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Don't you think this is splitting hairs? i.e. "it's OK when WE do it." How is censorship "a political topic that intersects with tech", when Tech companies do i

Don't you think this is splitting hairs? i.e. "it's OK when WE do it." How is censorship "a political topic that intersects with tech", when Tech companies do it without being compelled by law? Your last paragraph, especially ("We could debate the merits of the specific articles") could charitably be called "weasel-wording." Yeah, we could debate the merits -- why don't we? A reasonable addendum to the flagging process would be for the moderator to disclose: 1. Who flagged it? 2. Why did I agree? An open question would be whether to disclose when the moderator does NOT agree.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Don't you think this is splitting hairs? No. > How is censorship "a political topic that intersects with tech", when Tech companies do it without being compelled by law? Censorship isn't technology. It's social. “Tech companies are among the actors in society that do it” is...well, mostly an artifact that certain media companies are called “tech companies” rather than “media companies”, but tech companies doing social things doesn't convert those social things into tech things. > Your last paragraph, especially ("We could debate the merits of the specific articles") could charitably be called "weasel-wording." Yeah, we could debate the merits -- why don't we? Because you, in debating the exclusion, chose to debate the relative merits of broad topics rather than specific articles. The reference wasn't general, it was to the specific thread. > A reasonable addendum to the flagging process would be for the moderator to disclose: > 1. Who flagged it? > 2. Why did I agree? No, it wouldn't. One, because HN is community moderated; flags aren't necessarily reviewed at all. Two, because this adds nothing of value, just more distracting meta. If you want to challenge flags, you can email the mods. If you want to discuss an article that has been rejected by HN, you have the rest of the internet, as well as a variety of offline discussion venues. > An open question would be whether to disclose when the moderator does NOT agree. If a mod reviews flagged articles and doesn't agree with them being flagged, they aren't flagged any more (usually, there will be an explanation posted as a comment in the thread when this occurs.)
- UIUC_06 5y ago
  > Because you, in debating the exclusion, chose to debate the relative merits of broad topics rather than specific articles. The reference wasn't general, it was to the specific thread. I'll take "Weasel Wording" for $800, Alex. As for your advice on challenging flags, the motive is certainly there to follow this procedure: 1. Flag a submission early in the morning, before anyone's had a chance to vote on it. 2. Commenting is unavailable to most people for most of the day. 3. If and when it gets unflagged, everyone's moved on. 4. Enhanced downvoting! If you say no one's doing this: be transparent and prove it.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    It would seem to me that the burden of proof here is on you. And you should be able to prove it, if it's happening. Write a script that looks at the first N pages of the "New" listings. Count the number of posts that are flagged. Run the script every hour. After a few days, you should be able to either support or disprove your hypothesis.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Don't you think this is splitting hairs? No. > How is censorship "a political topic that intersects with tech", when Tech companies do it without being compelled by law? Censorship isn't technology. It's social. “Tech companies are among the actors in society that do it” is...well, mostly an artifact that certain media companies are called “tech companies” rather than “media companies”, but tech companies doing social things doesn't convert those social things into tech things. > Your last paragraph, especially ("We could debate the merits of the specific articles") could charitably be called "weasel-wording." Yeah, we could debate the merits -- why don't we? Because you, in debating the exclusion, chose to debate the relative merits of broad topics rather than specific articles. The reference wasn't general, it was to the specific thread. > A reasonable addendum to the flagging process would be for the moderator to disclose: > 1. Who flagged it? > 2. Why did I agree? No, it wouldn't. One, because HN is community moderated; flags aren't necessarily reviewed at all. Two, because this adds nothing of value, just more distracting meta. If you want to challenge flags, you can email the mods. If you want to discuss an article that has been rejected by HN, you have the rest of the internet, as well as a variety of offline discussion venues. > An open question would be whether to disclose when the moderator does NOT agree. If a mod reviews flagged articles and doesn't agree with them being flagged, they aren't flagged any more (usually, there will be an explanation posted as a comment in the thread when this occurs.)

UIUC_06 5y ago
> Because you, in debating the exclusion, chose to debate the relative merits of broad topics rather than specific articles. The reference wasn't general, it was to the specific thread. I'll take "Weasel Wording" for $800, Alex. As for your advice on challenging flags, the motive is certainly there to follow this procedure: 1. Flag a submission early in the morning, before anyone's had a chance to vote on it. 2. Commenting is unavailable to most people for most of the day. 3. If and when it gets unflagged, everyone's moved on. 4. Enhanced downvoting! If you say no one's doing this: be transparent and prove it.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  It would seem to me that the burden of proof here is on you. And you should be able to prove it, if it's happening. Write a script that looks at the first N pages of the "New" listings. Count the number of posts that are flagged. Run the script every hour. After a few days, you should be able to either support or disprove your hypothesis.