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Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

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Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#51

Post by pron »

dang wrote: post #21
somehow wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be more fair to address the broader point of the post rather than just one sentence. It's good that the moderator(s) specify why something is penalized[0], but it doesn't really change the overall result. [0] As defined by the post in question.

Stories about hot social and political controversies reliably attract both a lot of upvotes and a lot of user flags. This, together with how the software interprets votes and flags, explains the effects the OP is describing. On hot social and political issues, many people find it irresistible to conclude that HN is biased against the side they favor and favors the side they oppose. They perceive this bias in all thin…

> Users reliably flag threads that turn into flamewars on HN.

Then why not simply disable comments on sensitive stories?

> But this isn't a bias against social issues per se, let alone particular social issues—the same pattern holds on threads about, say, basic income, or high-frequency trading, or even something like static vs. dynamic typing in programming. It's a matter of how divided the community is and how strongly people feel. It's far more noticeable, of course, on any issue where one personally feels strongly.

Sure, but of all of your examples, only social issues are really important. It doesn't matter what people's intentions are (this is something that we seem to always get back to). If the result is that really important stories -- stories that touch on the very core of technology, start up culture and innovation -- get "silenced" (and, as a result, cause observes to view HN's community in a negative light) then it's your duty to make sure that this doesn't happen.

> But this fails to consider the systemic effects such a change would have on the site. The more the ragefires burn, the more thoughtful users leave.

So disable comments on those stories.

> But this fails to consider the systemic effects such a change would have on the site.

Except that there's an opposite systemic effect: HN readers get the sense that being thoughtful means shying away from those issues (but not from vapid stories about some startup raising money). Also, thoughtful users might abandon because anything that's truly interesting (other than, say, objective discoveries) -- and therefore controversial -- is not featured on HN. Your policy appeals to those attracted to the vanities of SV culture (and then YC people write blogs trying to educate people against them) while repelling those who are interested in reading criticism of it.

Not saying something sometimes sends as clear a message as saying it.

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#52

Post by dang »

imaginenore wrote: post #49
pron wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's technology for? Technology isn't neutral (like science can be). It is either to advance social justice or to obtain or maintain power. I think you're not particularly powerful, so I can only assume you're so laser-focused on technology, so religiously fanatical about it, because, how did you put it? Well, because you're a "social justice idiot".

You seem to have a mental disorder when everything seems to be revolving about the issues you like, and so you are unhappy when they aren't covered by site X you visit. Most of us like technology because it's interesting, not because it gives us some magical power. It's infinitely more interesting than whining about the abuse of virtual characters in games and other such idiocy.

> You seem to have a mental disorder

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#53

Post by tptacek »

mjg59 wrote: post #39
dang wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must have a crossed signal here. Of course those are part of the ranking algorithm! My point is that except for the exceptions I mentioned, none of the code considers social issues. What part is disingenuous?

If social issues are more likely than the average story to trigger aspects of the ranking system that results in them disappearing, the ranking system is biased against social issues. The fact that it's also biased against various other topics is irrelevant to the point I was making - you've constructed a ranking system that makes it almost impossible to maintain visibility of stories about diversity. In an era where…

My guess is that I fall right alongside you in terms of the valence of my opinions about diversity, "meritocracy", and the working culture of the San Francisco Bay Area. I'd even hazard a guess that my level of militancy on those topics is similar to yours.

I am a reliable flagger of diversity stories that I perceive as inviting flame wars --- even though I'm also a willing participant in those flamewars, as you can quickly find out from the search bar below.

What I'd like more people to consider is that HN can't be all things to all people. I find the site personally interesting, have met several friends here, and have extracted considerable professional value from it. Those are all very important things to me.

Meanwhile: there's a whole big wide Internet out there that can host discussions and debates on social issues of all stripes. If those debates, hosted here, are going to rip the site up (and evidence suggests they will): not worth it.

There are people whose opinions I respect a great deal --- Maciej Ceglowski being a good example --- who strongly disagree with me on this point. Of course I might not be right about this. I'd just say, be careful about assuming that the bias is in favor of a status quo on the substantive issues. For a lot of us, this is a process issue.

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#54

Post by tptacek »

pron wrote: post #51
dang wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stories about hot social and political controversies reliably attract both a lot of upvotes and a lot of user flags. This, together with how the software interprets votes and flags, explains the effects the OP is describing. On hot social and political issues, many people find it irresistible to conclude that HN is biased against the side they favor and favors the side they oppose. They perceive this bias in all thin…

> Users reliably flag threads that turn into flamewars on HN. Then why not simply disable comments on sensitive stories? > But this isn't a bias against social issues per se, let alone particular social issues—the same pattern holds on threads about, say, basic income, or high-frequency trading, or even something like static vs. dynamic typing in programming. It's a matter of how divided the community is and how stro…

Disabling comments on sensitive stories has the effect of privileging the viewpoints of people who happen to win the front-page contest, and endorsing whatever framing happens to accompany whatever happens to be the most popular telling of that story. That seems like an extremely unfortunate dynamic to adopt.

Please, HN, do not allow people to post stories on the site that can't be contextualized or even rebutted in comment threads. Lots of popular stories are really, really bad.

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#55

Post by notlisted »

Interesting. I see that that four stories critical of AirBnB were penalized despite many comments (113, 70, 63, 54) and upvotes. The ones touting its value weren't.

I am not surprised. At least 5 times now, I've seen negative stories on AirBnB disappear from the home page fast, whilst silly links remained. Is someone protecting their investment?

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#56

Post by imaginenore »

dang wrote: post #52
imaginenore wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have a mental disorder when everything seems to be revolving about the issues you like, and so you are unhappy when they aren't covered by site X you visit. Most of us like technology because it's interesting, not because it gives us some magical power. It's infinitely more interesting than whining about the abuse of virtual characters in games and other such idiocy.

> You seem to have a mental disorder Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Aren't you a mod here? You should ban me, or whatever the proper punishment is.

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#57

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #52
imaginenore wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have a mental disorder when everything seems to be revolving about the issues you like, and so you are unhappy when they aren't covered by site X you visit. Most of us like technology because it's interesting, not because it gives us some magical power. It's infinitely more interesting than whining about the abuse of virtual characters in games and other such idiocy.

> You seem to have a mental disorder Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

[deleted]

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#58

Post by V-2 » 

   This clearly isn't an especially rigorous analysis
Not especially, no.

Data samples consisting of two or five articles per keyword??

And 2 out of all 5 penalized "female" entries have nothing to do with social issues etc. (one is about female mice, another about mixed-sex animals).

Comparing stories on social justice against ARM and Intel is also cherrypicking, because we don't know whether this is supposed to be a bias against social issues, or just non-tech stories in general, or something else.

And what's your methodology of choosing keywords?

"Female" - which made it onto your list - gets penalized 5 to 1, all right.

But then in case of "girls" (omitted from your list) it's actually 0 - 3, telling us a different story.

And unlike with the "female" bunch, none of these articles is about mice. They're about how girls get better grades, how to get them into engineering and why it's easy to teach them code.

"Women" (plural) lose 13 - 4 and so the keyword is featured on your list, but "woman" (singular) wins 7 - 2, and surprise surprise, it's absent.

"equal", as a word stem (counting "inequality", "unequal" etc.) - penalized 2 times, not penalized 3 times. Holy smokes Batman, it rates better than "x86"!

Statistics, huh ;)

If this submission gets penalized, do we count it as bias against social justice, or junk science

Re: Hacker News metrics (first rough approach)

#60

Post by pron »

tptacek wrote: post #54
pron wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Users reliably flag threads that turn into flamewars on HN. Then why not simply disable comments on sensitive stories? > But this isn't a bias against social issues per se, let alone particular social issues—the same pattern holds on threads about, say, basic income, or high-frequency trading, or even something like static vs. dynamic typing in programming. It's a matter of how divided the community is and how stro…

Disabling comments on sensitive stories has the effect of privileging the viewpoints of people who happen to win the front-page contest, and endorsing whatever framing happens to accompany whatever happens to be the most popular telling of that story. That seems like an extremely unfortunate dynamic to adopt. Please, HN, do not allow people to post stories on the site that can't be contextualized or even rebutted in…

I actually think this would encourage more thoughtful rebuttals in the form of long blog posts. One great thing about this community is that usually there are enough people to promote stories on opposite sides of the debate to the front page.
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