The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

Post by dang » Tue, May 14, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #8

dang wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN, it's the article that matters. Most primarily-political sites have a downweight on them, but we turn the downweight off when a good article comes along. Or try to, at least; it depends on whether we see it or someone points it out to us.

Are you saying that they're algorithmically downweighted and that you manually turn that off when it seems appropriate? Interesting, I thought the feed was just based on chronology + votes! How quaint of me. Is there anything written anywhere about how the feed algorithm works generally?

Post by nullc » Tue, May 14, 2019, 2:51 AM UTC

lenticular wrote: post #2

It's pretty incredible how recent many of our seemingly inalienable rights (actual freedom of speech, de jure racial equality, right to representation, prohibition of the use of illegally obtained evidence, etc) have actually only been around a few decades, mostly thanks to the visionary Warren and Burger courts. They were considered dangerous activist judges by many in their time.

Post by dang » Tue, May 14, 2019, 4:02 AM UTC

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #14

dang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. The feed has always been based on more than just time and votes. For example, flags. Another factor is HN's anti-abuse software, like the voting ring detector. Then there is moderation. For example, moderators downweight certain kinds of stories, such as sensational ones or indignant ones, that routinely attract many more upvotes than others. Another example is the boosting system that was discussed recently…

That's helpful, thanks for the reply! Are all sites deemed political down-weighted equally? Is this a manually curated list or also algorithmically determined somehow? Are there other categories / topics that sites might be placed in that affect their ranking? The problem of trying to apply weights to domains and/or specific submissions based on some idea of how well they fit the ethos of the site seems like an inter…

Post by peteretep » Tue, May 14, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

nullc wrote: post #13

lenticular wrote: post #2

It's pretty incredible how recent many of our seemingly inalienable rights (actual freedom of speech, de jure racial equality, right to representation, prohibition of the use of illegally obtained evidence, etc) have actually only been around a few decades, mostly thanks to the visionary Warren and Burger courts. They were considered dangerous activist judges by many in their time.

With the US standing almost alone among developed nations and even the ACLU backing away from its policy of defending impolitic or hurtful speech we can probably expect this recent anomaly of free expression to be relatively short lived. I'm glad I got to live now and not some other time.

Post by exolymph » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:08 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #17

nullc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the US standing almost alone among developed nations and even the ACLU backing away from its policy of defending impolitic or hurtful speech we can probably expect this recent anomaly of free expression to be relatively short lived. I'm glad I got to live now and not some other time.

Could you briefly outline how you think the USA has benefitted from this freedom, in a way that other rich Western countries haven’t? I guess I’m specifically thinking of Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada, as all have broadly similar legal systems and robust judiciaries / policing, but not the singular focus on free speech.