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Ask HN: Is there a better model than flagging?
I submitted a link today that got flagged pretty quickly. My original intention was to make people aware of the fact that it seems as though a large number of scientists have signed a declaration claiming that “there is no climate emergency”.
I make no claim as to the accuracy of their declaration, and neither support nor deny their claim. I’m not a climate scientist.
It seems like a really bad idea though to immediately suppress this kind of information as opposed to being able to have a conversation about it.
In general, if any contrarian opinions arise and are immediately flagged and suppressed, does that not just turn HN into an echo chamber? Is there not a better model than flag/suppress?
EDIT: My concern with this particular question and submission is not about the content of the articles themselves. (Beyond the fact that they're being linked all over Twitter atm and, if this is a misinformation campaign, then it seems to be gaining traction now in 2022 again)
This particular question is UX-oriented and has to do with:
1. I'm concerned about how HN shapes my perspective if the flagging process could suppress meaningful conversation. (Yes, I consume a variety of other sources of information too, and I'm also concerned about how they shape my perspective) In essence, a select few users with enough karma watching for incoming content could shape the entire discourse on HN. Who are these users, and why should I trust their paradigms in shaping mine?
2. The UX involved in flagging on HN seems like it could be improved if there was a reason attached to it. Or some other automated mechanism to immediately notify the submitter as to prior conversation on the topic that isn't available via searching for the topic on HN first.
- theCrowing 4y agoPeople can vouch for your submission, nobody did.
- mactavish88 4y agoHow does that help if the post’s not alive for long enough for more than a handful of people to see it?
- _Microft 4y agoAnyone who chose to enable the option "Show dead" (comments/submissions) in the settings can still see the title and vouch for it if they like.
- mactavish88 4y agoThis is not the default mode of browsing facilitated by HN, so the system inherently lends itself to killing contrarian perspectives long before there can be any meaningful discussion about them. To me, there’s nothing more powerful than someone posting a contrarian perspective and there being a highly upvoted, well-reasoned/cited response as to why the contrarian perspective isn’t valid. This I would prefer over having those contrarian perspectives suppressed, and I never get to see or engage with them.
- theCrowing 4y agoThe headline of the site and your submission is also just plain wrong. Maybe there is no manmade climate emergency but there is most certainly a climate emergency. Also there is nothing scientific on the site only an open letter... it's just really bad content. You don't know how many people have seen or voted on it you are just believing that nobody has seen it. Multiple users need to flag your post before it becomes [flagged] and even more need to flag it for it to become [dead].
- logicalmonster 4y ago> there is most certainly a climate emergency For what it's worth, I'd most strongly disagree with your use of the phrase "there is most certainly" there. There's nothing objective in science that declares what an "emergency" is. Deciding whether or not any situation is an emergency can never be the result of any science experiment. IMO, most disagreements about "science" that crop up about contentious topics aren't really science disagreements, they're subjective risk-management disagreements. Two people can look at the objective statistics about a situation and one person might see it as an emergency and one might not. They're technically both right because this is subjective in nature.
- theCrowing 4y agoI utilized the term in reference to the flagged submission for the sake of simplicity and ease of comprehension for the individual in question. The term 'emergency' carries connotations and should be used with caution when describing any situation.
- amurf 4y agoOnly if there was a link so the rest of us knew what is being talked about.
- theCrowing 4y agoGo into your profile and activate "showdead" after that click his profile and you will see his [dead] and [flagged] submissions.
- jacquesm 4y agoHN has its own mechanisms to keep trash off the homepage, those mechanisms worked as intended. Please don't litter.
- defrost 4y agoYou submitted two links, both to an industry group headed up by Guus Berkhout: [quote] Berkhout founded the Netherlands-based organization Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL). Mid 2019 plans of CLINTEL and Berkhout were leaked showing that they were organizing a campaign against political commitments to net zero carbon emissions being made into law. The campaign features a number of academics and industry figures with ties to climate change sceptics groups, as well as members from oil and gas companies. Berkhout claimed the ideal of the organization was to provide an alternative to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In late September 2019 the group produced an open letter which presented a European Climate Declaration, stating that there was no climate emergency and repeating a number of claims that were inconsistent with the scientific evidence on climate. A fact check performed by climate scientists for Climate Feedback gave the letter an overall scientific credibility of "very low", and tagged it as "Biased, Cherry-picking, Inaccurate, Misleading". The analysis also added that, out of the roughly 500 signatories, only 10 self-identified as climate scientists. The document was later rebranded as the World Climate Declaration. [/quote] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guus_Berkhout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guus_Berkhout Climate Science (as laid out by the IPCC) is akin to Foucoult's Pendulum; the earth rotates, and human activity is altering the atmosphere in a measurable manner that traps more heat energy than is normally retained. You may have a contrarian opinion about measurable facts .. but there are bars and cafes for those.
- mactavish88 4y agoSo this is exactly the perspective I’m looking for from HN. If my post (which clearly wasn’t for or against the linked material) was not immediately flagged and killed then it would’ve been possible to actually solicit this kind of perspective. But if my post is immediately killed then I never get to see this kind of insight. Hence my question about whether there’s a better model than simply flagging content, as HN currently works.
- theCrowing 4y ago[flagged]
- hotpotamus 4y agoHow do we know that this large number of scientists actually exist? Have you met each of them and read their work? How do we know that you even submitted a link earlier?
- version_five 4y agoI saw your submission and I think this is a case where flagging worked well. My understanding of HN objectives is to promote new and interesting conversation. A "anthropogenic climate change is not real" article doesn't promote a good discussion, it just prompts people to rehash the same old stuff. Not to say that every new article about what Elon Musk did leads to any better conversation, but even many of those get flagged, and at least they are tracking a current event relevant to tech. There is no significant new information in sites like what you posted. As a secondary point, but no doubt it helped getting the article flagged, it's a low-quality single agenda website that nobody has heard of and has all the hallmarks of a slightly crazy "fake news" (advertorial, whatever you want to call it) site. If an even slightly reputable real news org covered this, it might get flagged less. Though it would still probably lead to the same boring debate and ultimately get flagged anyway
- troydavis 4y agoYour first submission may have been flagged because you wrote (“editorialized”) the title instead of using the actual page title. As https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html says: “Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.” (Also, the title you chose may have been seen as an attempt to attract extra attention or skew the discussion. Whatever your actual intention, there’s little patience for that.)