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[Meta] I think this shows the worst part of HN. You can have thoughtful and interesting discussions 100+ comments and wider. But when a few people are triggere

[Meta] I think this shows the worst part of HN. You can have thoughtful and interesting discussions 100+ comments and wider. But when a few people are triggered, they feel that they want to ruin the discussion for everybody else. Whereas they could have closed the tab, and move on. No clue how to solve it at a wider scale. For me? I just don't engage in topics I don't care about. No need to force my views on others. Update: it took 5 minutes for this article to also be flagged. Sigh.

airstrike 2y ago
It's got nothing to do with being triggered and everything to do with this website trying to not also become completely flooded with political discussions > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- infecto 2y ago
  This is the way imo. I flagged this story, I believe in due process, I don’t agree with the administration but I also don’t want HN to become yet another tribal battleground and these posts only fuel those comments.
  - chabes 2y ago
    HN has a lot of immigrants that work in the US. What is happening right now is relevant to many users of this site. Maybe think about this before knee-jerk flagging
    - infecto 2y ago
      Why do you assume it was knee-jerk? The spirit is not now relevant a story is but the value it has. These stories are everywhere and there is little nuance in it. The comments of such a story also add no value and are a low signal tribal us vs them.
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    Wonder how you’ll feel if it’s your family sent to a prison in El Salvador. We are not in normal times to have normal rules.
    - infecto 2y ago
      Please don’t trivialize the suffering of others for the use of your argument. The spirit of HN guidelines still exist. What value do you believe is derived from a discussion like this?
      - aaomidi 2y ago
        [flagged]
      - totallynothoney 2y ago
        > Please don’t trivialize the suffering of others for the use of your argument. I believe the people sent to a gulag would dislike more people not eschewing the sanctity of a internet forum, than someone 'trivializing' their suffering by using them for argument about how their situation should be discussed in said forum. The value is that right now a HN user on a visa could be disappeared in to dungeon for months for political speech if Marco Rubio's goons notice him.
  - jlongr 2y ago
    This isn't a court. Due process?? Politics cannot be avoided, it is part of the fabric of our lives.
    - infecto 2y ago
      Can you share your thoughts without being so hyperbolic?
      - ajb 2y ago
        Not the GP, but I'll give it a go: You may be familiar with the layer structure of communications: Internetwork layer,below that transport, below that link layer, and at the bottom the physical layer. The physical layer is where it gets really messy: noise, interference, reflections,whatever. In human interaction, at the bottom layer is the simple fact that at any time, any human can just not follow the rules. That's not necessarily wrong. Maybe the rule just isn't important, and everyone recognises that. Or maybe some deep moral principle should override it. But at that point, other people have to make a moral call - do they ignore this breach of the rules? Do they object? Do they assess the moral principle as overriding? The military have some usefully neutral terms for behaviors, one of which is 'revisionist'. A revisionist power wants to change the rules, a status quo power wants to keep them. It's fairly clear that the US government is presently a revisionist one. That means that pretty much everyone has now to make the call as to whether what they see is allowable or, given the scale and power of the US federal government, a five-alarm fire. And they will often want to take that to places where they have some kind of trust in the intelligence or good will of the other people there. For a lot of engineers, that's right here. If this were a workplace or uni, there would be break rooms and water-coolers where this kind of discussion could go. But HN has none of that - there's only one category of discussion. So if you flag every such discussion, you're denying them the opportunity to do that. And that's not keeping politics out of HN - that's a political act itself.
      - jlongr 2y ago
        I'm not hyperbolic, you're obtuse. If you think you can bury your head and ignore politics for any amount of time, you are mistaken. Your purchases, comments, and actions are all political and strategic, whether you want to believe them to be or not.
UncleMeat 2y ago
Yeah its absolutely wild to me that a single flag can silence this sort of discussion, especially given that the tech ecosystem is so influential in ascendant fascism.
- infecto 2y ago
  Pretty certain it’s not a single flag and at least 2 are required to tango.
  - UncleMeat 2y ago
    Easy enough even for a single person to run two accounts and obtain enough karma to flag posts.
    - infecto 2y ago
      And easy enough to vouch an article which will eventually bring it to attention to moderation.
      - DamnInteresting 2y ago
        Currently the vouch option doesn't appear until/unless a post moves from [flagged] to [dead].
        infecto 2y ago
        Your right. I was thinking wrong. The only way to combat a flag is upvoting and even then it’s hard to see the impact since I believe it’s karma weighted.
ajb 2y ago
I agree. Maybe to flag, you should have to click 'hide' first, and be angry enough that you then go and look it up in the hidden list to flag it. It's short sighted, when this kind of thing comes banging on their door, they won't be able to 'flag' it away.
- infecto 2y ago
  Just based solely on comments alone you can see why these posts get flagged. It’s against the spirit of HN to house ideological battlegrounds regardless of whatever the truth or right side is. Edit: I don’t have the exact theory of the inner workings but always assumed that’s why vouching existed. You are more effectively weighting the opinion of higher karma folks to help drive the site. You could always vouch for something but with each cycle it might down weight it as that’s a signal the story is too contentious. You probably lose some valuable discussions but also get to cut many more that are worthless.
  - mystraline 2y ago
    You're trying to attribute reason and justification. You have 0 insight into why however many people clicked the 'flag' button. In fact, there's no way to even enter a reason. I'm looking at the simple fact that flagging/disappearing an article with 150 comments by a select minority is abhorrent in of itself. (Doubly ridiculous is the disappeared article is about disappearing people.) Again, if you're too triggered about a subject matter, close the tab. Turns out, that's a really simple operation.
    - infecto 2y ago
      Please don’t project, no one’s triggered, at least not me. This kind of language is why these threads get flagged. The comments are low-signal rehashes without new value and just fuel tribal conflict. People can vouch, but that may still lead to moderation.
      - ModernMech 2y ago
        > Please don’t project.... This kind of language is why these threads get flagged. As the person who you responded to noted, you don't know why other people flagged a thread. None of us do. That you believe it's due to tribal battles is your own projection. What's not a projection is that many people chose to have a discussion on a topic despite the flag, and that's interesting, so maybe worth discussing.
infecto 2y ago
While I sometimes dip in the political side of comments I am one of those folks that flag these type of posts. I think they detract from HN and before you start accusing me of being something I am not, I fully support due process. It’s bit of a blurry line but it comes down to seeing how polarizing these topics are and the horse has already been beaten. I always have felt that HN is a mix of excellent moderation as well as a bit of the will of the audience. I don’t want this to be a place to talk politics, it’s already so pervasive.
tomrod 2y ago
Repeating my top level comment here: [I w]ish there was a "vouch" option for when things that the US political right feels is an attack, despite it just being facts and worthy of discussion in an economic sector that is heavily connected with immigration, is flagged.

airstrike 2y ago

It's got nothing to do with being triggered and everything to do with this website trying to not also become completely flooded with political discussions > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

infecto 2y ago
This is the way imo. I flagged this story, I believe in due process, I don’t agree with the administration but I also don’t want HN to become yet another tribal battleground and these posts only fuel those comments.
- chabes 2y ago
  HN has a lot of immigrants that work in the US. What is happening right now is relevant to many users of this site. Maybe think about this before knee-jerk flagging
  - infecto 2y ago
    Why do you assume it was knee-jerk? The spirit is not now relevant a story is but the value it has. These stories are everywhere and there is little nuance in it. The comments of such a story also add no value and are a low signal tribal us vs them.
- aaomidi 2y ago
  Wonder how you’ll feel if it’s your family sent to a prison in El Salvador. We are not in normal times to have normal rules.
  - infecto 2y ago
    Please don’t trivialize the suffering of others for the use of your argument. The spirit of HN guidelines still exist. What value do you believe is derived from a discussion like this?
    - aaomidi 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - totallynothoney 2y ago
      > Please don’t trivialize the suffering of others for the use of your argument. I believe the people sent to a gulag would dislike more people not eschewing the sanctity of a internet forum, than someone 'trivializing' their suffering by using them for argument about how their situation should be discussed in said forum. The value is that right now a HN user on a visa could be disappeared in to dungeon for months for political speech if Marco Rubio's goons notice him.
- jlongr 2y ago
  This isn't a court. Due process?? Politics cannot be avoided, it is part of the fabric of our lives.
  - infecto 2y ago
    Can you share your thoughts without being so hyperbolic?
    - ajb 2y ago
      Not the GP, but I'll give it a go: You may be familiar with the layer structure of communications: Internetwork layer,below that transport, below that link layer, and at the bottom the physical layer. The physical layer is where it gets really messy: noise, interference, reflections,whatever. In human interaction, at the bottom layer is the simple fact that at any time, any human can just not follow the rules. That's not necessarily wrong. Maybe the rule just isn't important, and everyone recognises that. Or maybe some deep moral principle should override it. But at that point, other people have to make a moral call - do they ignore this breach of the rules? Do they object? Do they assess the moral principle as overriding? The military have some usefully neutral terms for behaviors, one of which is 'revisionist'. A revisionist power wants to change the rules, a status quo power wants to keep them. It's fairly clear that the US government is presently a revisionist one. That means that pretty much everyone has now to make the call as to whether what they see is allowable or, given the scale and power of the US federal government, a five-alarm fire. And they will often want to take that to places where they have some kind of trust in the intelligence or good will of the other people there. For a lot of engineers, that's right here. If this were a workplace or uni, there would be break rooms and water-coolers where this kind of discussion could go. But HN has none of that - there's only one category of discussion. So if you flag every such discussion, you're denying them the opportunity to do that. And that's not keeping politics out of HN - that's a political act itself.
    - jlongr 2y ago
      I'm not hyperbolic, you're obtuse. If you think you can bury your head and ignore politics for any amount of time, you are mistaken. Your purchases, comments, and actions are all political and strategic, whether you want to believe them to be or not.

UncleMeat 2y ago

Yeah its absolutely wild to me that a single flag can silence this sort of discussion, especially given that the tech ecosystem is so influential in ascendant fascism.

infecto 2y ago
Pretty certain it’s not a single flag and at least 2 are required to tango.
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  Easy enough even for a single person to run two accounts and obtain enough karma to flag posts.
  - infecto 2y ago
    And easy enough to vouch an article which will eventually bring it to attention to moderation.
    - DamnInteresting 2y ago
      Currently the vouch option doesn't appear until/unless a post moves from [flagged] to [dead].
      - infecto 2y ago
        Your right. I was thinking wrong. The only way to combat a flag is upvoting and even then it’s hard to see the impact since I believe it’s karma weighted.

ajb 2y ago

I agree. Maybe to flag, you should have to click 'hide' first, and be angry enough that you then go and look it up in the hidden list to flag it. It's short sighted, when this kind of thing comes banging on their door, they won't be able to 'flag' it away.

infecto 2y ago
Just based solely on comments alone you can see why these posts get flagged. It’s against the spirit of HN to house ideological battlegrounds regardless of whatever the truth or right side is. Edit: I don’t have the exact theory of the inner workings but always assumed that’s why vouching existed. You are more effectively weighting the opinion of higher karma folks to help drive the site. You could always vouch for something but with each cycle it might down weight it as that’s a signal the story is too contentious. You probably lose some valuable discussions but also get to cut many more that are worthless.
- mystraline 2y ago
  You're trying to attribute reason and justification. You have 0 insight into why however many people clicked the 'flag' button. In fact, there's no way to even enter a reason. I'm looking at the simple fact that flagging/disappearing an article with 150 comments by a select minority is abhorrent in of itself. (Doubly ridiculous is the disappeared article is about disappearing people.) Again, if you're too triggered about a subject matter, close the tab. Turns out, that's a really simple operation.
  - infecto 2y ago
    Please don’t project, no one’s triggered, at least not me. This kind of language is why these threads get flagged. The comments are low-signal rehashes without new value and just fuel tribal conflict. People can vouch, but that may still lead to moderation.
    - ModernMech 2y ago
      > Please don’t project.... This kind of language is why these threads get flagged. As the person who you responded to noted, you don't know why other people flagged a thread. None of us do. That you believe it's due to tribal battles is your own projection. What's not a projection is that many people chose to have a discussion on a topic despite the flag, and that's interesting, so maybe worth discussing.

infecto 2y ago

While I sometimes dip in the political side of comments I am one of those folks that flag these type of posts. I think they detract from HN and before you start accusing me of being something I am not, I fully support due process. It’s bit of a blurry line but it comes down to seeing how polarizing these topics are and the horse has already been beaten. I always have felt that HN is a mix of excellent moderation as well as a bit of the will of the audience. I don’t want this to be a place to talk politics, it’s already so pervasive.

tomrod 2y ago

Repeating my top level comment here: [I w]ish there was a "vouch" option for when things that the US political right feels is an attack, despite it just being facts and worthy of discussion in an economic sector that is heavily connected with immigration, is flagged.