4 ms·

Somewhat surprised to see Jeffery Epstein's "charity" still showing up on the front page of HN

dang 4y ago
(Edit: I interpreted your comment as asking why we'd allow this post to stay on HN's front page. The answer to that is below. If that wasn't your point, please ignore.) On HN, we generally go by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so..., and generally try to avoid guilt by association. These points both follow from the principle of intellectual curiosity that we're trying to optimize for: 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.... Reality is messier than simple heuristics, but I think the current article is a good test case. Can one be interested in Kahneman's views on adversarial collaboration and have a curious conversation about them while in no way endorsing the heinous Epstein? Clearly one can.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Bad call, dang. In this case, I was unaware of the Edge Foundation's Epstein links. The information is salient and useful. Edge itself certainly doesn't make the information evident. C.f., a site search for "Epstein" which ... conspicuously omits any prominent results for a disclosure or apology: <https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Aedge.org+epstein&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Aedge.org+epstein&ia=...>
  - dang 4y ago
    I interpreted the GP comment as asking why we allow posts from edge.org on HN. My comment is limited to answering that question. I've edited it to make this clearer.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      Fair point. Has robot_head's comment been downweighted at all independent of member votes? If so, that would also be inappropriate.
      - dang 4y ago
        It hasn't, but it easily could be and that would be standard HN moderation. We downweight unsubstantive, generic, and/or offtopic comments all the time. Btw, you rewrote your GP comment after I'd already replied to it. I don't know what you mean by "bad call".
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        I'll fairly frequently add to, and occasionally clarify, my comments. I wish HN had a better mechanism for indicating this. Usually it's to fix tyops (you've done that on my behalf at least once, with disclosure, in the past), add specific examples (the Edge searches, I believe, in this case), and just plain mind mush. I care enough that I'll comment to clarify even after the edit window's closed: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851082> That said, I try not to be deceptive. I've got a 5 minute delay on my comments as well which I understand gives me a short window to edit before the content is publicly visible. That said, the "bad call" was my interpretation of considering The Edge's Epstein connections as off-topic, apparently not your own meaning. Conformant to your apparent intent, "why we allow posts from edge.org on HN" (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32984632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32984632>), I'd be willing to consider a down-ranking or outright ban of the site on the general principle that blind eyes to absolutely destructive criminality should carry a very strong social stigma, regardless of the merits of any given article. Again, the fact that The Edge fails to note this themselves, or make any clearly apparent apology despite playing a huge role in enabling Epstein's behaviour --- something I've been exploring in the course of this exchange and as a result of robot_head's comment --- is quite significant. There's a huge harm done when people ignore gross harms done to others. All the more so when those doing so benefit directly from doing so. HN itself seems to have largely ignored this issue until today: <https://hn.algolia.com/?q=edge%20epstein https://hn.algolia.com/?q=edge%20epstein> There've been 30 submission from The Edge since 19 October 2020 based on HN's own site link: <https://news.ycombinator.com/from%3Fsite%3Dedge.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from%3Fsite%3Dedge.org> (Archive: <https://archive.ph/8adBm https://archive.ph/8adBm>) The first post matching that search to break 20 comments (a minimal notability threshold we've discussed before) was posted 5 hours ago as I write: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32982155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32982155> I can see a legitimate argument for damnatio memoriae for The Edge. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae>

dang 4y ago

(Edit: I interpreted your comment as asking why we'd allow this post to stay on HN's front page. The answer to that is below. If that wasn't your point, please ignore.) On HN, we generally go by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so..., and generally try to avoid guilt by association. These points both follow from the principle of intellectual curiosity that we're trying to optimize for: 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.... Reality is messier than simple heuristics, but I think the current article is a good test case. Can one be interested in Kahneman's views on adversarial collaboration and have a curious conversation about them while in no way endorsing the heinous Epstein? Clearly one can.

dredmorbius 4y ago
Bad call, dang. In this case, I was unaware of the Edge Foundation's Epstein links. The information is salient and useful. Edge itself certainly doesn't make the information evident. C.f., a site search for "Epstein" which ... conspicuously omits any prominent results for a disclosure or apology: <https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Aedge.org+epstein&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=site%3Aedge.org+epstein&ia=...>
- dang 4y ago
  I interpreted the GP comment as asking why we allow posts from edge.org on HN. My comment is limited to answering that question. I've edited it to make this clearer.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Fair point. Has robot_head's comment been downweighted at all independent of member votes? If so, that would also be inappropriate.
    - dang 4y ago
      It hasn't, but it easily could be and that would be standard HN moderation. We downweight unsubstantive, generic, and/or offtopic comments all the time. Btw, you rewrote your GP comment after I'd already replied to it. I don't know what you mean by "bad call".
      - dredmorbius 4y ago
        I'll fairly frequently add to, and occasionally clarify, my comments. I wish HN had a better mechanism for indicating this. Usually it's to fix tyops (you've done that on my behalf at least once, with disclosure, in the past), add specific examples (the Edge searches, I believe, in this case), and just plain mind mush. I care enough that I'll comment to clarify even after the edit window's closed: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851082> That said, I try not to be deceptive. I've got a 5 minute delay on my comments as well which I understand gives me a short window to edit before the content is publicly visible. That said, the "bad call" was my interpretation of considering The Edge's Epstein connections as off-topic, apparently not your own meaning. Conformant to your apparent intent, "why we allow posts from edge.org on HN" (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32984632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32984632>), I'd be willing to consider a down-ranking or outright ban of the site on the general principle that blind eyes to absolutely destructive criminality should carry a very strong social stigma, regardless of the merits of any given article. Again, the fact that The Edge fails to note this themselves, or make any clearly apparent apology despite playing a huge role in enabling Epstein's behaviour --- something I've been exploring in the course of this exchange and as a result of robot_head's comment --- is quite significant. There's a huge harm done when people ignore gross harms done to others. All the more so when those doing so benefit directly from doing so. HN itself seems to have largely ignored this issue until today: <https://hn.algolia.com/?q=edge%20epstein https://hn.algolia.com/?q=edge%20epstein> There've been 30 submission from The Edge since 19 October 2020 based on HN's own site link: <https://news.ycombinator.com/from%3Fsite%3Dedge.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from%3Fsite%3Dedge.org> (Archive: <https://archive.ph/8adBm https://archive.ph/8adBm>) The first post matching that search to break 20 comments (a minimal notability threshold we've discussed before) was posted 5 hours ago as I write: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32982155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32982155> I can see a legitimate argument for damnatio memoriae for The Edge. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae>