4 ms·

This thread (23 points in ~30 mins) has disappeared from the frontpage, exactly as the previous, now flagged thread did at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=

This thread (23 points in ~30 mins) has disappeared from the frontpage, exactly as the previous, now flagged thread did at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26554697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26554697 Dear HN users, if you flagged this or the previous thread, what was your reasoning? I'm curious about what's going on.

curtisblaine 6y ago
As the other one, this will be included in today's HN Rejected Newsletter: https://rejected.substack.com/ https://rejected.substack.com/
- dang 6y ago
  One thing that people who compile these lists never seem to take into account is that the flagged discussions are only interesting to the extent that HN remains an interesting community, and that would not be the case if the site weren't moderated and users didn't flag off-topic submissions and flamewars. The better HN does at fulfilling its mandate, the higher-quality the audience becomes, and the more people want to use it for other things (usually a marketing agenda or a political/ideological agenda). Often these people complain that the site isn't available to them for these purposes and demand that the filtration system be dismantled (censorship! suppression!). But if the filtration system didn't exist, HN wouldn't be a desirable target in the first place. It would in fact suck, because the best users—who come here to avoid getting barraged by marketing and political/ideological agendas—would have left. In other words, if you understand the dynamics correctly then these arguments refute themselves.
  - esja 6y ago
    Firstly, thank you for doing such a great job here. A couple of questions, as I worry that "flagging" can be abused by small groups of motivated people who are not representative of the broader user base. Do you have ways to prevent "flagging abuse"? e.g. Do you review why things were flagged, and reinstate them if for example the thread has a lot of upvotes and isn't a total flamewar, or if the flaggers weren't particularly good citizens?
    - dang 6y ago
      Yes, we review flagged posts. I wouldn't say we review why things get flagged, exactly, because we can only guess at that. But we try to keep an eye on things and turn flags off when the article seems substantive and able to support a substantive discussion. We also rely on users giving us heads-ups at hn@ycombinator.com when they think we should take a closer look at a thread. Most stories and threads that get enough flags to win the tug-of-war against upvotes are just not very good or on topic for HN. Partisans of one side or the other on an issue tend to feel strongly about it, but the bulk of the audience is here for interesting things to read, and the site has a very clear mandate that way: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor..., https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. So most of the time, when people feel strongly that a story shouldn't be flagged, we end up disappointing them; fighting these battles is not really what HN is for. Still, there are fairly frequent exceptions. I should add that when an account has a habit of flagging submissions that are on-topic and good submissions for HN, we eventually take away their flagging privileges.
      - esja 6y ago
        Thanks very much for the detailed reply. That all sounds very sensible! I'm sure most of us would agree that the quality of the moderation here is the reason this site has been so great for so long - thanks again for all your efforts.
  - vesinisa 6y ago
    Firstly, thank you for keeping the site's standards high. The embarrassing amount of time I spent here is a testament to that. I feel like posting this story was warranted as it appears to be about a possible conflict of interest and abuse of power by a Reddit employee. Reddit normally takes a hands-off approach to everyday goings of the community. What we're being told by the volunteer community mods is rather worrying, and clearly an arbitrary and unwarranted use of the site's doxxing rule against a single mod - and by extension the entire community. This is rather unprecedented and warrants more scrutiny. I am afraid people only see keywords like "politics", "transgender" and "moderation policy" and assume it's some sad Reddit flamewar leaking to HN. But it's not about that, not at all. It rather sounds similar to the case where Jimbo Wales abused his admin powers on Wikipedia to suppress information about his girlfriend's criminal activities.
    - dang 6y ago
      Well, maybe. I mean you guys know all the details and I don't, but (a) I haven't seen a lot of (if any?) intellectually interesting conversation about this, and (b) that matches my gut feeling that the story, while intensely sensational, is of secondary significance.
  - curtisblaine 6y ago
    Wait, I'm not making any argument here. I personally think that the wonderful moderation of HN generates, as a byproduct, very interesting (if controversial) threads, which deserve to be collected somewhere. These lists are not necessarily a critique to the moderation of this site, IMHO.
    - dang 6y ago
      Gotcha. I tend to assume the worst in such cases—sorry!
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Often these people complain that the site isn't available to them for these purposes and demand that the filtration system be dismantled (censorship! suppression!). But if the filtration system didn't exist, HN wouldn't be a desirable target in the first place. This makes obvious sense when the things getting flagged are the abortion debate or similarly off-topic flamewars. The problem comes when it's a story like tech censorship which is both on-topic and political. On-topic specifically in that it's a debate where the people here are directly affected and have a particular domain-specific knowledge and ability to affect change. The abortion debate you can go have anywhere. Because a site like this will out-compete others for its population demographic. The alternative space where the same demographic might discuss political stories with direct relevance to them is defeated and disappears, leaving only this space to do it in. If it's then stamped out in this space too, there is nowhere left and the population demographic here is effectively disenfranchised. And it goes double when the topic of conversation is censorship and manipulation of speech on major platforms, because having the discussion on the incumbent platforms would subject the anti-censorship efforts to the censorship.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

curtisblaine 6y ago

As the other one, this will be included in today's HN Rejected Newsletter: https://rejected.substack.com/ https://rejected.substack.com/

dang 6y ago
One thing that people who compile these lists never seem to take into account is that the flagged discussions are only interesting to the extent that HN remains an interesting community, and that would not be the case if the site weren't moderated and users didn't flag off-topic submissions and flamewars. The better HN does at fulfilling its mandate, the higher-quality the audience becomes, and the more people want to use it for other things (usually a marketing agenda or a political/ideological agenda). Often these people complain that the site isn't available to them for these purposes and demand that the filtration system be dismantled (censorship! suppression!). But if the filtration system didn't exist, HN wouldn't be a desirable target in the first place. It would in fact suck, because the best users—who come here to avoid getting barraged by marketing and political/ideological agendas—would have left. In other words, if you understand the dynamics correctly then these arguments refute themselves.
- esja 6y ago
  Firstly, thank you for doing such a great job here. A couple of questions, as I worry that "flagging" can be abused by small groups of motivated people who are not representative of the broader user base. Do you have ways to prevent "flagging abuse"? e.g. Do you review why things were flagged, and reinstate them if for example the thread has a lot of upvotes and isn't a total flamewar, or if the flaggers weren't particularly good citizens?
  - dang 6y ago
    Yes, we review flagged posts. I wouldn't say we review why things get flagged, exactly, because we can only guess at that. But we try to keep an eye on things and turn flags off when the article seems substantive and able to support a substantive discussion. We also rely on users giving us heads-ups at hn@ycombinator.com when they think we should take a closer look at a thread. Most stories and threads that get enough flags to win the tug-of-war against upvotes are just not very good or on topic for HN. Partisans of one side or the other on an issue tend to feel strongly about it, but the bulk of the audience is here for interesting things to read, and the site has a very clear mandate that way: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor..., https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. So most of the time, when people feel strongly that a story shouldn't be flagged, we end up disappointing them; fighting these battles is not really what HN is for. Still, there are fairly frequent exceptions. I should add that when an account has a habit of flagging submissions that are on-topic and good submissions for HN, we eventually take away their flagging privileges.
    - esja 6y ago
      Thanks very much for the detailed reply. That all sounds very sensible! I'm sure most of us would agree that the quality of the moderation here is the reason this site has been so great for so long - thanks again for all your efforts.
- vesinisa 6y ago
  Firstly, thank you for keeping the site's standards high. The embarrassing amount of time I spent here is a testament to that. I feel like posting this story was warranted as it appears to be about a possible conflict of interest and abuse of power by a Reddit employee. Reddit normally takes a hands-off approach to everyday goings of the community. What we're being told by the volunteer community mods is rather worrying, and clearly an arbitrary and unwarranted use of the site's doxxing rule against a single mod - and by extension the entire community. This is rather unprecedented and warrants more scrutiny. I am afraid people only see keywords like "politics", "transgender" and "moderation policy" and assume it's some sad Reddit flamewar leaking to HN. But it's not about that, not at all. It rather sounds similar to the case where Jimbo Wales abused his admin powers on Wikipedia to suppress information about his girlfriend's criminal activities.
  - dang 6y ago
    Well, maybe. I mean you guys know all the details and I don't, but (a) I haven't seen a lot of (if any?) intellectually interesting conversation about this, and (b) that matches my gut feeling that the story, while intensely sensational, is of secondary significance.
- curtisblaine 6y ago
  Wait, I'm not making any argument here. I personally think that the wonderful moderation of HN generates, as a byproduct, very interesting (if controversial) threads, which deserve to be collected somewhere. These lists are not necessarily a critique to the moderation of this site, IMHO.
  - dang 6y ago
    Gotcha. I tend to assume the worst in such cases—sorry!
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > Often these people complain that the site isn't available to them for these purposes and demand that the filtration system be dismantled (censorship! suppression!). But if the filtration system didn't exist, HN wouldn't be a desirable target in the first place. This makes obvious sense when the things getting flagged are the abortion debate or similarly off-topic flamewars. The problem comes when it's a story like tech censorship which is both on-topic and political. On-topic specifically in that it's a debate where the people here are directly affected and have a particular domain-specific knowledge and ability to affect change. The abortion debate you can go have anywhere. Because a site like this will out-compete others for its population demographic. The alternative space where the same demographic might discuss political stories with direct relevance to them is defeated and disappears, leaving only this space to do it in. If it's then stamped out in this space too, there is nowhere left and the population demographic here is effectively disenfranchised. And it goes double when the topic of conversation is censorship and manipulation of speech on major platforms, because having the discussion on the incumbent platforms would subject the anti-censorship efforts to the censorship.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]