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>this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now I wonder if you are maybe too close to the problem to see it from a normal HN user's pers
by slg 2y ago
>this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now
I wonder if you are maybe too close to the problem to see it from a normal HN user's perspective. From my perspective, I don't get this impression because I don't see the full breath of conversations that happen on HN like you do. People clearly want to talk about this here and I have rarely seen these stories actually on the front page of HN because they are so quick to drop off the front page due to flagging, downvoting, the flame war detector, or whatever other behind the scenes mechanics exist that you are obviously more knowledgeable about than me. People continuing to have conversations on posts that no one sees unless they specifically search them out is the equivalent of shadowbanning those conversations. Yes, they are still happening, but the normal HN user isn't actually seeing them and that is why you are fielding so many complaints from normal users who want to see these posts.
- dang 2y agoI think you're right, but it's not clear to me what we could do differently about that. Ultimately it derives from the fundamentals of the site. Most people don't see most of what gets posted here. I don't either.
- stubish 2y agoI think the situation has demonstrated a weakness. Elon Musk, unarguably the single most Hacker News person on the planet due to his control of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and others, and now tied up in US politics with DOGE, has completely disappeared from the front page of hacker news, except for the articles you personally have deflagged. And you can't do that 24x7, such as the weekend Treasury Payments got shutdown and apparently nothing newsworthy was done by DOGE or Musk. I was watching articles mentioning either DOGE or Musk in the headline begin flagged in minutes. The same article might stay up for several hours if the headline had been edited to remove the offending words (but that might just be a side effect of getting less traction). And you get stuck with making the call which articles to unflag, based on limited information as they don't hang around long enough to meaningfully get upvotes or beyond the first 15 minutes of irrational blathering in the comments.
- dang 2y agoI agree, it's a weakness. Are there specific stories that you think should have gotten major discussion but didn't? If so, I'd like to see links.
- stubish 2y agoAt this time, no, discussions have happened elsewhere and it is now old news. But that discussion did happen on articles such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 , leading to comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=stubish#42942693 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=stubish#42942693 .
- dang 2y agoI'm sorry but I don't follow what discussions you're saying haven't happened. But in case you (or anyone) are feeling like the current MOT (Major Ongoing Topic) hasn't received much attention on HN, here's a partial list of recent threads: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42981756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42981756 - Feb 2025 (1544 comments) (<-- you are here) Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (353 comments) DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42966412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42966412 - Feb 2025 (107 comments) DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 - Feb 2025 (370 comments) 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950790 - Feb 2025 (547 comments) Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 - Feb 2025 (133 comments) Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 - Feb 2025 (654 comments) The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2977 comments) Phyllis Fong, who was investigating Neuralink, "forcefully removed " - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902355 - Feb 2025 (214 comments) The government information crisis is bigger than you think it is - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42895331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42895331 - Feb 2025 (270 comments) NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with executive orders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42886661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42886661 - Jan 2025 (488 comments) Archivists work to save disappearing data.gov datasets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42881367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42881367 - Jan 2025 (238 comments) Trump's Federal Funding Freeze and Mean-Field Game Theory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42863339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42863339 - Jan 2025 (89 comments) Deferred resignation email to federal employees - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42859552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42859552 - Jan 2025 (151 comments) NIH hit with freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42798960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42798960 - Jan 2025 (440 comments) United States Digital Service renamed to DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775684 - Jan 2025 (98 comments)