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Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

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Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#131

Post by dsacco »

lightedman wrote: post #124
hardwaresofton wrote: post #6

The site is being crushed by traffic right now -- but without reading the article, I've also found that some stories that I thought were important that were scrubbed from HN's front page just about as soon as I saw it (when I doubled back to read the comments)... While I realize I'm not entitled to explanations, some transparency would be appreciated. Maybe it could even be automatic, whenever a mod removed something…

"While I realize I'm not entitled to explanations, some transparency would be appreciated." No, as a community we are all owed a public explanation. And if stcb and dang can't provide it, they need to step down and make room for someone who can.

We're not owed anything. This is a free community and there's no contract, implied or otherwise.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#132

Post by Neliquat »

mirimir wrote: post #127

Conversely, I've wondered how some stories (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857880 ) hit the top of the front page with only a few points. Edit: Thanks all. I get it now :)

I have a pet theory that lisp posts are weighted higher on here.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#133

Post by [deleted] »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #37
hardwaresofton wrote: post #6

The site is being crushed by traffic right now -- but without reading the article, I've also found that some stories that I thought were important that were scrubbed from HN's front page just about as soon as I saw it (when I doubled back to read the comments)... While I realize I'm not entitled to explanations, some transparency would be appreciated. Maybe it could even be automatic, whenever a mod removed something…

> Security through obscurity isn't a thing, and the better response is just to make a better algorithm, not try and suppress knowledge about it. Obscuring an algorithm or making it more tedious to reverse may not make it perfectly secure, but that's not the goal. It's not like actual information security, where loss of the encryption keys means your product is broken or your database is on the Internet. You're just t…

[deleted]

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#135

Post by onion2k »

rimliu wrote: post #27
laurent123456 wrote: post #12

As much as I like HN, I'm not a big fan of the secrecy around moderator interventions - what gets censored, what posts get re-titled, etc. I can understand they might want to keep the ranking algorithm and anti-spam techniques secret, but stuff that are manually censored by a moderator should be indicated as such, maybe by some automatic message like "This post was removed due to [reason]". Some websites manage to fi…

I've got my account (with 9+k point) banned. Which is, of course, annoying, but the most annoying thing was the comment left by moderator "we banned". How about "I banned"? Faceless corporate "we" does not look well. There was also a lie about warning which never happened, but hey, "not lying" is not in the guidelines, so… And while some of my comments might be harsh I sometimes wonder if overzealous moderation leads…

It seems likely that the mods talk to each other and critique one another's decisions. It's quite reasonable to say "we" to mean "the moderators of HN as a collective group" if banning your account was a group decision. The fact you're getting a comment from an individual doesn't mean it was necessarily just that person's decision to ban you. It's pretty uncharitable to assume moderators don't take their 'job' quite seriously.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#136

Post by Fjolsvith »

laktak wrote: post #17

Don't forget that HN tries to detect vote fraud. So some articles might simply disappear because the OP asked too many friends for upvotes or because of false positives.

How would HN know who an OP's friends are? Do they track social accounts?

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#137

Post by c3534l »

There's a subreddit for pages that get deleted from their front page. There's often good discussion around those pages and it's usually for a good reason they were removed. But sometimes there does appear to be real bias. It'd be nice if I could see what sort of stuff is getting removed and be able to discuss why.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#138

Post by dsacco »

tantanel wrote: post #78
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Security through obscurity isn't a thing, and the better response is just to make a better algorithm, not try and suppress knowledge about it. Obscuring an algorithm or making it more tedious to reverse may not make it perfectly secure, but that's not the goal. It's not like actual information security, where loss of the encryption keys means your product is broken or your database is on the Internet. You're just t…

The debate is not really whether the algorithm should be made public or not, it's about the method used to try and keep it secure. If the algorithm can be reverse engineered then trying to suppress the knowledge that is already "out there" will only create an illusion of it being a secret, and the fewer people know about it the more damage they can potentially do (i.e they more they can financially benefit from their…

It's not the same as with exploitable bugs, because exploitable bugs are fundamentally preventable. Not necessarily in aggregate; but individually, all bugs can essentially be patched given enough time or effort. There's no benefit to keeping them secret if their threats can be neutralized.

As I outlined in another comment in this thread, algorithms that do not offer or adopt significant authorization constraints (as quantified by time/monetary costs) cannot be "fixed." This is fundamentally why reverse engineering e.g. HMAC signing algorithms, search results ranking, spam filtering or front page listing algorithms is possible. The generous usability requirements do not allow for authorization that would mitigate reversing the algorithm, even when it's not embedded in an untrustworthy client.

Suppression is essentially all you can do to prevent reverse engineering, and suppressing the knowledge of how to reverse engineer an algorithm is in effect the same as suppressing the algorithm itself.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#139

Post by c3534l »

mirimir wrote: post #127

Conversely, I've wondered how some stories (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857880 ) hit the top of the front page with only a few points. Edit: Thanks all. I get it now :)

Protip: every post hits the front page. Some posts just stay there longer.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#140

Post by DashRattlesnake »

mirimir wrote: post #127

Conversely, I've wondered how some stories (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857880 ) hit the top of the front page with only a few points. Edit: Thanks all. I get it now :)

My gut feel is posts like that are very new and have gotten a few upvotes in a short time.
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