4 ms·

I don't understand one thing. Why is this submission flagged?

lightbendover 2y ago
[dead]
basementcat 2y ago
Also, why is this not on the front page? This has over 110 points while a post about OpenVMS on the front page has 34 points. While I agree that OpenVMS is cool, I think the fate of over 20 million lives (due to the suspension of PEPFAR) deserves more weight than an obscure 50 year old operating system.
- dang 2y ago
  > why is this not on the front page? This has over 110 points while a post about OpenVMS on the front page has 34 points. This question, phrased in the general case, is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. (Look for "Why is A ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?") In the present case, users flagged it and it set off the flamewar detector. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42857139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42857139.
- tredre3 2y ago
  Simple: many (perhaps even most?) visitors take the name "hacker news" literally and are not interested in discussing socioeconomic news. At least not on this forum.
jeanlucas 2y ago
I am not the one who flagged it, but here's probably why: users feels this is off topic. Overall as a non-american HN to me is a technical forum. I know everything involves politics, but I honestly don't come to HN to know about about the US budget Federal decisions.
- basementcat 2y ago
  Whether we like it or not, US federal budget decisions impact NASA, Fermilab, academic AI researchers and the health of over 20 million people suffering from AIDS (among many many others).
- scarecrowbob 2y ago
  I see this form of thought here a lot. The general gist of it is "well, everyone else likes this so you should be okay with it too". Usually the person arguing in that direction is one of "everyone else". I've never found it super convincing. Personally, I don't actually think that the technical discourse here is super great- occasionally I see things from highly knowledgeable folks, but a lot of the time it's just hacks out a hackin. HN is a forum run by venture capitalists and folks who are tied to that either aspirationally or professionally. I get a lot of information about how that group of folks thinks from this site, and I find it helpful in understanding their affect on the world I live in. You're welcome to have whatever preferences you have for the site, but it's not how I have been interacting with it for the last decade. To the point about flagging, I am always surprised how willing folks are to believe that every other social media algo is gamed, but just assumed that there is no manipulation going on with their own media consumption. I mean, go write a bot to flag stuff using ghost accounts, I don't care- I get my "HN front page" from a set of search terms, which will show a lot of dead and flagged content. It's pretty trivial to see what happens if you're looking to know that kind of thing, and other folks have written at least two tracking systems I know of for killed HN content. I can totally buy that the reality of empire and its internal contradictions are uncomfortable enough for the tech bros that seem to make up the most of the site. The idea that they reflexively repress anything "political" sounds reasonable. That doesn't seem like a great premise, but I buy it better than the idea that I should be beholden to that same ideal in my use of the site.
- kergonath 2y ago
  > Overall as a non-american HN to me is a technical forum. As a non-American, this is massive on its own, and could be absolutely world-changing depending on how it evolves. The US are where they are thanks to a great brain drain, powered by both industry and government money. Messing with this will have consequences, particularly coupled with visa restrictions. Or not, if Trump flip-flops once more. In any case, this is very important news for any technology- or science-adjacent field, including health and medicine.
leotravis10 2y ago
I think you and I know why at this point. HN and YC as a whole are all in on this administration[1]. It's the reason why it's going to get censored. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774698
- dang 2y ago
  > I think you and I know why at this point. I know it's satisfying, but that's a risky way to think if you care about the truth. Users flagged the submission and it also set off the flamewar detector, a,k.a. the overheated discussion detector. No mods or admins touched this post. , or even saw it until someone sent an email about it. Then I turned off the flags and the flamewar penalty.
  - x11antiek 2y ago
    Hey dang, can you explain why these threads were flagged then? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790729 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716926 (please don't say "paywall", there are so many submussions under the paywall from US-based magazines) Who are these "users" and how to stop them? Thank you.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      Users are people other than you who use the website. HTH.
    - dang 2y ago
      We can only guess why users flag things, but in those cases I'd guess it was because they were follow-up indignation pieces with lots of inflammatory energy but little intellectually interesting information. It could also have to do with the titles being flamebait (which of course is related). You guys do get that HN is not a site for arguing angrily about the hottest political controversies and/or divisive personalities? If so, it shouldn't be a puzzle why community members flagged those posts: that kind of thing is not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
hooverd 2y ago
There's a joke around the orange website in here somewhere.
r00fus 2y ago
Because digg-style "bury brigades" are still a thing.
93po 2y ago
I flagged stuff like this because there's no real curious conversation to be had, it's not interesting in a technical way, it's unrelated to hacking and startups, and basically just incites lazy dog-piling that, while I don't disagree with it, is not interesting to read for me. I will go to reddit if I want to read that sort of commenting.

[dead]

Also, why is this not on the front page? This has over 110 points while a post about OpenVMS on the front page has 34 points. While I agree that OpenVMS is cool, I think the fate of over 20 million lives (due to the suspension of PEPFAR) deserves more weight than an obscure 50 year old operating system.

dang 2y ago
> why is this not on the front page? This has over 110 points while a post about OpenVMS on the front page has 34 points. This question, phrased in the general case, is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. (Look for "Why is A ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?") In the present case, users flagged it and it set off the flamewar detector. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42857139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42857139.
tredre3 2y ago
Simple: many (perhaps even most?) visitors take the name "hacker news" literally and are not interested in discussing socioeconomic news. At least not on this forum.

jeanlucas 2y ago

I am not the one who flagged it, but here's probably why: users feels this is off topic. Overall as a non-american HN to me is a technical forum. I know everything involves politics, but I honestly don't come to HN to know about about the US budget Federal decisions.

basementcat 2y ago
Whether we like it or not, US federal budget decisions impact NASA, Fermilab, academic AI researchers and the health of over 20 million people suffering from AIDS (among many many others).
scarecrowbob 2y ago
I see this form of thought here a lot. The general gist of it is "well, everyone else likes this so you should be okay with it too". Usually the person arguing in that direction is one of "everyone else". I've never found it super convincing. Personally, I don't actually think that the technical discourse here is super great- occasionally I see things from highly knowledgeable folks, but a lot of the time it's just hacks out a hackin. HN is a forum run by venture capitalists and folks who are tied to that either aspirationally or professionally. I get a lot of information about how that group of folks thinks from this site, and I find it helpful in understanding their affect on the world I live in. You're welcome to have whatever preferences you have for the site, but it's not how I have been interacting with it for the last decade. To the point about flagging, I am always surprised how willing folks are to believe that every other social media algo is gamed, but just assumed that there is no manipulation going on with their own media consumption. I mean, go write a bot to flag stuff using ghost accounts, I don't care- I get my "HN front page" from a set of search terms, which will show a lot of dead and flagged content. It's pretty trivial to see what happens if you're looking to know that kind of thing, and other folks have written at least two tracking systems I know of for killed HN content. I can totally buy that the reality of empire and its internal contradictions are uncomfortable enough for the tech bros that seem to make up the most of the site. The idea that they reflexively repress anything "political" sounds reasonable. That doesn't seem like a great premise, but I buy it better than the idea that I should be beholden to that same ideal in my use of the site.
kergonath 2y ago
> Overall as a non-american HN to me is a technical forum. As a non-American, this is massive on its own, and could be absolutely world-changing depending on how it evolves. The US are where they are thanks to a great brain drain, powered by both industry and government money. Messing with this will have consequences, particularly coupled with visa restrictions. Or not, if Trump flip-flops once more. In any case, this is very important news for any technology- or science-adjacent field, including health and medicine.

leotravis10 2y ago

I think you and I know why at this point. HN and YC as a whole are all in on this administration[1]. It's the reason why it's going to get censored. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774698

dang 2y ago
> I think you and I know why at this point. I know it's satisfying, but that's a risky way to think if you care about the truth. Users flagged the submission and it also set off the flamewar detector, a,k.a. the overheated discussion detector. No mods or admins touched this post. , or even saw it until someone sent an email about it. Then I turned off the flags and the flamewar penalty.
- x11antiek 2y ago
  Hey dang, can you explain why these threads were flagged then? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790729 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716926 (please don't say "paywall", there are so many submussions under the paywall from US-based magazines) Who are these "users" and how to stop them? Thank you.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Users are people other than you who use the website. HTH.
  - dang 2y ago
    We can only guess why users flag things, but in those cases I'd guess it was because they were follow-up indignation pieces with lots of inflammatory energy but little intellectually interesting information. It could also have to do with the titles being flamebait (which of course is related). You guys do get that HN is not a site for arguing angrily about the hottest political controversies and/or divisive personalities? If so, it shouldn't be a puzzle why community members flagged those posts: that kind of thing is not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hooverd 2y ago

There's a joke around the orange website in here somewhere.

r00fus 2y ago

Because digg-style "bury brigades" are still a thing.

93po 2y ago

I flagged stuff like this because there's no real curious conversation to be had, it's not interesting in a technical way, it's unrelated to hacking and startups, and basically just incites lazy dog-piling that, while I don't disagree with it, is not interesting to read for me. I will go to reddit if I want to read that sort of commenting.