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It is clear that people flagging these posts have a ulterior agenda. While the other posts have plausible deniability cover for being "political", this is as re

It is clear that people flagging these posts have a ulterior agenda. While the other posts have plausible deniability cover for being "political", this is as relevant to hacker news as anything.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
I believe that Dang does make an attempt to unflag some of these kinds of topics, but there's also the issue that the discussions can become highly politicised too which is not the stated purpose of HN.
- pera 2y ago
  Yup I have emailed dang a few times regarding wrongly flagged submissions and he has always unflagged them.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  Indeed, higher category theory is a veritable minefield of political rabbit holes. And who could possibly trust HN denizens, those notoriously toxic and tech-ignorant people, to sensibly discuss such things as a tech oligarch delivering Nazi salutes at an inauguration [0, 1]. Or the same man (wealthiest known on Earth) being given physical access to the US treasury [2]. Or warnings from five former treasury secretaries in the NYT about the danger this poses to Democracy [3], the EFF bringing lawsuits over this (unflagged after many hours)[4], or the ability to even discuss all the false flags which we have been riddled with for the last month [5, 6]. This last month has been a real eye opener. Even Paul Graham and Garry Tan have been cheerleading for DOGE, and it's fucking disturbing that we're not allowed to discuss it on any active thread. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42929121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42929121 3 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009174 4 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020091 5 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560 6 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42781604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42781604
  - dang 2y ago
    > it's fucking disturbing that we're not allowed to discuss it on any active thread This is the "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" theory of HN threads. You're talking about the most-discussed topic on HN, by far, of the past several weeks. If you, or anyone, want to know what's happening with these threads and flags, how we moderate this, and what the principles are, there are a bunch of links here which should answer all your questions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43050893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43050893. If you familiarize yourself with that material and still have a question that I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. Btw, you can't evaluate this with a random sample of links on a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic). You need to look at the threads that have had significant frontpage time and discussion. Obviously there have been many more submissions than that—that is the case with any MOT. If most of these didn't get flagged and/or downweighted, then HN's frontpage would consist of little else. I realize that some users feel so passionately right now that they would welcome that, but I don't believe that the bulk of the community wants this (far from it), and in any case we couldn't let HN be completely taken over by any MOT without ruining it for its intended purpose.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      Every post I've seen recently talking about all the false flags here has ended up rapidly flagged. Feel free to prove me wrong, by showing one single post on this topic, at any time over the past couple weeks, which wasn't flagged. Such an obvious way to manipulate discussion here needs to be addressed from time to time; now being one of those times. The discussion in those threads (ie [6]) shows widespread agreement; far from your assertion of what "the bulk of the community wants". You can assert that stories about DOGE are not being deliberately and widely suppressed here, or that they are but for a good reason - but I don't believe you. And I don't think you believe yourself either. If you do, you shouldn't. [6] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560
      - dang 2y ago
        Nobody is saying those threads aren't getting flagged. The issues are who is flagging them, why they're flagging them, and what we should do about it. I've been posting about that a great deal. If you want a serious answer, I need you to engage with what I've actually said and explained, not some imaginary substitute which you then find hard to believe. If you follow the link in my GP comment, and the links there, you'll find all you need to know and then some. You're welcome to disbelieve any of that, but please at least disbelieve something I actually said. Sorry for being tetchy—I'm happy to answer any HN user who has a question, but I need you guys to do a bit of work too. There aren't enough hours to always repeat everything from scratch. If there's a question that I haven't already answered many times, I'd like to know what is and I'd be happy to try to answer it. Cross-examinations, though? not so much.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
matsemann 2y ago
Tip, use https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active Flagged posts show up there (like this one), so tech bros trying to censor all M*sk and D0GE stuff will not be able to completely silence it.
- muddi900 2y ago
  This forum is mostly tech bros. The vast majority does not think this is off-topic. Even the ones that support Papa Elon and Daddy Trump.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    There is a double standard here. Political posts against conservatives have been accepted here for years with little pushback. Anything against liberal causes is immediately flagged. It's time to accept that political posts are political even if it happens to be favorable to your preferred political agenda.
TiredOfLife 2y ago
Musk is an Idiot at best and Russian asset at worst. But if I see highly upvoted comment complaining or conspiracy theorizing about flagging, after Dang has been tirelessly and countless times explaining how things work, I flag the thread out of principle.
- muddi900 2y ago
  That's great that you are calling "Describing things as they happened" as conspiracy theories. Also you like to make it harder for the person you are calling tireless

It is clear that people flagging these posts have a ulterior agenda. While the other posts have plausible deniability cover for being "political", this is as relevant to hacker news as anything.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago

I believe that Dang does make an attempt to unflag some of these kinds of topics, but there's also the issue that the discussions can become highly politicised too which is not the stated purpose of HN.

pera 2y ago
Yup I have emailed dang a few times regarding wrongly flagged submissions and he has always unflagged them.
mandmandam 2y ago
Indeed, higher category theory is a veritable minefield of political rabbit holes. And who could possibly trust HN denizens, those notoriously toxic and tech-ignorant people, to sensibly discuss such things as a tech oligarch delivering Nazi salutes at an inauguration [0, 1]. Or the same man (wealthiest known on Earth) being given physical access to the US treasury [2]. Or warnings from five former treasury secretaries in the NYT about the danger this poses to Democracy [3], the EFF bringing lawsuits over this (unflagged after many hours)[4], or the ability to even discuss all the false flags which we have been riddled with for the last month [5, 6]. This last month has been a real eye opener. Even Paul Graham and Garry Tan have been cheerleading for DOGE, and it's fucking disturbing that we're not allowed to discuss it on any active thread. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42929121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42929121 3 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43009174 4 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020091 5 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560 6 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42781604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42781604
- dang 2y ago
  > it's fucking disturbing that we're not allowed to discuss it on any active thread This is the "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" theory of HN threads. You're talking about the most-discussed topic on HN, by far, of the past several weeks. If you, or anyone, want to know what's happening with these threads and flags, how we moderate this, and what the principles are, there are a bunch of links here which should answer all your questions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43050893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43050893. If you familiarize yourself with that material and still have a question that I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. Btw, you can't evaluate this with a random sample of links on a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic). You need to look at the threads that have had significant frontpage time and discussion. Obviously there have been many more submissions than that—that is the case with any MOT. If most of these didn't get flagged and/or downweighted, then HN's frontpage would consist of little else. I realize that some users feel so passionately right now that they would welcome that, but I don't believe that the bulk of the community wants this (far from it), and in any case we couldn't let HN be completely taken over by any MOT without ruining it for its intended purpose.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    Every post I've seen recently talking about all the false flags here has ended up rapidly flagged. Feel free to prove me wrong, by showing one single post on this topic, at any time over the past couple weeks, which wasn't flagged. Such an obvious way to manipulate discussion here needs to be addressed from time to time; now being one of those times. The discussion in those threads (ie [6]) shows widespread agreement; far from your assertion of what "the bulk of the community wants". You can assert that stories about DOGE are not being deliberately and widely suppressed here, or that they are but for a good reason - but I don't believe you. And I don't think you believe yourself either. If you do, you shouldn't. [6] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560
    - dang 2y ago
      Nobody is saying those threads aren't getting flagged. The issues are who is flagging them, why they're flagging them, and what we should do about it. I've been posting about that a great deal. If you want a serious answer, I need you to engage with what I've actually said and explained, not some imaginary substitute which you then find hard to believe. If you follow the link in my GP comment, and the links there, you'll find all you need to know and then some. You're welcome to disbelieve any of that, but please at least disbelieve something I actually said. Sorry for being tetchy—I'm happy to answer any HN user who has a question, but I need you guys to do a bit of work too. There aren't enough hours to always repeat everything from scratch. If there's a question that I haven't already answered many times, I'd like to know what is and I'd be happy to try to answer it. Cross-examinations, though? not so much.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

matsemann 2y ago

Tip, use https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active Flagged posts show up there (like this one), so tech bros trying to censor all M*sk and D0GE stuff will not be able to completely silence it.

muddi900 2y ago
This forum is mostly tech bros. The vast majority does not think this is off-topic. Even the ones that support Papa Elon and Daddy Trump.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  There is a double standard here. Political posts against conservatives have been accepted here for years with little pushback. Anything against liberal causes is immediately flagged. It's time to accept that political posts are political even if it happens to be favorable to your preferred political agenda.

TiredOfLife 2y ago

Musk is an Idiot at best and Russian asset at worst. But if I see highly upvoted comment complaining or conspiracy theorizing about flagging, after Dang has been tirelessly and countless times explaining how things work, I flag the thread out of principle.

muddi900 2y ago
That's great that you are calling "Describing things as they happened" as conspiracy theories. Also you like to make it harder for the person you are calling tireless