5 ms·

Out of curiosity, why did HN bury that last one, with 555 points and 262 comments, eight pages down within twelve hours? Freenode and irc are of considerable in

Out of curiosity, why did HN bury that last one, with 555 points and 262 comments, eight pages down within twelve hours? Freenode and irc are of considerable interest to the hacker community.

eklitzke 5y ago
Did you read the first comment in the thread? It pointed to a draft announcement that was not intended for public release.
- ben0x539 5y ago
  Seems tricky. Surely the 262 comments were intended to be public.
  - aeturnum 5y ago
    I mean, clearly they are public since we are all looking at them. I think this is a good reaction to accidentally publishing information that was intended to be private. Nothing is deleted, but you stop telling new people about it. People who already know can keep reading and talking.
    - wrycoder 5y ago
      In that case, I'd say bury it right away, not many hours later after it had collected hundreds of comments.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- wrycoder 5y ago
  Yes, it was an unintentional leak. That was obvious. What was more interesting - as is usually the case - was the HN discussion, from which I learned a lot.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    When something that isn’t final or certain reaches the FP (such as rumors, predictions, or leaked drafts), the mods will often quash the post for being such, even when for example it’s an Apple rumors post with hundreds of comments. I’ve seen occasional exceptions to this, primarily when it’s lawmaking or RFC-type work, as those drafts are quite often newsworthy. A leaked FYIQ draft from an IRC admin wouldn’t have registered to me as newsworthy, not until it was published, so I would have made the same decision the mods did.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I do not think HN should be the judge of whether a public webpage is intended as a draft. Certainly if it stays up after being covered.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Once it's out of the bag, all over reddit etc., might as well let the conversation continue.
randomcoward 5y ago
Oh honey....do you not know who is behind Hacker News? Peter "fascist" Thiel. You think this apple is free n far from the tree?
- dang 5y ago
  Huh? Peter Thiel has nothing to do with HN and never has. I'm surprised you think anyone would fall for that.
dang 5y ago
We downweighted the thread as soon as we became aware that the text was a draft that wasn't intended to be public. There were two possibilities: either (1) it would become public soon enough, in which case there would be the chance for a big HN discussion then, and there's no harm in waiting (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...) or (2) it was a false alarm, in which case it probably didn't count as significant, besides which none of us would want our private drafts on sensitive topics circulating on internet forums. Life took path (1) as we all know, and so this has been the most-discussed story on HN in the last couple days, including being at #1 on the front page all day today, and still.

Out of curiosity, why did HN bury that last one, with 555 points and 262 comments, eight pages down within twelve hours? Freenode and irc are of considerable interest to the hacker community.

eklitzke 5y ago

Did you read the first comment in the thread? It pointed to a draft announcement that was not intended for public release.

ben0x539 5y ago
Seems tricky. Surely the 262 comments were intended to be public.
- aeturnum 5y ago
  I mean, clearly they are public since we are all looking at them. I think this is a good reaction to accidentally publishing information that was intended to be private. Nothing is deleted, but you stop telling new people about it. People who already know can keep reading and talking.
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    In that case, I'd say bury it right away, not many hours later after it had collected hundreds of comments.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
wrycoder 5y ago
Yes, it was an unintentional leak. That was obvious. What was more interesting - as is usually the case - was the HN discussion, from which I learned a lot.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  When something that isn’t final or certain reaches the FP (such as rumors, predictions, or leaked drafts), the mods will often quash the post for being such, even when for example it’s an Apple rumors post with hundreds of comments. I’ve seen occasional exceptions to this, primarily when it’s lawmaking or RFC-type work, as those drafts are quite often newsworthy. A leaked FYIQ draft from an IRC admin wouldn’t have registered to me as newsworthy, not until it was published, so I would have made the same decision the mods did.
Aeolun 5y ago
I do not think HN should be the judge of whether a public webpage is intended as a draft. Certainly if it stays up after being covered.
ineedasername 5y ago
Once it's out of the bag, all over reddit etc., might as well let the conversation continue.

randomcoward 5y ago

Oh honey....do you not know who is behind Hacker News? Peter "fascist" Thiel. You think this apple is free n far from the tree?

dang 5y ago
Huh? Peter Thiel has nothing to do with HN and never has. I'm surprised you think anyone would fall for that.

dang 5y ago

We downweighted the thread as soon as we became aware that the text was a draft that wasn't intended to be public. There were two possibilities: either (1) it would become public soon enough, in which case there would be the chance for a big HN discussion then, and there's no harm in waiting (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...) or (2) it was a false alarm, in which case it probably didn't count as significant, besides which none of us would want our private drafts on sensitive topics circulating on internet forums. Life took path (1) as we all know, and so this has been the most-discussed story on HN in the last couple days, including being at #1 on the front page all day today, and still.