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Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#291

Post by eevilspock »

kosolam wrote: post #271
dang wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first two you listed were downranked by the flamewar detector. The last one was downranked by users. Admins didn't touch any of them. Note for everybody: can you guys please include the HN /item link if you're mentioning specific threads? That would be much more efficient and that way I can answer many more of people's questions.

Why don’t you make the system transparent? This will save you a lot of effort answering questions.

People will game it. We don't need a transparent algorithm when we have transparent results, e.g. enable `showdead`, or the OP's project.

Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#292

Post by tptacek »

nvm0n2 wrote: post #287
tptacek wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why they're dreadful, but they empirically are, and that's the end of the matter for me.

Empirically they are not. What you mean is that you don't like to be faced with the reality revealed by these stories and the comments. But this attitude explains a lot of the abusive flagging that goes on here. Stories get flagged because they make people feel ick, and they feel ick because they previously took positions that were wrong. So they flag. And when asked, why do you flag, they say "I don't know, I just d…

Comments like this really make me feel viscerally what we're missing out on by not having COVID fights on the front page more often. Thanks.

Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#293

Post by nvm0n2 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #261
ggdG wrote: post #89

> In fact, I don't see a single story that I personally feel should not have been removed. I don't understand why this story was removed: "It turns out the six-feet social-distancing rule had no scientific basis", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39200511 On a forum with an overwhelmingly science-minded audience, it bothers me that an important topic like that is deemed untouchable.

I flagged that article, so I'll clearly explain why: 1. I think for anyone that has been on HN throughout pandemic knows it is extremely unlikely for topics like this to produce any sort of valuable discussion. I almost never see any sort of humility on the topic (to be clear, from many/all sides) that admits that people (individuals, experts, literally everyone) were doing what they thought best with the information…

That isn't clear at all. You seem to be saying that if you anticipate that people might question other people's competence or motives, or in your view a discussion won't lead people to think the right thoughts ("encourage actual understanding") then you flag it to try to ensure nobody can discuss it.

But you also say that making it undiscussable is also not about making the topic untouchable. That's just playing with words, isn't it? It's exactly what you're trying to do and exactly why you're flagging it.

This particular case is really egregious. Fauci has said this draconian policy "just sort of appeared", yet you damn anyone questioning his competence or motives as lacking humility? What would it take for you to allow criticism of this guy?

Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#294

Post by caymanjim »

dang wrote: post #245
caymanjim wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can users downrank headlines? I only have an option to upvote them. While it's not too frequent, there are things that make it to the front page that I'd like to express my disapproval of.

User flags, once they've accumulated above a certain threshold, have a downranking effect. Pretty sure this is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html .

I'm curious why there's no actual downvote for submissions. Was that ever discussed on here? I did a quick search for prior discussions on the topic but didn't find anything.

To me, "flag" means "this is a serious violation that requires moderator attention". Something I'd want you to see and deal with because it's bigoted, illegal, spam, etc. I wouldn't flag something simply because I didn't think HN was the right audience, or because I personally dislike the topic. You seem to be encouraging me to use it simply as a downvote.

I'm not going to start flagging things, nor do I feel that strongly about the lack of a downvote, but if flags are effectively downvotes behind the scenes, and if that's how users are treating flags (which they obviously are, from other comments on this thread), I think the UI should have a downvote button.

I assume there's been discussion about this before and I'm curious about the thought process behind the decision. I don't find the FAQ to be informative about this.

Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#296

Post by dang »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #262
dang wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. We review the list of stories that set off that software penalty and restore the ones that are clearly not flamewars. No doubt we miss a few, and also - not everyone interprets these things the same way. But if you (or anyone) notice a case of a good thread plummeting off the front page, you can always get us to take a look by emailing hn@ycombinator.com.

There should be some way of doing language detection to detect the relative quality of 'flaming' going on. So the highest quality 'flame wars' can remain untouched, but downranking everything else below that bar probably makes sense.

Yes, the carrot of automation would be so much easier than the stick of manual review. I haven't seen any system that works well enough yet though.

The nice thing is that the comments are all public so if someone wants to take a crack at building a state-of-the-art sentiment detector or what have you, they can have a go—and if anyone comes up with anything serious, we'd certainly like to see it. As would the entire community I'm sure!

Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#298

Post by dang »

caymanjim wrote: post #294
dang wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

User flags, once they've accumulated above a certain threshold, have a downranking effect. Pretty sure this is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html .

I'm curious why there's no actual downvote for submissions. Was that ever discussed on here? I did a quick search for prior discussions on the topic but didn't find anything. To me, "flag" means "this is a serious violation that requires moderator attention". Something I'd want you to see and deal with because it's bigoted, illegal, spam, etc. I wouldn't flag something simply because I didn't think HN was the right a…

The only person who could answer that is pg because that design choice was part of the embryo of HN.

He must have been thinking something though, because Reddit was originally his conception and he was an influence on the earliest development of Reddit as well (edit: and Reddit does have story downvoting - forgot to mention that bit).

Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#299

Post by nvm0n2 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #161
ggdG wrote: post #89

> In fact, I don't see a single story that I personally feel should not have been removed. I don't understand why this story was removed: "It turns out the six-feet social-distancing rule had no scientific basis", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39200511 On a forum with an overwhelmingly science-minded audience, it bothers me that an important topic like that is deemed untouchable.

(Shrug) I don't require scientific proof of the inverse-square law. It's self-evident to the point of being axiomatic. Standing 6 feet away from a virus source will expose you to about 44% fewer virus particles than standing 5 feet away from one, while not imposing any real hardships in most public interaction scenarios. What's controversial about that? If you demand precise scientific rigor in all aspects of everyda…

[flagged]

Re: Stories removed from the Hacker News Front Page, updated in real time

#300

Post by mandmandam »

lukan wrote: post #278
mandmandam wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a tech-oriented site Exactly. Big tech has been staggeringly complicit in these oh-so documented war crimes. For example, AI is being used to 'target' people, even in refugee camps and residential areas; even when hundreds of civilian casualties are predicted. This has been admitted - even boasted about. As tech people, we can't just stick our heads in the sand and expect this not to come back on us. We're…

"We are legally bound as a nation" "We" ain't all americans. There are people here coming from opposing sides in various wars. And there are more wars and slaughtering going on, than in the middle east. And "we" are just tech people. Not better or worse by principle, which shows off very easily as there can be religious flame wars about software already. So it would be good, if we could debate all this in a nice way.…

> "We" ain't all americans.

The vast majority of English speaking countries signed the Genocide Convention, if not all [0]

> This is why many people want NO politics here at all.

They're not a majority, far from it. And the rules don't say "NO politics"; that would be absurd. Tech and politics overlap often - as they do here.

0 - https://www.statista.com/chart/22194/countries-that-havent-r...

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