to focus on the most substantive articles is that they usually lead to better comments. (d) Plenty of users, to judge by upvotes, find this article interesting. Those who flagged it presumably didn't. The tug of war between upvotes and flags is one of the axes around which HN turns. It works surprisingly well, but it's not perfect. It has failure modes, and human intervention is the only way to address them. (e) HN is a moderated/curated/however you want to call it kind of site. It always has been. HN's system is built out of three subsystems: the community, the software, and moderation. They interact in complex feedback loops. All three are necessary and all three have their limits.

luckylion 6y ago
You'll probably see that the Bloomberg articles you reference are news reports, not original research/opinion. Don't forget that Bloomberg regularly and knowingly spreads literal fake news, for example the whole "Huawei bugged Vodafone's equipment" debacle.
- dang 6y ago
  This article is original reporting. They interviewed 20 black tech leaders. The people they're quoting could hardly be more credible. There are just as many reasons to dismiss every other large media outlet. You may have a bee in your bloomberg bonnet, but there are just as many bees in NYT bonnets and all the other bonnets. Obviously we're not going to ban all those sites; what we're going to do instead, hopefully, is pick the best articles and discuss them thoughtfully. Shallow/generic site dismissals aren't that, so please stop.
- rvz 6y ago
  Also don't forget the 'fake news' reported by Bloomberg on Apple and Amazon server spy chips: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17936968/apple-amazon-deny-servers-chinese-spy-chips https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17936968/apple-amazon-den...

AlexandrB 6y ago

> they don't find it as interesting as you do I thought the remedy for this was not upvoting rather than flagging.

kgraves 6y ago

s/hackernews/dangnews/

dang 6y ago
I understand the impression, but the truth is that no one knows how to make a forum that runs without moderation/curation while remaining interesting and surviving growth. I wish we did; it would be awesome. I could work on the code instead of writing tedious comments and getting accused of opposite things by angry people. If it makes you feel any better, I'm always looking for ways to relax control and intervene less, partly because control and intervention are work, and partly because I like the Tao Te Ching. I wrote about this point upthread too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23543970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23543970, particularly the last bit.
- pstuart 6y ago
  dang, as the recipient of admonishments from you, I can only say: thank you. Your work ensures this site retains its high value. That may read as a suck-up but it's genuine gratitude -- this is my go-to site and the value comes from the dialog here, far more than the articles themselves.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

wbronitsky 6y ago

> b) it's the seven billionth "minorities in tech" story in the past month I would urge people to stop and question that if they are tired of the "billion"s of stories about BIPOC, what must BIPOC be feeling about their systemic erasure from many facets of our society, including journalism and entrepreneurship. This article allows us to think about and discuss those issues. The article is not hard to believe, is one of substance that I find interesting, and the content of the comment section is not the only arbiter of what should go on Hacker News. I would suggest that Occam's Razor is a better tool here; a small number of people who want to silence the idea the article presents are trying to silence it.

luckylion 6y ago
> I would urge people to stop and question that if they are tired of the "billion"s of stories about BIPOC, what must BIPOC be feeling about their systemic erasure from many facets of our society, including journalism and entrepreneurship. That's not an argument, I believe. I'm sure some white supremacist can drown you in a torrent of "White Genocide" articles, but that doesn't make it any more real. I'm not going to argue any of it though, I don't want to get banned, and this is a topic where HN is too much like Reddit at the moment. The Powers That Be have decided that it's what is supposed to be seen: so be it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
olivermarks 6y ago
What's BIPOC?
- olivermarks 6y ago
  I looked it up - according to the NYT 'black, indigenous people of color'. Based on this shouldn't the correct wording for 'black lives matter' be 'BIPOC lives matter'? Surely people of color and indigenous people are taking offense at this?

duxup 6y ago

> because a) it's Bloomberg, ergo hard to believe I don't buy into this theory that all Bloomberg content must be difficult to believe by default. There have been bad articles but I don't see a reason to automatically discount all articles.

baq 6y ago

> It's your site of course, but if "moderators build the front page" is the new modus operandi, I'll be disappointed. uh. nothing new about it. it makes this site great.