5 ms·

Why the hell would this be flagged? Perfectly valid, debate-worthy and absolutely relevant in the context of many non-flagged submissions on this site. Again it

Why the hell would this be flagged? Perfectly valid, debate-worthy and absolutely relevant in the context of many non-flagged submissions on this site. Again it would be nice if the HN admin stop letting any random orangutan flag anything they like out of their own shitty little naval-gazing ideological fixations.

wltr 2y ago
Oh, I found /active just recently. And turned out many, if not most, interesting topics are censored. While some mediocre and irrelevant things are not. However, I’m not surprised, being a long time visitor, and seeing very dang questionable moderation practices.
- leereeves 2y ago
  It wouldn't matter if it were flagged or not. It would be removed from the front page because HN downranks posts with a lot of comments. HN is designed to hide political discussions. If it weren't, the front page would be nothing but political discussions.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    > HN is designed to hide political discussions. unless they're PG political posts, ahem
    - trymas 2y ago
      > … posts … They are called “essays”. /s
- demarq 2y ago
  Woah! I’m genuinely shocked. It has changed what I think of this website.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    HN user-driven moderation, as far as I can see, basically assumes good intent. This is, ah, naive; totally failed system. It's rather easy for any motivated group to censor anything.
edanm 2y ago
Please find a way to contribute more politely to HN. Regardless of whether I agree with you on whether this post should be flagged, calling your fellow HNers "random orangutans" that act out of "shitty little naval-gazing ideological fixations" is rude, mean, stupid, and wrong.
bloopernova 2y ago
HN mods/leadership appear to have taken the stance that this is a non-political site. Why it's being flagged? People hiding behind the non-political rule are suppressing information and discussion. This site is owned by ycombinator, who have a motivation to "not rock the boat", so such suppression is ignored. I guess in time we'll see whether that's a good decision for them or not.
- p_ing 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - computerthings 2y ago
    [dead]
  - pirates 2y ago
    Flagging is at 30 or 31 karma, it’s downvoting that is locked behind 500. > Educate yourself
- apercu 2y ago
  [flagged]
- trymas 2y ago
  > This site is owned by ycombinator, who have a motivation to "not rock the boat"… I’d argue that leadership of ycombinator is glad where this boat is sailing. Just look who are they inviting to advertised AI startup school at the bottom of this site.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    The founder of Gumroad works inside DOGE now. One of the founders of AirBNB works inside DOGE now. Musk founded DOGE. Peter Thiel's Palantir is generating the information for ICE now. https://www.404media.co/leaked-palantirs-plan-to-help-ice-deport-people/ https://www.404media.co/leaked-palantirs-plan-to-help-ice-de... David Sacks is the country's official Crypto czar now. Chamath Palihapitiya brags that he's happy that his money can now buy access/influence /power. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-donor-chamath-palihapitiya-brags-access-white-house-1235315702/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-do...
postalrat 2y ago
Id assume to prevent hn from becoming a tiny version of reddit.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
marius_k 2y ago
These days I go to https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active And search for [flagged] items first.
- wltr 2y ago
  That’s what I do too.
mvdtnz 2y ago
I flag American politics because it's boring and irrelevant to me. Nothing to do with ideological fixations, although it does please me that people like get so worked up about it.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  > I flag American politics because it's boring and irrelevant to me. Where on earth could you live that American politics are irrelevant to you? Boring sure, but irrelevant? Unless you live, well, on Jupiter these days, there's not an inch of the globe that's untouched by the effects of American politics.
  - mvdtnz 2y ago
    I can assure you that Harvard foreign student enrolments are absolutely irrelevant to my day to day life.
    - foobarchu 2y ago
      The decline of the last democratic world superpower into fascism that it represents is absolutely relevant to you, I promise. "Meh, I don't care what Nazi Germany is up to, it's irrelevant to me"
      - mvdtnz 2y ago
        You lot really can't go five minutes without invoking Hitler or Nazis when discussing your politics. And you wonder why we find it boring.
        foobarchu 2y ago
        This complaint went out the window when they started pulling all of their actions straight from the Nazi playbook. Just because someone coined a law on the internet decades ago does not invalidate the comparison. Neither does you finding it repetitive and boring. If anything, you should be more concerned, not apathetic.
NalNezumi 2y ago
I'll be honest, I prefer it this way. Thanks people flagging the political stuff (I can't be bothered). If you want the political stuff & the controversial stuff, you can add /active after the URL to HN main page. The fact that there is an /active tab and flagged submissions can still be voted & commented on, tells me that while dang don't want it to be the face of HN, he's fine that people discuss it (as long as you comment with civility). If there was some tinfoil conspiracy, the tab would've been deleted. I'm guilty that l now usually check /active and main page. You know, some of the high-horse, HN readers are quick to say "social media, bad" and anything bashing social media (including blogs) sky rocket up to main page. "reddit sucks" is another common one. I mean I usually agree to that sentiment, but if you check /active posts, the comments, where things go, it resembles any other social media slop more than HN. I spend more time on /active, sadly. Maybe those navel-gazing orangutans are actually the ones making sure this is not reddit or Facebook for techies rather than boomers
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
dang 2y ago
Most probably the users who flagged it are tired of the repetition, because HN had a huge frontpage discussion about this topic just a few days ago: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536 - April 2025 (1399 comments) Avoiding too much repetition is a core principle of this place [1]. To get a sense of how repetitive these discussions are, just look at the comments in the current thread—they could just as easily have been posted to the previous thread. The way HN operates with respect to political stories is clear and stable, and has been for many years: some stories with political overlap are ok [2], but there isn't room on the frontpage for all of them (not even 5% of them, really). Frontpage space is the scarcest resource that exists here [3], and HN is not a current affairs site [4]. If you, or anyone, will familiarize yourselves with the explanations in these links, and then still have a question that I haven't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20front%20scarce&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20current%20affairs%20site&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- pera 2y ago
  > Avoiding too much repetition is a core principle of this place This principle is applied very selectively though: The homepage has been full of insignificant iterations of overly hyped tech products for years now. It is very hard to imagine all these submissions of announcements of products with monthly release cycles gratifying anyone's intellectual curiosity. Yet it apparently does because they can stay in the homepage for 24 hours. But for some reason, something as unprecedented as the United States government threatening Harvard with a xenophobic ban is deemed "repetitive"?
  - 2y ago

wltr 2y ago

Oh, I found /active just recently. And turned out many, if not most, interesting topics are censored. While some mediocre and irrelevant things are not. However, I’m not surprised, being a long time visitor, and seeing very dang questionable moderation practices.

leereeves 2y ago
It wouldn't matter if it were flagged or not. It would be removed from the front page because HN downranks posts with a lot of comments. HN is designed to hide political discussions. If it weren't, the front page would be nothing but political discussions.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > HN is designed to hide political discussions. unless they're PG political posts, ahem
  - trymas 2y ago
    > … posts … They are called “essays”. /s
demarq 2y ago
Woah! I’m genuinely shocked. It has changed what I think of this website.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  HN user-driven moderation, as far as I can see, basically assumes good intent. This is, ah, naive; totally failed system. It's rather easy for any motivated group to censor anything.

edanm 2y ago

Please find a way to contribute more politely to HN. Regardless of whether I agree with you on whether this post should be flagged, calling your fellow HNers "random orangutans" that act out of "shitty little naval-gazing ideological fixations" is rude, mean, stupid, and wrong.

bloopernova 2y ago

HN mods/leadership appear to have taken the stance that this is a non-political site. Why it's being flagged? People hiding behind the non-political rule are suppressing information and discussion. This site is owned by ycombinator, who have a motivation to "not rock the boat", so such suppression is ignored. I guess in time we'll see whether that's a good decision for them or not.

p_ing 2y ago
[flagged]
- computerthings 2y ago
  [dead]
- pirates 2y ago
  Flagging is at 30 or 31 karma, it’s downvoting that is locked behind 500. > Educate yourself
apercu 2y ago
[flagged]
trymas 2y ago
> This site is owned by ycombinator, who have a motivation to "not rock the boat"… I’d argue that leadership of ycombinator is glad where this boat is sailing. Just look who are they inviting to advertised AI startup school at the bottom of this site.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  The founder of Gumroad works inside DOGE now. One of the founders of AirBNB works inside DOGE now. Musk founded DOGE. Peter Thiel's Palantir is generating the information for ICE now. https://www.404media.co/leaked-palantirs-plan-to-help-ice-deport-people/ https://www.404media.co/leaked-palantirs-plan-to-help-ice-de... David Sacks is the country's official Crypto czar now. Chamath Palihapitiya brags that he's happy that his money can now buy access/influence /power. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-donor-chamath-palihapitiya-brags-access-white-house-1235315702/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-do...

postalrat 2y ago

Id assume to prevent hn from becoming a tiny version of reddit.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

marius_k 2y ago

These days I go to https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active And search for [flagged] items first.

wltr 2y ago
That’s what I do too.

mvdtnz 2y ago

I flag American politics because it's boring and irrelevant to me. Nothing to do with ideological fixations, although it does please me that people like get so worked up about it.

nozzlegear 2y ago
> I flag American politics because it's boring and irrelevant to me. Where on earth could you live that American politics are irrelevant to you? Boring sure, but irrelevant? Unless you live, well, on Jupiter these days, there's not an inch of the globe that's untouched by the effects of American politics.
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  I can assure you that Harvard foreign student enrolments are absolutely irrelevant to my day to day life.
  - foobarchu 2y ago
    The decline of the last democratic world superpower into fascism that it represents is absolutely relevant to you, I promise. "Meh, I don't care what Nazi Germany is up to, it's irrelevant to me"
    - mvdtnz 2y ago
      You lot really can't go five minutes without invoking Hitler or Nazis when discussing your politics. And you wonder why we find it boring.
      - foobarchu 2y ago
        This complaint went out the window when they started pulling all of their actions straight from the Nazi playbook. Just because someone coined a law on the internet decades ago does not invalidate the comparison. Neither does you finding it repetitive and boring. If anything, you should be more concerned, not apathetic.

NalNezumi 2y ago

I'll be honest, I prefer it this way. Thanks people flagging the political stuff (I can't be bothered). If you want the political stuff & the controversial stuff, you can add /active after the URL to HN main page. The fact that there is an /active tab and flagged submissions can still be voted & commented on, tells me that while dang don't want it to be the face of HN, he's fine that people discuss it (as long as you comment with civility). If there was some tinfoil conspiracy, the tab would've been deleted. I'm guilty that l now usually check /active and main page. You know, some of the high-horse, HN readers are quick to say "social media, bad" and anything bashing social media (including blogs) sky rocket up to main page. "reddit sucks" is another common one. I mean I usually agree to that sentiment, but if you check /active posts, the comments, where things go, it resembles any other social media slop more than HN. I spend more time on /active, sadly. Maybe those navel-gazing orangutans are actually the ones making sure this is not reddit or Facebook for techies rather than boomers

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

dang 2y ago

Most probably the users who flagged it are tired of the repetition, because HN had a huge frontpage discussion about this topic just a few days ago: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536 - April 2025 (1399 comments) Avoiding too much repetition is a core principle of this place [1]. To get a sense of how repetitive these discussions are, just look at the comments in the current thread—they could just as easily have been posted to the previous thread. The way HN operates with respect to political stories is clear and stable, and has been for many years: some stories with political overlap are ok [2], but there isn't room on the frontpage for all of them (not even 5% of them, really). Frontpage space is the scarcest resource that exists here [3], and HN is not a current affairs site [4]. If you, or anyone, will familiarize yourselves with the explanations in these links, and then still have a question that I haven't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20front%20scarce&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20current%20affairs%20site&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

pera 2y ago
> Avoiding too much repetition is a core principle of this place This principle is applied very selectively though: The homepage has been full of insignificant iterations of overly hyped tech products for years now. It is very hard to imagine all these submissions of announcements of products with monthly release cycles gratifying anyone's intellectual curiosity. Yet it apparently does because they can stay in the homepage for 24 hours. But for some reason, something as unprecedented as the United States government threatening Harvard with a xenophobic ban is deemed "repetitive"?
- 2y ago