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[flagged]

by gsibble 2y ago

[flagged]

echelon 2y ago
I'm upvoting every one of these stories to test that hypothesis.
- gsibble 2y ago
  Notice they all got flagged. I.e. removed from the front page immediately.
  - echelon 2y ago
    Last night there were a few threads about this story that had 30-40 votes and no flagging. Those should have made the front page. They were all under an hour old, some only a 15 minutes old.
    - dang 2y ago
      They didn't make the front page because users flagged them. It's common for sensational and/or outrageous stories to make the frontpage because those qualities attract upvotes. They also, however, attract flags. The latter take longer to kick in because many flags come from users who only see the story once it has made the frontpage. This tug-of-war between upvotes and flags is the core of HN's frontpage is determined. There are additional factors, such as moderation downweights (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), but we haven't applied those in this case. In other words, all you're seeing here is very much a community verdict according to the standard rules by which HN operates. Sometimes people make grandiose claims about sinister censorship beyond that; but they're doing that because of their own priors, which for whatever reason cause them to misinterpret what they're seeing. None of this is secret, in the sense that people are always welcome to ask what's going on and we're happy to answer. Of course, you have to trust us enough to believe the answer, but that'll always be the case no matter what we do.
dang 2y ago
> Did you know downvotes by superusers immediately blacklists your post from the top 100 That's not true, and I don't know what you mean by "superusers".
- echelon 2y ago
  Dang, IIRC, some of these stories had 30-40 votes and no flagging. They were 30 minutes old or less, yet none of them were making it to the home page. Is that the ranking algorithm? It felt suspicious that these headlines were getting substantial early HN user attention (double digits) but not showing up on the home page. I know HN isn't a gossip rag, and that we don't tar and feather people, but the story did feel notable.
  - dang 2y ago
    They did have flagging. The [flagged] marker only appears when flags overwhelm upvotes, but flags affect rank well before that. More about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918548. All of the submissions on this topic are being flagged off the frontpage by users, not moderators.
    - echelon 2y ago
      Sorry, I should have been more clear. At the time I came across these threads, none of these submissions were "[flagged]" (or at least not indicated as such in the UI). They had 10-30ish upvotes, all were under an hour old, and yet they were buried on the first and second pages of "new". Do articles that are flagged once or twice get internally penalized and de-ranked but not shown as "[flagged]" yet in the UI until they accumulate more flagging?
      - dang 2y ago
        > Do articles that are flagged once or twice get internally penalized and de-ranked but not shown as "[flagged]" yet in the UI until they accumulate more flagging? "Once or twice" isn't quite accurate but otherwise, yes, that's how it works.

[flagged]

echelon 2y ago

I'm upvoting every one of these stories to test that hypothesis.

gsibble 2y ago
Notice they all got flagged. I.e. removed from the front page immediately.
- echelon 2y ago
  Last night there were a few threads about this story that had 30-40 votes and no flagging. Those should have made the front page. They were all under an hour old, some only a 15 minutes old.
  - dang 2y ago
    They didn't make the front page because users flagged them. It's common for sensational and/or outrageous stories to make the frontpage because those qualities attract upvotes. They also, however, attract flags. The latter take longer to kick in because many flags come from users who only see the story once it has made the frontpage. This tug-of-war between upvotes and flags is the core of HN's frontpage is determined. There are additional factors, such as moderation downweights (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), but we haven't applied those in this case. In other words, all you're seeing here is very much a community verdict according to the standard rules by which HN operates. Sometimes people make grandiose claims about sinister censorship beyond that; but they're doing that because of their own priors, which for whatever reason cause them to misinterpret what they're seeing. None of this is secret, in the sense that people are always welcome to ask what's going on and we're happy to answer. Of course, you have to trust us enough to believe the answer, but that'll always be the case no matter what we do.

dang 2y ago

> Did you know downvotes by superusers immediately blacklists your post from the top 100 That's not true, and I don't know what you mean by "superusers".

echelon 2y ago
Dang, IIRC, some of these stories had 30-40 votes and no flagging. They were 30 minutes old or less, yet none of them were making it to the home page. Is that the ranking algorithm? It felt suspicious that these headlines were getting substantial early HN user attention (double digits) but not showing up on the home page. I know HN isn't a gossip rag, and that we don't tar and feather people, but the story did feel notable.
- dang 2y ago
  They did have flagging. The [flagged] marker only appears when flags overwhelm upvotes, but flags affect rank well before that. More about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918548. All of the submissions on this topic are being flagged off the frontpage by users, not moderators.
  - echelon 2y ago
    Sorry, I should have been more clear. At the time I came across these threads, none of these submissions were "[flagged]" (or at least not indicated as such in the UI). They had 10-30ish upvotes, all were under an hour old, and yet they were buried on the first and second pages of "new". Do articles that are flagged once or twice get internally penalized and de-ranked but not shown as "[flagged]" yet in the UI until they accumulate more flagging?
    - dang 2y ago
      > Do articles that are flagged once or twice get internally penalized and de-ranked but not shown as "[flagged]" yet in the UI until they accumulate more flagging? "Once or twice" isn't quite accurate but otherwise, yes, that's how it works.