Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

#21

Post by chc »

wooster wrote: post #11

I, for one, flagged the article because I felt: - the author was trolling - the post was misleading

Did you honestly feel that it was any more so than the Posterous "Tumblr is dying — come over here" post that inspired it? I felt the article in question was significantly less trollish or misleading.

Re: Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

#23

Post by klochner »

A thread on link baiting was flagged down this morning, which started a discussion about people flagging stories because downvoting of stories isn't allowed:

   Not to hijack this thread, but since we're having a 
   meta-discussion about HN already... I am (mildly) 
   aghast to discover that people are using the flag
   feature as a substitute for downvoting! There are 
   numerous comments throughout this thread to that effect.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1477966

Maybe it's time to allow downvoting of stories?

Re: Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

#25

Post by access_denied »

famfam wrote: post #5

HN is going to lose a lot of credibility if these kinds of questions don't get answered. For some reason it always seems like Posterous threads get yanked. It sure is incriminating.

Already happened here. I don't take HN half as serious as I did in the beginning. I am still a fan, let's not get overboarsd here, but the whole way these issues are handled is poor.

Re: Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

#27

Post by phreeza »

jrockway wrote: post #12
famfam wrote: post #5

HN is going to lose a lot of credibility if these kinds of questions don't get answered. For some reason it always seems like Posterous threads get yanked. It sure is incriminating.

Killing can be done by users, too. If a few users (5? 10?) don't like a story and click "flag", it's gone. Don't blame the site admins for a conspiracy when it's just a few users out of thousands that are responsible. (The article shouldn't have been killed... I had a good comment there that people can't reply to now. Annoying.)

I read somewhere else today that this only works until the topic has less than 10 votes, which does not apply here.

Re: Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

#28

Post by studer »

petewarden wrote: post #18
wooster wrote: post #11

I, for one, flagged the article because I felt: - the author was trolling - the post was misleading

Flagging is a pretty drastic response to a post you disagree with. Andrew's article was certainly pretty blistering, but he had an argument backed up with evidence. Saying a post is misleading but offering nothing to back that up is unhelpful to say the least. There was an active and civil comments thread that seems like the perfect venue to have a more enlightening discussion.

What argument? Posterous has never claimed that Tumblr was dying, so the whole post was based on a false premise. Go read their original post again if you don't believe me (or read my post in the deleted thread, where I quote the relevant parts).

Re: Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

#29

Post by pg »

It was a content-free rant. It didn't add anything to the comment thread that had already appeared on HN at the time. I would have killed it regardless of who it was about. There was nothing in it to engage one's intellectual curiosity.

Re: Ask HN: Why was the Posterous Thread Killed?

#30

Post by MichaelApproved »

I agree that killing posts can be suspect but isn't asking why something was killed against TOS as well? Maybe allowing this post to get so high is their way of being transparent.

"Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to info@ycombinator.com."

Edit: post killed shortly after I posted this.

Post reply on HN