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@dang why is there a flamebait article about a 3-letter-org on the front page practically every single day?

deleted 3y ago
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dang 3y ago
Flamebait and clickbait get upvoted a lot. That's the bait part. The general topic has always featured on HN as it is well nested in the Venn diagram of things people are curious about here: security, surveillance, public policy, espionage, you name it. I'd separate those two issues. That topic is fine, as long as the article is good. If the article is bad, it doesn't matter whether it's this topic or another. (You're exaggerating the frequency with which it happens, though - might be a case of the notice-dislike bias - a terrible name which I'm still waiting for someone to improve on - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) Last point - @dang doesn't work. I only saw this randomly. If you want reliable message delivery, you need to use hn@ycombinator.com.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  Thanks for the reply! Not to derail any further but there have been numerous events that ought to be a perfect fit if it were only a matter of the Venn diagram. For example there has been no mention of Volt Typhoon malware on Guam or Russia's Snake malware. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=snake%20malware&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=guam%20malware&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I could be biased but I think there is a concerted effort to bury these topics. I would have loved to see a discussion with this crowd! I'm sure you're busy so don't worry about responding, I'm just airing something that's been on my mind.
  - dang 3y ago
    I'm not aware of any effort to bury those topics or anything similar; but some of those posts did get downweighted by other software filters. I've sent repost invites for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062943 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35913168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35913168. If you want to track this and notice that either of them doesn't get reposted within (say) a week, you'd be welcome to post it yourself and email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll give it the SCP treatment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308). (Btw I suppose I should add that I'm not doing this because I think the topics ought to be better represented on HN, but rather because those two articles look interesting. Interestingness is the only thing we care about.) People draw conclusions from what they see (or think they see) about posts on HN but the conclusions are almost always wrong because they're so strongly affected by the perceiver's priors and are based on such little data. The main reason why an article X doesn't get attention on HN is because that's the default outcome for any article on HN. That simple fact has more explanatory power than most other explanations people come up with, but has the disadvantage that it's boring.

deleted 3y ago

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dang 3y ago

Flamebait and clickbait get upvoted a lot. That's the bait part. The general topic has always featured on HN as it is well nested in the Venn diagram of things people are curious about here: security, surveillance, public policy, espionage, you name it. I'd separate those two issues. That topic is fine, as long as the article is good. If the article is bad, it doesn't matter whether it's this topic or another. (You're exaggerating the frequency with which it happens, though - might be a case of the notice-dislike bias - a terrible name which I'm still waiting for someone to improve on - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) Last point - @dang doesn't work. I only saw this randomly. If you want reliable message delivery, you need to use hn@ycombinator.com.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Thanks for the reply! Not to derail any further but there have been numerous events that ought to be a perfect fit if it were only a matter of the Venn diagram. For example there has been no mention of Volt Typhoon malware on Guam or Russia's Snake malware. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=snake%20malware&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=guam%20malware&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I could be biased but I think there is a concerted effort to bury these topics. I would have loved to see a discussion with this crowd! I'm sure you're busy so don't worry about responding, I'm just airing something that's been on my mind.
- dang 3y ago
  I'm not aware of any effort to bury those topics or anything similar; but some of those posts did get downweighted by other software filters. I've sent repost invites for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062943 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35913168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35913168. If you want to track this and notice that either of them doesn't get reposted within (say) a week, you'd be welcome to post it yourself and email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll give it the SCP treatment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308). (Btw I suppose I should add that I'm not doing this because I think the topics ought to be better represented on HN, but rather because those two articles look interesting. Interestingness is the only thing we care about.) People draw conclusions from what they see (or think they see) about posts on HN but the conclusions are almost always wrong because they're so strongly affected by the perceiver's priors and are based on such little data. The main reason why an article X doesn't get attention on HN is because that's the default outcome for any article on HN. That simple fact has more explanatory power than most other explanations people come up with, but has the disadvantage that it's boring.