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Why has this aritcle (124 points, in 1 hour) only 15th on HN? Who is flagging this? Vkontakte is larger than Facebook in Russia, and the CEO has to flee due t

Why has this aritcle (124 points, in 1 hour) only 15th on HN? Who is flagging this? Vkontakte is larger than Facebook in Russia, and the CEO has to flee due to ugly pressure. This isn't germane technology news?

piokuc 12y ago
Interesting, indeed. The article was on the very top a couple of hours ago...
saraid216 12y ago
> Vkontakte is larger than Facebook in Russia, and the CEO has to flee due to ugly pressure. This isn't germane technology news? Odd. You have successfully convinced me to flag this, whereas I hadn't before.
dang 12y ago
Users are flagging it and moderators applied a penalty. This is standard practice. The only question is whether it should be on the front page at all, given the predictably low quality of the thread. It's not a question of it being off-topic. It's a question of it spurring shallow discussion that is high on agitation (noise) and low on reflection (signal). Consider the distinguishing features of the thread: (1) A top comment that has no substance and is merely an internet witticism to fire up the crowd; (2) A person attempting to contribute substantively accused of being a propagandist for Putin; (3) A predictable Snowden argument whose only connection to the story is "Russia".
- terminado 12y ago
  Given that the name of this site is "Hacker News" and not "Hacker Threads", one would expect high quality news items to bubble to the top of the main list, and not necessarily high-quality discussions. You might want to reconsider the premise of flagging topics in order to facilitate ease of topic moderation. There's more to this site than merely the user discussion. Are there any metrics that distinguish the ratio of active thread participants, versus quiet lurkers, versus users that seldom view the HN thread at all, and only look at the lists? On a busy day at work, I'll check the RSS feed frequently, but rarely bother with HN proper. In short, this means if an article doesn't make it into the top 30 list, a (possibly-not-insignificant) portion your user base (myself included) might be effectively disinformed of the topic. That's kind of important.
  - dang 12y ago
    That's a very good point. It's not obvious how to balance this. What would be better? The status quo isn't ok, because it violates HN's values of substance and civility. Not having any threads at all is not an option. Selectively shutting down threads when they go off the rails seems draconian. Banning people for making poor contributions to poor threads is wrong; the same people often make good contributions elsewhere. Thoughts?
    - terminado 12y ago
      I don't think there are really any shortcuts. This sort of problem is likely to always require nuanced and direct human intervention. Sometimes the acrimony and the controversy is an integral part of a news story. Without the gossip from the peanut gallery, it might not be news. Relevant social topics often smell terrible. I think it just comes with the territory...

piokuc 12y ago

Interesting, indeed. The article was on the very top a couple of hours ago...

saraid216 12y ago

> Vkontakte is larger than Facebook in Russia, and the CEO has to flee due to ugly pressure. This isn't germane technology news? Odd. You have successfully convinced me to flag this, whereas I hadn't before.

dang 12y ago

Users are flagging it and moderators applied a penalty. This is standard practice. The only question is whether it should be on the front page at all, given the predictably low quality of the thread. It's not a question of it being off-topic. It's a question of it spurring shallow discussion that is high on agitation (noise) and low on reflection (signal). Consider the distinguishing features of the thread: (1) A top comment that has no substance and is merely an internet witticism to fire up the crowd; (2) A person attempting to contribute substantively accused of being a propagandist for Putin; (3) A predictable Snowden argument whose only connection to the story is "Russia".

terminado 12y ago
Given that the name of this site is "Hacker News" and not "Hacker Threads", one would expect high quality news items to bubble to the top of the main list, and not necessarily high-quality discussions. You might want to reconsider the premise of flagging topics in order to facilitate ease of topic moderation. There's more to this site than merely the user discussion. Are there any metrics that distinguish the ratio of active thread participants, versus quiet lurkers, versus users that seldom view the HN thread at all, and only look at the lists? On a busy day at work, I'll check the RSS feed frequently, but rarely bother with HN proper. In short, this means if an article doesn't make it into the top 30 list, a (possibly-not-insignificant) portion your user base (myself included) might be effectively disinformed of the topic. That's kind of important.
- dang 12y ago
  That's a very good point. It's not obvious how to balance this. What would be better? The status quo isn't ok, because it violates HN's values of substance and civility. Not having any threads at all is not an option. Selectively shutting down threads when they go off the rails seems draconian. Banning people for making poor contributions to poor threads is wrong; the same people often make good contributions elsewhere. Thoughts?
  - terminado 12y ago
    I don't think there are really any shortcuts. This sort of problem is likely to always require nuanced and direct human intervention. Sometimes the acrimony and the controversy is an integral part of a news story. Without the gossip from the peanut gallery, it might not be news. Relevant social topics often smell terrible. I think it just comes with the territory...