5 ms·

This post had 40 points within 20 minutes, which is the reading time of the article at 200 WPM plus a minute or two for figures. How many of those upvotes were

This post had 40 points within 20 minutes, which is the reading time of the article at 200 WPM plus a minute or two for figures. How many of those upvotes were from people who didn't read or who skimmed the article?

hermitdev 5y ago
I read the article, then up voted. On refresh it was buried. I had to find it via my upvoted submissions. In my opinion, the immediate flagging is a symptom of the hostility of even discussing the origins, lab leak or not.
- PennRobotics 5y ago
  I agree on the hostility, and I also hadn't flagged. I wanted to see how the post evolved as I read the article and looked into each linked source's motivations, so I made a note of the points (14 after 10 minutes) specifically because I felt there would be a lot of biased discussion. The instant popularity of the post could have three factors: multiple votes from one source, individuals already well-versed in disease propagation and clandestine government action who support more visibility in the post, and people who believe the post could have merit without actually putting a great deal of their own research into the sources. I'm in the fourth camp: agnostics. That's why I haven't contributed to the popularity of the post. However, two years of hearing about this disease does a lot to build resent for armchair epidemiologists.
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    Here's a fourth factor: people upvoting before reading it (but possibly after skimming it or being aware of it's context) in order to keep it highly ranked (which is score + time sensitive) in order to trigger HN discussing the subject. I was in that camp before it got flagged.
- daxuak 5y ago
  I read, had a bunch things to argue about, and came back to find it flagged. IMO it's a terrible blog post and I regret reading it. But man, the flagging was... fast.
mandmandam 5y ago
I read it, came back happy to upvote, and saw that it was flagged. And I wasn't surprised. That's a wild state of affairs. .. And it looks like I wasn't the only one.
howaboutnope 5y ago
I often upvote articles I find interesting enough I want to see a discussion of them on HN. To me it doesn't mean every word of an article is perfect and above criticism, it just means it's IMO interesting and of substance enough to warrant discussion. In this case I took my time fully reading it before posting it, but not being a biotech person I posted this here also because I was interested in criticism of flaws I would have no chance of not overlooking. But just flagging it isn't that. It doesn't tell me this article is bad, it tells me too many people aren't acting in good faith, so that raises the question why that is. Trying to turn it around on others by speculating on what they might have done (i.e. why they upvoted it, if they read it), doesn't change what was definitely done (i.e. flagging it without any substantial criticism).
- Sevaris 5y ago
  Same here. I skimmed parts of the beginning, then upvoted because I found it interesting. I don't feel we should be squashing everything that might challenge our existing beliefs just because. Then HN would just be like every other awful social media site out there. If people have substantive problems with the article, they should articulate them as comments instead of blindly flagging something and hoping nobody ever has the opportunity to think about it.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Agreed on this. I read the article before looking at comments (now 8-9 hours after it was posted), and thought "hmm, ok, I'm skeptical, but these seem to be pretty strong arguments". I was pleased to come here to the comments to find strong counter-arguments, many of which are things I wouldn't have considered due to lack of expertise here. So I'm glad it got enough votes and stuck around long enough for serious discussion. (For the record, I still do believe the various lab-leak theories have legs, and should be discussed and investigated, even if this particular article ends up being unconvincing.)
kelnos 5y ago
Given how quickly it was flagged, it feels like many/most of the flaggers didn't read it either, and just had a knee-jerk reaction to the headline.

hermitdev 5y ago

I read the article, then up voted. On refresh it was buried. I had to find it via my upvoted submissions. In my opinion, the immediate flagging is a symptom of the hostility of even discussing the origins, lab leak or not.

PennRobotics 5y ago
I agree on the hostility, and I also hadn't flagged. I wanted to see how the post evolved as I read the article and looked into each linked source's motivations, so I made a note of the points (14 after 10 minutes) specifically because I felt there would be a lot of biased discussion. The instant popularity of the post could have three factors: multiple votes from one source, individuals already well-versed in disease propagation and clandestine government action who support more visibility in the post, and people who believe the post could have merit without actually putting a great deal of their own research into the sources. I'm in the fourth camp: agnostics. That's why I haven't contributed to the popularity of the post. However, two years of hearing about this disease does a lot to build resent for armchair epidemiologists.
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  Here's a fourth factor: people upvoting before reading it (but possibly after skimming it or being aware of it's context) in order to keep it highly ranked (which is score + time sensitive) in order to trigger HN discussing the subject. I was in that camp before it got flagged.
daxuak 5y ago
I read, had a bunch things to argue about, and came back to find it flagged. IMO it's a terrible blog post and I regret reading it. But man, the flagging was... fast.

mandmandam 5y ago

I read it, came back happy to upvote, and saw that it was flagged. And I wasn't surprised. That's a wild state of affairs. .. And it looks like I wasn't the only one.

howaboutnope 5y ago

I often upvote articles I find interesting enough I want to see a discussion of them on HN. To me it doesn't mean every word of an article is perfect and above criticism, it just means it's IMO interesting and of substance enough to warrant discussion. In this case I took my time fully reading it before posting it, but not being a biotech person I posted this here also because I was interested in criticism of flaws I would have no chance of not overlooking. But just flagging it isn't that. It doesn't tell me this article is bad, it tells me too many people aren't acting in good faith, so that raises the question why that is. Trying to turn it around on others by speculating on what they might have done (i.e. why they upvoted it, if they read it), doesn't change what was definitely done (i.e. flagging it without any substantial criticism).

Sevaris 5y ago
Same here. I skimmed parts of the beginning, then upvoted because I found it interesting. I don't feel we should be squashing everything that might challenge our existing beliefs just because. Then HN would just be like every other awful social media site out there. If people have substantive problems with the article, they should articulate them as comments instead of blindly flagging something and hoping nobody ever has the opportunity to think about it.
kelnos 5y ago
Agreed on this. I read the article before looking at comments (now 8-9 hours after it was posted), and thought "hmm, ok, I'm skeptical, but these seem to be pretty strong arguments". I was pleased to come here to the comments to find strong counter-arguments, many of which are things I wouldn't have considered due to lack of expertise here. So I'm glad it got enough votes and stuck around long enough for serious discussion. (For the record, I still do believe the various lab-leak theories have legs, and should be discussed and investigated, even if this particular article ends up being unconvincing.)

kelnos 5y ago

Given how quickly it was flagged, it feels like many/most of the flaggers didn't read it either, and just had a knee-jerk reaction to the headline.