Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page • Hacker News Board

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#261

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:01 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #258

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #239

A few months ago I wrote a tool that scrapes HN and detects moderator activity (and provides interesting stats in general). I posted it twice and it didn't receive much attention, and the database storage requirements starting to get out of hand, so I killed it. It seems like an appropriate time to bring it up again. The source code is here: https://github.com/SirCmpwn/hn-transparency Some screenshots: https://sr.ht/…

I wrote a tool that scrapes HN and detects moderator activity (and provides interesting stats in general). Sounds great! It might be good to distinguish between "moderator activity" (which to me implies that a human reads and makes a decision) and "moderation activity" (which covers automatic adjustments such as the frequently faulty "flame detection algorithm"). If there's interest, I can put this back up and start…

>Sounds great! It might be good to distinguish between "moderator activity" (which to me implies that a human reads and makes a decision) and "moderation activity" (which covers automatic adjustments such as the frequently faulty "flame detection algorithm").

Unfortunately this information isn't made available. More analysis of the data is necessary to identify trends that can be used to distingish these.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#262

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #247

M_Grey wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that kind of thing could work, especially with the group of users here, but it would probably represent a full-time job for a mod just to police that page and make use of it. They may simply not see the benefit?

Moderators would not need to police it, users would use the page to rescue incorrectly flagged posts. In any case, someone other than HN (e.g. Algolia) could construct a page/queue of flagged posts for review. It would be used by a subset of the audience for the "new" page. No permission needed from HN moderators. Users already have the power to vouch for stories, they only need a timely way to review.

[deleted]

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#263

Post by jandrese » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

mlmlmasd wrote: post #253

dang wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, and I wrote that in haste, so I've taken out "It should really be lower than that because the article is completely wrong" and replaced it with "It should probably be lower". Edit: I took a look at your list and don't see any pattern in those stories. Some belong on HN and indeed got a lot of time on the front page. Others clearly don't belong on HN. In a few cases moderators intervened to penalize the…

> There's simply too much data that isn't public. Make it public?

The danger of making it public is that it makes the system much easier to game.

The upside is that it is easier to see who is gaming the system. Or that could be another downside if the answer is "the moderators".

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#264

Post by mlmlmasd » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:18 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #263

mlmlmasd wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's simply too much data that isn't public. Make it public?

The danger of making it public is that it makes the system much easier to game. The upside is that it is easier to see who is gaming the system. Or that could be another downside if the answer is "the moderators".

How does it make the system easier to game?

> Or that could be another downside if the answer is "the moderators".

To me it seems like an upside if we know when moderators are gaming the system.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#265

Post by Mz » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #257

dang wrote: post #149

The story the OP is complaining about was flagged by users. Moderators never saw it (edit: wrong, we put 2010 on the title by mistake, see downthread [1]). Had we seen it, we would have turned off the flags. There's a long tradition of people looking at HN data and posting about it. Edit #2: since the 2010 thing was our mistake (an accident of sleep deprivation by the looks of it!) I've invited foob to repost the ori…

> "If we didn't have a compensating factor, those stories would dominate the front page every day and HN would no longer follow its primary rule: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". Of course that means HN is subject to our interpretation of what counts as "intellectual curiosity" I appreciate the straight talk. I had some questions about the above. Suppose there was a post on the front page that…

We're all in favor of mods using their powers in order to further the site's stated goals, but we're also very wary of mods using their powers in order to further their own personal agendas.

HN is quite well moderated, IMO (and I have been a moderator, and I spend a LOT of my time rolling my eyes at how most mods are doing it wrong, damnit). Your comment is a kind of comment I see a lot on HN that sticks in my craw. I blogged about that very recently, so, it isn't you and I don't want to get into a pissing contest, but this is my cranky feeling about remarks of this ilk:

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/03/hello-did-yo...

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#266

Post by somnialunatica » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

dibeoenjr wrote: post #242

dang wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, and I wrote that in haste, so I've taken out "It should really be lower than that because the article is completely wrong" and replaced it with "It should probably be lower". Edit: I took a look at your list and don't see any pattern in those stories. Some belong on HN and indeed got a lot of time on the front page. Others clearly don't belong on HN. In a few cases moderators intervened to penalize the…

Honestly this is typical of your usual responses to be dismissive, faux outraged... And also just incorrect, factually incorrect. Someone finally has enough data to confront your obvious bias and enough people saw it that you had to back up and apologize but this is a rare exception. Mods removed submissions and individual posts they find distasteful and it has nothing to do with HN guidelines, they are applied unequ…

just a comment, then back to lurking:

no administration leads to 4chan like boards and newsfeeds

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#267

Post by UhUhUhUh » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

Interesting discussion, and therefore, logically, interesting post. Oddly, I begin to wonder whether a variation on a bet system wouldn't be useful. Flagging or up-voting don't come with any cost attached. The only current cost I can see is related to pissing off a group or sub-group, which is not conducive to productive exchange. Just a thought from someone who has never flagged anything.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#268

Post by euphoria83 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:34 PM UTC

I had, in the past, found that a post was deleted. I was so enraged by that action that I had abandoned HN for almost a year. It wasn't my post. But, I found the action arbitrary. I do understand that it is important to keep the spirit of HN and actively discourage posts that might take HN the same way as infinite other internet forums. Since the guidelines cannot be clearly interpreted, there will always be some controversy about what should or should not have been removed. This case is different though, because the post was down-voted out by the community.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#269

Post by kristopolous » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

I had something that was removed from the front page of reddit and hn nearly simultaneously in 2011 - and I hadn't posted it on either, it was just my content. I saw it in the logs; some giant cliff.

I've always wondered if there's cross collaboration since then.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#270

Post by late2part » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #263

mlmlmasd wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's simply too much data that isn't public. Make it public?

The danger of making it public is that it makes the system much easier to game. The upside is that it is easier to see who is gaming the system. Or that could be another downside if the answer is "the moderators".

Security through obscurity is rarely a winning tactic.