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Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

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Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#11

Post by ColinWright »

aminozuur wrote: post #3

Not sure about getting cancelled. But I recently submitted a link containing an uncomfortable truth from Pew Research titled "U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households". It got 30 upvotes in one hour, and quickly reached the front page. It seemed to have gotten shadowbanned by a moderator, as it disappeared to the 5th page despite its quickly gained popularity. It was not flagged, o…

I suspect it triggered the flame war detector. Search for that and you'll find more information.

It can be flagged without showing "[flagged]". That tag only gets shown when something is flagged to death. Your item wasn't flagged to death because it's still active.

I suspect it's mostly that a sizeable proportion of people on the site decided that it doesn't really fit with the theme and they don't want to see things like that, so they flagged it. That, associated with the large number of comments and comparatively few upvotes caused the "flame war" penalty to apply.

No conspiracies necessary, all explained by the regular dynamics.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#12

Post by aminozuur »

troydavis wrote: post #9
aminozuur wrote: post #3

Not sure about getting cancelled. But I recently submitted a link containing an uncomfortable truth from Pew Research titled "U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households". It got 30 upvotes in one hour, and quickly reached the front page. It seemed to have gotten shadowbanned by a moderator, as it disappeared to the 5th page despite its quickly gained popularity. It was not flagged, o…

Based on the number of comments (94) and upvotes (53), this may have triggered the flamewar detector. Here’s more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25584860 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25871251 If you’re curious, email hn@ and they’ll tell you what happened. (Background: a very high ratio of comments to upvotes often means that more people want to opine than get value from the opinions. Obviously that’…

That sounds like a very plausible scenario in this case. Thanks for the info.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#13

Post by schoen »

dang wrote: post #7
ratsmack wrote: post #2

Let's just say there is a specific slant to the politics here and far too many people would rather down vote than refute an argument.

How people view the "slant to the politics here" is determined by (1) their own political slant, and (2) how intensely they hold it. This is one of the most reliable phenomena on HN; there are countless cases going both ways. Recent post about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25922311 Proposed explanation of why this mechanism is so reliable: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... R…

Thanks for the link to your essay from eight months ago; I hadn't seen that before.

I think this issue could use more widespread awareness!

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#14

Post by mmaunder »

aminozuur wrote: post #3

Not sure about getting cancelled. But I recently submitted a link containing an uncomfortable truth from Pew Research titled "U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households". It got 30 upvotes in one hour, and quickly reached the front page. It seemed to have gotten shadowbanned by a moderator, as it disappeared to the 5th page despite its quickly gained popularity. It was not flagged, o…

Yeah I think the older HN was way more organic. These days it seems more curated, but perhaps that's OK since older HN was way less popular with the mainstream internet than today - making it attractive for gaming the algo and vulnerable to behaviors you see on sites like reddit. I'd guess it's also a challenge to keep the site on-topic versus veering off into becoming a political or populist site.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#16

Post by rvz »

bigiain wrote: post #4

Yes targeted downvoting for not following groupthink happens. Just like everywhere else on the internet that lets anonymous users vote. But no, having your tally of meaningless internet points decrease isn’t really getting “cancelled”. If downvotes here make you sad, stop looking at them or go do something fun instead. You aren’t going to be uninvited to speak at conferences or lose you job because your HN score goes…

Even when you have evidence and links to support your own argument and it goes against the group-think, they still would rather downvote that to refute the argument.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#17

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Middle guard here. I've heard people claim it was happening, but it's never happened to me.

If someone's downvoting every post you make for days or weeks, though, that seems to me to be a clearly abusive behavior. You could email the moderators. I suspect that they have the data to be able to spot that and identify the perpetrator.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#18

Post by ratsmack »

schoen wrote: post #10
ratsmack wrote: post #2

Let's just say there is a specific slant to the politics here and far too many people would rather down vote than refute an argument.

I've heard opposite complaints about what that slant is (I think entirely from people making their claims in good faith). And of course, both could be correct: there could be a particular mainstream and everyone whose views are outside of it in any direction might find a somewhat chilly reception. > far too many people would rather down vote than refute an argument Another challenge is that there's not always a conse…

I generally reserve down votes for personal attacks and comments that are excessively off topic.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#19

Post by dang »

schoen wrote: post #13
dang wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How people view the "slant to the politics here" is determined by (1) their own political slant, and (2) how intensely they hold it. This is one of the most reliable phenomena on HN; there are countless cases going both ways. Recent post about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25922311 Proposed explanation of why this mechanism is so reliable: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... R…

Thanks for the link to your essay from eight months ago; I hadn't seen that before. I think this issue could use more widespread awareness!

If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098, thanks! I haven't gotten much feedback on it and it's as close to the heart of the dynamic here that I've yet been able to get.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#20

Post by dang »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #15

I was being stalked for a while.. weeks, maybe? I suspected someone (or a few) with multiple shadow accounts operated by bots

We don't allow that kind of thing on HN, and if you or anyone else thinks it's happening, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it.
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