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So, drone strike bombings are totally on topic, but US wing nut assassins shooting politicians, DHS tackling senators and arresting mayors, and the marines depl

by johnea 1y ago

So, drone strike bombings are totally on topic, but US wing nut assassins shooting politicians, DHS tackling senators and arresting mayors, and the marines deployed to US cities, is all flagged out of existence. It's been made quite clear, that HN is fundamentally a right wing-nut controlled forum. I think there are a lot of woke-nut people in the mix as well, maybe even an equal amount, but the wing-nut mode of the highly bimodal distribution just flags anything that demonstrates that we've elected a criminal to the office of US president. Whereas the woke-nut mode is tolerant of allowing discussion to carry on, even on topics they don't agree with. I guess it was to be expected, given the vulture capital origins of the platform...

tomhow 1y ago
John, as you know you can always email us if you have queries or concerns about this. The current thread we're commenting in was flagged off the front page after forty minutes. The "marines deployed to US cities" story was on the front page for over 12 hours and on the "active" page for well over 24 hours [1] (despite strange claims to the contrary). The other stories seem too much in the realm of mainstream news, given we've already had a lot of it on the front page this week. The site guidelines explicitly state that mainstream news out of scope for HN, even though we make exceptions when the weight of community sentiment favours that (it did regarding the marines story, it hasn't about the others). As someone who is looking at the front page and reading the discussions for hours each day, it seems to me that the weight of sentiment is fairly strongly against the current U.S. administration, and also generally unimpressed with the venture capital industry. As moderators, it's not for us to try and change anyone's mind about any of these things. We know we can't even if we wanted to (which we don't). It's up to community members to discuss the topics and try to persuade each other with good arguments, and our role is just to make HN a healthy place for that to happen. If mainstream news is being flagged off the front page, it's not because people are politically motivated to "hide" that news (as if that would make a difference to anyone's awareness of these stories); it's because people come to HN to find out about technology and other topics that are interesting to technology enthusiasts, and much of the HN audience prefers to get their mainstream news elsewhere. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44264728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44264728
- johnea 1y ago
  Thanks for your reply tom! When I re-read my comment, I realize it's not completely clear: its definitely not my impression that moderation, or HN platform administration, are flagging these articles. My impression is that a portion of the user community is. In my interactions with moderation, I've always received even handed and personal replies. This, I feel, is one of the greatest aspects of HN. While the majority of posts are technical, many many of the links on HN are non-technical. This seems to me to be an important feature. Tech doesn't exist in a bubble, it's part of broader society, and major breaking news impacts tech workers, tech products, and the viability of startups and the products they'll offer. The tech communities ability to exchange comments on these broader issues is one of the most striking features of HN, and a great deal of users participate. Moderators are certainly the most knowledgeable about the flow of threads and user affinity, I only have my outside impression. But it seems that threads describing certain events are flagged out of use much more frequently. To me, it doesn't seem like a broad response of removing non-technical links, but more specific-topic motivated. I don't know the exact details of when a flagged article becomes unavailable for comments, but it often seems that when one demographic is flagging the comments, others are eager to exchange discussion. If there is a user <flag> link, that can make comments unavailable, wouldn't it be helpful to also include an <unflag> link? I read quite a few news sites everyday. but I find links to non-technical news on HN that I didn't discover anywhere else. The community at HN is not only technical, but broadly knowledgeable about many many topics. This is a great feature of the site. I'd just like to be able to comment on some articles that others don't seem interested in. I don't think I'm alone in that regard. Moderation removing articles that are blatantly spam, ad hominem, or otherwise offensive is obviously needed, but letting the community converse on non-technical topics, even if a portion of the community is not interested, doesn't seem like a divergence from the core mission. My comment is already too long, but I want to say again: Thank You for the efforts of the mods! and Thank You for all of your responses, which have always been thoughtful, and individually crafted.

by johnea 1y ago

tomhow 1y ago

John, as you know you can always email us if you have queries or concerns about this. The current thread we're commenting in was flagged off the front page after forty minutes. The "marines deployed to US cities" story was on the front page for over 12 hours and on the "active" page for well over 24 hours [1] (despite strange claims to the contrary). The other stories seem too much in the realm of mainstream news, given we've already had a lot of it on the front page this week. The site guidelines explicitly state that mainstream news out of scope for HN, even though we make exceptions when the weight of community sentiment favours that (it did regarding the marines story, it hasn't about the others). As someone who is looking at the front page and reading the discussions for hours each day, it seems to me that the weight of sentiment is fairly strongly against the current U.S. administration, and also generally unimpressed with the venture capital industry. As moderators, it's not for us to try and change anyone's mind about any of these things. We know we can't even if we wanted to (which we don't). It's up to community members to discuss the topics and try to persuade each other with good arguments, and our role is just to make HN a healthy place for that to happen. If mainstream news is being flagged off the front page, it's not because people are politically motivated to "hide" that news (as if that would make a difference to anyone's awareness of these stories); it's because people come to HN to find out about technology and other topics that are interesting to technology enthusiasts, and much of the HN audience prefers to get their mainstream news elsewhere. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44264728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44264728

johnea 1y ago
Thanks for your reply tom! When I re-read my comment, I realize it's not completely clear: its definitely not my impression that moderation, or HN platform administration, are flagging these articles. My impression is that a portion of the user community is. In my interactions with moderation, I've always received even handed and personal replies. This, I feel, is one of the greatest aspects of HN. While the majority of posts are technical, many many of the links on HN are non-technical. This seems to me to be an important feature. Tech doesn't exist in a bubble, it's part of broader society, and major breaking news impacts tech workers, tech products, and the viability of startups and the products they'll offer. The tech communities ability to exchange comments on these broader issues is one of the most striking features of HN, and a great deal of users participate. Moderators are certainly the most knowledgeable about the flow of threads and user affinity, I only have my outside impression. But it seems that threads describing certain events are flagged out of use much more frequently. To me, it doesn't seem like a broad response of removing non-technical links, but more specific-topic motivated. I don't know the exact details of when a flagged article becomes unavailable for comments, but it often seems that when one demographic is flagging the comments, others are eager to exchange discussion. If there is a user <flag> link, that can make comments unavailable, wouldn't it be helpful to also include an <unflag> link? I read quite a few news sites everyday. but I find links to non-technical news on HN that I didn't discover anywhere else. The community at HN is not only technical, but broadly knowledgeable about many many topics. This is a great feature of the site. I'd just like to be able to comment on some articles that others don't seem interested in. I don't think I'm alone in that regard. Moderation removing articles that are blatantly spam, ad hominem, or otherwise offensive is obviously needed, but letting the community converse on non-technical topics, even if a portion of the community is not interested, doesn't seem like a divergence from the core mission. My comment is already too long, but I want to say again: Thank You for the efforts of the mods! and Thank You for all of your responses, which have always been thoughtful, and individually crafted.