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

#431

Post by dang »

smcin wrote: post #411
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.

Here's one from last week: "Ring will no longer allow police to request users' doorbell camera footage" (npr.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39138423 I posted an on-topic supporting quote to explain why this item was newsworthy and got one unhelpful one-word response and my comment got inexplicably flagged (not the commenter) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39138481 How did that slip past detection? Ho…

If I understand correctly, you have three concerns here: (1) the story was downranked off the front page; (2) your comment was flagged; (3) a comment that replied to you was not flagged. I'll try to respond to these in turn:

(1) the story was downranked off the front page because the topic had already been discussed a bunch—for example in these threads, two days earlier:

Amazon's Ring to stop letting police request doorbell video from users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39119387 - Jan 2024 (141 comments)

Ring steps back from sharing video with police – mostly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39120892 - Jan 2024 (15 comments)

Culling repetition from the front page is one of the most important things HN's systems need to do. Actually, it's probably the single most important thing. Certainly it's best if we can link to the previous discussions so people can know where to find them—but we can only do that some of the time. Users help out a ton by posting links to earlier threads. Ultimately we need better software support for dealing with this, but that's not done yet.

(2) Your comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39138481 was flagged by users. We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case I'm pretty sure I know why: comments that do nothing but quote from the article, or post a summary of it, are considered too formulaic by readers here. If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but please do it in your own words and share your own thinking. To simply paste a quote from the article is too superficial. On HN the convention is to assume that readers are smart enough to evaluate an article for themselves.

Edit: I'm going to copy the above paragraph into a reply below, so I can link to it in the future when this comes up, without the rest of the post.

(3) The reply https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39138536, which only said "and?", was definitely an unsubstantive comment that deserved to be flagged (and killed) even more than yours did. The reason it escaped detection was simple, albeit unsatisfying: pure randomness. We don't come close to reading everything that gets posted here—there's far too much. I've flagged it now.

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

#432

Post by wtallis »

dang wrote: post #416
reductum wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I witnessed a recent front page link silently get changed to point to a parody video, then silently changed back later, with the top comment that remarked on the change silently removed. That told me all I needed to know about the moderation of this site. Thankfully someone captured a screenshot: https://merveilles.town/@cancel/111834048502040552

> That told me all I needed to know about the moderation of this site. In that case you drew a general conclusion from a freak accident so rare that I doubt it had happened in the 17 years this site has been around. (Edit: 17 years this month in fact! https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb... ) If what you require from an internet forum is that the moderators under no circumstances will ever com…

> 17 years this month in fact! https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb...)

That prompted me to check other dates in the archive: apparently the "Startup News" title lasted for around six months before changing to "Hacker News". I was pretty sure the change was before I made my account, but I didn't realize the "Startup News" period had been so short.

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

#433

Post by dang »

elpocko wrote: post #418
dang wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't freeze vote counts. What made you think that we did?

Comments on frontpage posts that go up quickly but then suddenly don't receive any votes in any direction makes me think you do freeze vote counts.

We definitely don't. But I'd love to see any links to posts where you've seen that—or if you see it in the future. It's an unusual case that I've never heard of before!

The reason I say we definitely don't is that we'd have to write code to do that, and I'd remember writing such code.

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

#434

Post by mkl »

paulcole wrote: post #430
mkl wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang explained it was a mod error: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39182625 , which links to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39170137 huppeldepup's comment in the screenshot is collapsed on p2 of the comments (after it was no longer relevant) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39157010&p=2 , and is also accessible as the parent of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39170137 .

What did you think he was going to say? Explain that it was in fact a big HN conspiracy? I mean yeah it probably was just a mistake but what do you expect somebody to say?

I expected a matter-of-fact explanation of a simple error, and a comment thread that was collapsed - exactly what I found. reductum implied there wasn't an explanation and that the complaining comment thread had been deleted without comment, both of which were hard to believe, so I went looking.

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

#435

Post by dang »

wtallis wrote: post #432
dang wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That told me all I needed to know about the moderation of this site. In that case you drew a general conclusion from a freak accident so rare that I doubt it had happened in the 17 years this site has been around. (Edit: 17 years this month in fact! https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb... ) If what you require from an internet forum is that the moderators under no circumstances will ever com…

> 17 years this month in fact! https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb... ) That prompted me to check other dates in the archive: apparently the "Startup News" title lasted for around six months before changing to "Hacker News". I was pretty sure the change was before I made my account, but I didn't realize the "Startup News" period had been so short.

pg got bored of startup news and switched it in August of that year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

Edit: here's the last copy of Startup News that archive.org has—from 2007-07-13:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070713212949/http://news.ycomb...

and here's the first copy of Hacker News they have, from 2007-08-30:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070830111558/http://news.ycomb...

I guess they missed 6 weeks there, but bless them for having anything at all—who among us preserves our own history?

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

#436

Post by throwaway665544 »

dang wrote: post #310
kosolam wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"Transparent" means different things to people, but if you mean a full moderation log: I think most likely it would produce more questions and effort, for no clear gain. I've written about this over the years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Here's how I look at it: if trust is present, then we don't need to publish a full log, as long as we answer questions when people ask them. That…

Envision an airline withholding safety records, a car manufacturer keeping crash test results private, a restaurant refusing to provide health inspection logs, or a government refusing to disclose details of its budget allocation — all claiming that transparency would only complicate matters and provide "more data for distrust". In each case, the flawed nature of your core argument becomes obviously evident.

I fully expect your mindset and behavior to never change (unless forced), but just wanted to point out that your argument against transparency is a cop-out and that you're on the wrong side of history here.

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

#437

Post by dang »

wtallis wrote: post #428
dang wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't cross into personal attack. It just makes everything worse, and you can make your substantive points without that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That comment lined up pretty closely with one of my pet peeves. I apologize for overreacting and contributing negatively to what was already a busy day for you. Thank you for all your hard work and patience.

Oh believe me it lines up with my pet peeves as well (and I have a lot of them). Thanks for the kind reply.

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

#438

Post by nkurz »

elpocko wrote: post #422
nkurz wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you make your accusation more clearly? Are you saying it's 'dang' and 'pg'? One or two regular users abusing the flagging system? Or a couple dark and shadowy figures who have no public presence?

I don't mean to make accusations or invent "shadowy figures". HN has a very small number of moderators and their actions are not transparent, that's all.

Thanks for clarifying. I think part of my confusion was that HN only has one moderator at this point. Also, I'd probably say "not always obvious" rather than "not transparent". While there is no public record of moderation, at least for me Dan has been excellent about answering questions when asked.

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

#439

Post by dang »

paulcole wrote: post #430
mkl wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang explained it was a mod error: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39182625 , which links to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39170137 huppeldepup's comment in the screenshot is collapsed on p2 of the comments (after it was no longer relevant) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39157010&p=2 , and is also accessible as the parent of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39170137 .

What did you think he was going to say? Explain that it was in fact a big HN conspiracy? I mean yeah it probably was just a mistake but what do you expect somebody to say?

You just need to move your game theory to a different level. The expected value of lying about such things is super negative and the expected value of telling the truth is super positive.

I'm sure there's a model in which lying some of the time but not too often has marginally higher expected value, but it's also going to have significantly higher risk and that's not worth it, plus you have to be disciplined enough to actually apply such a strategy. One slip and you're dead! I'm too lazy for that.

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

#440

Post by elpocko »

dang wrote: post #433
elpocko wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments on frontpage posts that go up quickly but then suddenly don't receive any votes in any direction makes me think you do freeze vote counts.

We definitely don't. But I'd love to see any links to posts where you've seen that—or if you see it in the future. It's an unusual case that I've never heard of before! The reason I say we definitely don't is that we'd have to write code to do that, and I'd remember writing such code.

Thanks dang, I appreciate your efforts. I have no reason to doubt your word, and I may have imagined a pattern. I apologize for the accusation.
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