4 ms·

They would have to start by not demoting submissions with comment threads that explore this issue. This submission from 6 hours ago with 124 upvotes and 212 com

They would have to start by not demoting submissions with comment threads that explore this issue. This submission from 6 hours ago with 124 upvotes and 212 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23568095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23568095) is not showing up in the first 120 items on Hacker News and I have no idea why. I've posted in a few places asking @dang to explain and I'm just getting downvoted. Extremely troubling. EDIT: I just got up to submission 270 and still don't see it. That submission has almost certainly been hidden somehow to prevent further discovery. EDIT 2: I highly suspect Apple is somehow putting pressure on HN to do this. The way these submissions are being 'controlled' is really disturbing. And it would make perfect sense for Apple to try and control discussion on HN. We basically destroyed TripleByte in just the past month. Anything scandalous affecting developers can turn into a company-melting shitstorm via HN.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
LegitShady 6y ago
This site is heavily moderated (read: manipulated) by its owners/mods, and I expect censorship for anything that might threaten their business relationships or cause controversy they don't want. It's more restrictive than reddit today, let alone reddit when it blew up. I'm not sure to what extent the narratives here are organic or not.
- rising-sky 6y ago
  I'm sorry but I don't think it is helpful to make claims like this without presenting evidence, otherwise it's just an assumption, which is fodder for unfounded conspiracy theories, which again is not really constructive. It reminds me of a saying: "people criticize what they don't understand"
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    I understand it, I just dont think there's a purpose in arguing control of a platform they own. This site is heavily manipulated, the moderation is heavy, and censorship (things disappearing) make it hard to present evidence, just like the post in question 'disappeared' until it suddenly appeared. It only changes how you should perceive the site, it doesn't change anything else. Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. This is a great place to talk about computer stuff, but I don't believe any narratives here are organic by default.
    - ohyeshedid 6y ago
      You could try setting 'showdead' to yes, then you can see content that's been downvoted, flagged, dead, and/or bans. The vast majority of moderation on HN is from users, not the mods.
      - LegitShady 6y ago
        any censorship systems in place to protect the company could easily circumvent that setting. I understand that there is user moderation, but I also understand that doesn't mean anything about top down censorship.
    - dang 6y ago
      > Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. Now I'm starting to get a little irritated. I know this is the internet, but do you really think it's ok to accuse people of outright corruption based on literally nothing? Would you like to be smeared in that way? Not only do we take great pains never to do anything of that nature, it is literally the first principle of HN moderation to do the opposite: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... What you're alleging would be both wrong and dumb. The good faith of the HN community is the only asset that YC has in HN. If that goes, the whole thing collapses. Why would we risk that? Taking the greatest care with it that we can is our #1 responsibility. Personally I wouldn't want this job if I had to do it any other way. Another commenter in this thread made insinuations of this nature while mentioning the Triplebyte controversy from a couple weeks ago, apparently without noticing that it's a perfect counterexample to all of this.
- dang 6y ago
  You can say moderated, manipulated, curated, censored - people just choose between these words depending on how they feel. None of this is secret, or new. HN has always been a curated site. I've posted about all this countless times and answered countless emails. No one has any trouble getting their questions answered if they actually want a real answer. We don't moderate HN with specific business interests in mind because that would make it less valuable. HN's value to YC is simply in being as good/interesting as possible, because that's what keeps the community happy. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That's the main point, but really, you'd have to reach deep into the pool of imagination to fish out any specific business interest in moderating this story in the first place. What a bizarre discussion.
kevingadd 6y ago
Posts getting demoted can and will happen "automatically" if users flag the post when they see it on the main page. It's not uncommon for people to flag stuff they dislike and there are plenty of Apple fans on HN. It's not a conspiracy, it's just user moderation in action. This happens frequently with news and current events if people don't want to see discussion of it.
- realtalk_sp 6y ago
  The other half of that coin is HN choosing to restore posts that have been flagged unnecessarily. That doesn't seem to be happening. It may not be a conspiracy but it's definitely still a problem.
mdoms 6y ago
This is interesting, I came to HN to find a discussion on the Hey news and was surprised I couldn't find anything.
hckr_news 6y ago
The Hckrnews client might be a better experience and stories aren't hidden
grzm 6y ago
> "I've posted in a few places asking @dang" The most effective way to get in touch with the moderators is to email them via the Contact link in the footer.
rydre 6y ago
Exactly YC and HackerNews are intentionally suppressing the news. Or maybe their "algorithm", but when developers are frustrated, they should atleast rank these stories fairly.
laser 6y ago
Since none of the six responses to this comment so far have the correct explanation, here you go: HN's ranking algorithm automatically heavily penalizes posts with high comment to upvote ratios, to stop presumed "flame wars". This system is imperfect and often removes interesting discussions, but they keep it in place anyways as it usually is flame warring that is suppressed. This system kicks into high gear and then progressively penalizes further as comment totals exceed upvote totals (or thereabouts).
dang 6y ago
> I highly suspect Apple is somehow putting pressure on HN to do this. On the internet, "highly suspect" is a synonym for "entirely imagine". That is not happening. Nothing remotely resembling it is happening. Nothing remotely resembling anything like it has, to my knowledge, ever happened. People imagine whatever they want about these things and rush to post breathlessly about them, but the truth is boring. laser's explanation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570990) is correct. Since your speculation was obviously refuted by the very submission you posted it to, I think we could have been spared this offtopicness. I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570530 now.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

LegitShady 6y ago

This site is heavily moderated (read: manipulated) by its owners/mods, and I expect censorship for anything that might threaten their business relationships or cause controversy they don't want. It's more restrictive than reddit today, let alone reddit when it blew up. I'm not sure to what extent the narratives here are organic or not.

rising-sky 6y ago
I'm sorry but I don't think it is helpful to make claims like this without presenting evidence, otherwise it's just an assumption, which is fodder for unfounded conspiracy theories, which again is not really constructive. It reminds me of a saying: "people criticize what they don't understand"
- LegitShady 6y ago
  I understand it, I just dont think there's a purpose in arguing control of a platform they own. This site is heavily manipulated, the moderation is heavy, and censorship (things disappearing) make it hard to present evidence, just like the post in question 'disappeared' until it suddenly appeared. It only changes how you should perceive the site, it doesn't change anything else. Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. This is a great place to talk about computer stuff, but I don't believe any narratives here are organic by default.
  - ohyeshedid 6y ago
    You could try setting 'showdead' to yes, then you can see content that's been downvoted, flagged, dead, and/or bans. The vast majority of moderation on HN is from users, not the mods.
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      any censorship systems in place to protect the company could easily circumvent that setting. I understand that there is user moderation, but I also understand that doesn't mean anything about top down censorship.
  - dang 6y ago
    > Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. Now I'm starting to get a little irritated. I know this is the internet, but do you really think it's ok to accuse people of outright corruption based on literally nothing? Would you like to be smeared in that way? Not only do we take great pains never to do anything of that nature, it is literally the first principle of HN moderation to do the opposite: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... What you're alleging would be both wrong and dumb. The good faith of the HN community is the only asset that YC has in HN. If that goes, the whole thing collapses. Why would we risk that? Taking the greatest care with it that we can is our #1 responsibility. Personally I wouldn't want this job if I had to do it any other way. Another commenter in this thread made insinuations of this nature while mentioning the Triplebyte controversy from a couple weeks ago, apparently without noticing that it's a perfect counterexample to all of this.
dang 6y ago
You can say moderated, manipulated, curated, censored - people just choose between these words depending on how they feel. None of this is secret, or new. HN has always been a curated site. I've posted about all this countless times and answered countless emails. No one has any trouble getting their questions answered if they actually want a real answer. We don't moderate HN with specific business interests in mind because that would make it less valuable. HN's value to YC is simply in being as good/interesting as possible, because that's what keeps the community happy. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That's the main point, but really, you'd have to reach deep into the pool of imagination to fish out any specific business interest in moderating this story in the first place. What a bizarre discussion.

kevingadd 6y ago

Posts getting demoted can and will happen "automatically" if users flag the post when they see it on the main page. It's not uncommon for people to flag stuff they dislike and there are plenty of Apple fans on HN. It's not a conspiracy, it's just user moderation in action. This happens frequently with news and current events if people don't want to see discussion of it.

realtalk_sp 6y ago
The other half of that coin is HN choosing to restore posts that have been flagged unnecessarily. That doesn't seem to be happening. It may not be a conspiracy but it's definitely still a problem.

mdoms 6y ago

This is interesting, I came to HN to find a discussion on the Hey news and was surprised I couldn't find anything.

hckr_news 6y ago

The Hckrnews client might be a better experience and stories aren't hidden

grzm 6y ago

> "I've posted in a few places asking @dang" The most effective way to get in touch with the moderators is to email them via the Contact link in the footer.

rydre 6y ago

Exactly YC and HackerNews are intentionally suppressing the news. Or maybe their "algorithm", but when developers are frustrated, they should atleast rank these stories fairly.

laser 6y ago

Since none of the six responses to this comment so far have the correct explanation, here you go: HN's ranking algorithm automatically heavily penalizes posts with high comment to upvote ratios, to stop presumed "flame wars". This system is imperfect and often removes interesting discussions, but they keep it in place anyways as it usually is flame warring that is suppressed. This system kicks into high gear and then progressively penalizes further as comment totals exceed upvote totals (or thereabouts).

dang 6y ago

> I highly suspect Apple is somehow putting pressure on HN to do this. On the internet, "highly suspect" is a synonym for "entirely imagine". That is not happening. Nothing remotely resembling it is happening. Nothing remotely resembling anything like it has, to my knowledge, ever happened. People imagine whatever they want about these things and rush to post breathlessly about them, but the truth is boring. laser's explanation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570990) is correct. Since your speculation was obviously refuted by the very submission you posted it to, I think we could have been spared this offtopicness. I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23570530 now.