4 ms·

Maybe start by reviewing the HN guidelines and asking yourself whether or not this is on-topic for HN.

by FloorEgg 10mo ago

square_usual 10mo ago
How is this not on topic for HN?
- groby_b 10mo ago
  Given the guideline is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." one could certainly make the case it's not a topic that's fit. "Large company does horrible things, occasionally an investigation happens" is not satisfying curiosity on an intellectual level. What, specifically, are we learning? Yes, we can debate if it's relevant to the audience anyways, or if it's healthy for HN to have that guideline, but those are different criteria & topics.
  - danudey 10mo ago
    > What, specifically, are we learning? That some countries are willing to hold tech companies accountable (or claim their intent to hold tech companies accountable) for breaking the laws. In turn, this could lead to court cases deciding if companies can hide behind "It wasn't us, our AI did it!" or if they have to take responsibility for the thing they made.
  - frm88 10mo ago
    "Large company does horrible things, occasionally an investigation happens" is not satisfying curiosity on an intellectual level. What, specifically, are we learning? By your metric most of the topics concerning Google or Microsoft in the past months should not have staid on the front page, let alone most of the American politics topics. And yet, here we are: anything critical of any of Musk's companies gets flagged, American politics stay. @dang: how does this flagging thingy work? How many user flags are necessary until a topic appears as [flagged]? Thank you in advance for an explanation.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
afavour 10mo ago
I have, and it is. In what world would it not be?
- FloorEgg 10mo ago
  Interesting, I'm surprised you would think that. Given the very first part about what's on-topic and off-topic, how would you categorize this post?
  - square_usual 10mo ago
    You don't find it interesting that a major social media company enabled generating deepfake porn, and now faces global legal action for it? (I know for a fact you and people like you will say No, so posts about deepfakes and their legal consequences have been extremely relevant for HN; you just need one search to prove this: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=deepfakes https://hn.algolia.com/?q=deepfakes)
    - FloorEgg 10mo ago
      > I know for a fact you and people like you will say No You "know for a fact" what about me exactly? And what do you mean by "people like me"? I think AI deep fakes were an interesting new phenomenon at one point but that time has past. I think this post falls under crime and outrage, and I would categorize it maybe 70/30 as off-topic / on-topic. It's not cut and dry for me, but it does skew more as off-topic than on-topic. The comment I was replying to was acting as if there was no explanation, yet the explanation is clearly laid out right in the top of the HN guidelines. There are so many places to go on the Internet if you want to be outraged or spread outrage about things that outrage you, HN is one of the few places meant to harbour intellectual curiosity, and outrage and intellectual curiosity unfortunately don't mix well, hence the guidelines.
  - afavour 10mo ago
    > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Deepfakes and their implications are interesting, they’re technical, they’re of interest to hackers. A tech company operating globally and violating the laws in multiple jurisdictions at once? An interesting topic worth of discussion. Your attempt at gatekeeping here would be more believable if we weren’t all able to look at other submissions on the front page. A government site called “eat real food” has been on the front page for nearly a day now. It’s very convenient to selectively apply guidelines but it’s also transparently dishonest.
monsieurgaufre 10mo ago
The guidelines are bent all the time. This article is about tech used in illegal ways. How is that not following the guidelines?
- FloorEgg 10mo ago
  It sure seems to me like you haven't read the guidelines, because if you had you would have made a different case for why this post should be on-topic, since the guidelines use "crime" as an example of what is off-topic. The spirit of the guidelines is: On-topic: fosters intellectual curiosity Off-topic: derails intellectual curiosity
  - monsieurgaufre 10mo ago
    Your own submission do not follow these guidelines.
    - FloorEgg 10mo ago
      I've only made one submission in 2024 and yes it's true it was not appropriate for HN. Since then I've read the guidelines multiple times and learned how to follow them better. I don't see how a small mistake I made in 2024 changes the fact that the HN guidelines seem to align with a decision to flag this submission.
  - mariusor 10mo ago
    I think it's a gross omission on the part of whomever wrote the guidelines if discussions about ethics are deemed off topic. Because many of these events where tech is being used, or abused, in a way that's morally challenging lead to those discussions, and I for one, am very curious why the tech literate crowd of HackerNews is uncomfortable in talking about them, and presents their amorality as "it's against the guidelines".
UncleMeat 10mo ago
I really don't think I can imagine a more on-topic thing than a story that combines the richest tech entrepreneur in the world (musk), a major tech company (twitter), and the most important technical development in ages (ai).
- FloorEgg 10mo ago
  On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. 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. I can think of many way more on-topic submissions. They are the ones where no one is upset and everyone is nerding out about an obscure topic. Let me be clear, classifying this submission as off topic is not cut and dry. My point was there is clearly good justification for it in the official guidelines. - it's not a topic that fosters intellectual curiosity because it is somewhat rage inducing. It's outrageous. It's frustrating and it's scary. It's very likely to upset people. - it's also related to a controversial celebrity - it's also about crime - it's also something that surely will be covered by TV news These things are laid out right there clearly in the guidelines. I am choosing to give the moderators the benefit of the doubt because I believe they are doing their best to try and foster good intellectually curious dialog and minimize emotionally charged heel digging disrespectful debates and flame wars.
  - UncleMeat 10mo ago
    > it's not a topic that fosters intellectual curiosity because it is somewhat rage inducing. It's outrageous. It's frustrating and it's scary. It's very likely to upset people. Frustrating, outrageous, upsetting, and scary things are worth discussing. These are important topics.
    - FloorEgg 10mo ago
      Are you debating my interpretation of the HN guidelines or the HN guidelines themselves? It seems a bit like you are shifting the goalpost here. I was clarifying how the decision to flag this submission can be explained by the HN guidelines. I agree with your statement in principle, but it's irrelevant to my point or yours about this submission being on-topic. I regularly discuss these kinds topics in groups with people that have diverse viewpoints, but also can maintain civil dialog. The problem is that anonymous people on the internet usually can't discuss these topics and stay civil without devolving into echo chambers. I assume this is why HN made a decision to call them out of scope. Personally I think it was a good decision and it's part of what makes HN unique and valuable. It's a kind of sanctuary. If you want to discuss these topics there are lots of other places to go.

Maybe start by reviewing the HN guidelines and asking yourself whether or not this is on-topic for HN.

square_usual 10mo ago

How is this not on topic for HN?

groby_b 10mo ago
Given the guideline is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." one could certainly make the case it's not a topic that's fit. "Large company does horrible things, occasionally an investigation happens" is not satisfying curiosity on an intellectual level. What, specifically, are we learning? Yes, we can debate if it's relevant to the audience anyways, or if it's healthy for HN to have that guideline, but those are different criteria & topics.
- danudey 10mo ago
  > What, specifically, are we learning? That some countries are willing to hold tech companies accountable (or claim their intent to hold tech companies accountable) for breaking the laws. In turn, this could lead to court cases deciding if companies can hide behind "It wasn't us, our AI did it!" or if they have to take responsibility for the thing they made.
- frm88 10mo ago
  "Large company does horrible things, occasionally an investigation happens" is not satisfying curiosity on an intellectual level. What, specifically, are we learning? By your metric most of the topics concerning Google or Microsoft in the past months should not have staid on the front page, let alone most of the American politics topics. And yet, here we are: anything critical of any of Musk's companies gets flagged, American politics stay. @dang: how does this flagging thingy work? How many user flags are necessary until a topic appears as [flagged]? Thank you in advance for an explanation.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]

afavour 10mo ago

I have, and it is. In what world would it not be?

FloorEgg 10mo ago
Interesting, I'm surprised you would think that. Given the very first part about what's on-topic and off-topic, how would you categorize this post?
- square_usual 10mo ago
  You don't find it interesting that a major social media company enabled generating deepfake porn, and now faces global legal action for it? (I know for a fact you and people like you will say No, so posts about deepfakes and their legal consequences have been extremely relevant for HN; you just need one search to prove this: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=deepfakes https://hn.algolia.com/?q=deepfakes)
  - FloorEgg 10mo ago
    > I know for a fact you and people like you will say No You "know for a fact" what about me exactly? And what do you mean by "people like me"? I think AI deep fakes were an interesting new phenomenon at one point but that time has past. I think this post falls under crime and outrage, and I would categorize it maybe 70/30 as off-topic / on-topic. It's not cut and dry for me, but it does skew more as off-topic than on-topic. The comment I was replying to was acting as if there was no explanation, yet the explanation is clearly laid out right in the top of the HN guidelines. There are so many places to go on the Internet if you want to be outraged or spread outrage about things that outrage you, HN is one of the few places meant to harbour intellectual curiosity, and outrage and intellectual curiosity unfortunately don't mix well, hence the guidelines.
- afavour 10mo ago
  > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Deepfakes and their implications are interesting, they’re technical, they’re of interest to hackers. A tech company operating globally and violating the laws in multiple jurisdictions at once? An interesting topic worth of discussion. Your attempt at gatekeeping here would be more believable if we weren’t all able to look at other submissions on the front page. A government site called “eat real food” has been on the front page for nearly a day now. It’s very convenient to selectively apply guidelines but it’s also transparently dishonest.

monsieurgaufre 10mo ago

The guidelines are bent all the time. This article is about tech used in illegal ways. How is that not following the guidelines?

FloorEgg 10mo ago
It sure seems to me like you haven't read the guidelines, because if you had you would have made a different case for why this post should be on-topic, since the guidelines use "crime" as an example of what is off-topic. The spirit of the guidelines is: On-topic: fosters intellectual curiosity Off-topic: derails intellectual curiosity
- monsieurgaufre 10mo ago
  Your own submission do not follow these guidelines.
  - FloorEgg 10mo ago
    I've only made one submission in 2024 and yes it's true it was not appropriate for HN. Since then I've read the guidelines multiple times and learned how to follow them better. I don't see how a small mistake I made in 2024 changes the fact that the HN guidelines seem to align with a decision to flag this submission.
- mariusor 10mo ago
  I think it's a gross omission on the part of whomever wrote the guidelines if discussions about ethics are deemed off topic. Because many of these events where tech is being used, or abused, in a way that's morally challenging lead to those discussions, and I for one, am very curious why the tech literate crowd of HackerNews is uncomfortable in talking about them, and presents their amorality as "it's against the guidelines".

UncleMeat 10mo ago

I really don't think I can imagine a more on-topic thing than a story that combines the richest tech entrepreneur in the world (musk), a major tech company (twitter), and the most important technical development in ages (ai).

FloorEgg 10mo ago
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. 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. I can think of many way more on-topic submissions. They are the ones where no one is upset and everyone is nerding out about an obscure topic. Let me be clear, classifying this submission as off topic is not cut and dry. My point was there is clearly good justification for it in the official guidelines. - it's not a topic that fosters intellectual curiosity because it is somewhat rage inducing. It's outrageous. It's frustrating and it's scary. It's very likely to upset people. - it's also related to a controversial celebrity - it's also about crime - it's also something that surely will be covered by TV news These things are laid out right there clearly in the guidelines. I am choosing to give the moderators the benefit of the doubt because I believe they are doing their best to try and foster good intellectually curious dialog and minimize emotionally charged heel digging disrespectful debates and flame wars.
- UncleMeat 10mo ago
  > it's not a topic that fosters intellectual curiosity because it is somewhat rage inducing. It's outrageous. It's frustrating and it's scary. It's very likely to upset people. Frustrating, outrageous, upsetting, and scary things are worth discussing. These are important topics.
  - FloorEgg 10mo ago
    Are you debating my interpretation of the HN guidelines or the HN guidelines themselves? It seems a bit like you are shifting the goalpost here. I was clarifying how the decision to flag this submission can be explained by the HN guidelines. I agree with your statement in principle, but it's irrelevant to my point or yours about this submission being on-topic. I regularly discuss these kinds topics in groups with people that have diverse viewpoints, but also can maintain civil dialog. The problem is that anonymous people on the internet usually can't discuss these topics and stay civil without devolving into echo chambers. I assume this is why HN made a decision to call them out of scope. Personally I think it was a good decision and it's part of what makes HN unique and valuable. It's a kind of sanctuary. If you want to discuss these topics there are lots of other places to go.