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DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

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Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#41

Post by archagon »

skulk wrote: post #9

off topic (who even cares about the OP) but I heard a clip of Musk saying that "the bureaucracy subverts democracy. I want government by the people, not the bureau" and ... I don't even. Do people really fall for this? Is it not obvious that one bureau is just being sub'd out for another less accountable one? Are people really that stupid?

More charitably, it seems relatively easy to hack people at scale by exploiting their cognitive biases. (Especially people lacking humility or self-reflection, e.g. the stereotypical "smart" software engineer.)

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#42

Post by relaxing »

dang wrote: post #14
_fs wrote: post #5

[flagged]

> No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn Here is the largest HN thread from the last 3 months (and the 3rd largest in all of the last year): The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2954 comments) Other recent large discussions include: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (304 comments) DOGE…

Imagine if this standard was applied to any other topic.

“We’ve already had four Rust topics this month, better flag any new ones!”

This article is not the same news as the others you’ve listed. It’s disingenuous to claim they’re all the same.

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#43

Post by relaxing »

like_any_other wrote: post #29
mdhb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part where he tries to point to a handful of exceptions to refute the idea that discussions about Musk are getting flagged en mass. It’s really not a difficult bit of text to parse. Edit: I have to reply to the comment below by editing this comment because I’ve now been banned from making new comments but I couldn’t help but notice you managed to take the original quote and literally remove half of it which would…

But the claim was "No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn", and his data shows that significant discussion is happening. Mass flagging doesn't change this. That is despite violating HN's "intellectual curiosity" rule.

> Mass flagging doesn't change this.

It literally does. The majority of posters won’t ever see flagged posts.

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#44

Post by dang »

relaxing wrote: post #42
dang wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn Here is the largest HN thread from the last 3 months (and the 3rd largest in all of the last year): The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2954 comments) Other recent large discussions include: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (304 comments) DOGE…

Imagine if this standard was applied to any other topic. “We’ve already had four Rust topics this month, better flag any new ones!” This article is not the same news as the others you’ve listed. It’s disingenuous to claim they’re all the same.

Avoiding repetition is a core principle here. It applies to every topic.

I've written extensively in the last few days explaining the moderation approach to cases like this. Let me dig up some links for you...

Edit: here's one post that covers the basics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011. If you (or anyone) want further explanation, here are links that cover some of the principles we're applying here:

major ongoing topic - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

significant new information - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

political overlap - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

downweighting follow-ups - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

curiosity vs. repetition - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

turning off flags - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

All we're doing is applying those principles the way we usually do. That doesn't mean we make every individual call correctly—we definitely don't. (I wrote about that recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306.) But the principles are stable, and as far as I know they're the right ones for HN.

If people want us to change how we moderate, it's not enough to demand that we unflag more stories about a specific $Topic that some users feel strongly about. That argument doesn't work because there is always such a $Topic going on.

Rather, you'd need to argue either that we're not following our principles, or that they're the wrong principles (and in that case propose better ones). I'd personally be very interested in such arguments; like anyone who has worked hard on a problem for years, I'd be both surprised and gratified to learn about a better solution. We just need to be talking about the same problem. In HN's case, the problem is how to optimize an open web forum for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#45

Post by dang »

mdhb wrote: post #22
dang wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn Here is the largest HN thread from the last 3 months (and the 3rd largest in all of the last year): The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2954 comments) Other recent large discussions include: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (304 comments) DOGE…

Don’t tell me with a straight face when you have access to the data more than anyone that these posts aren’t getting flagged en mass. We are all watching it happen.

Of course. I've spent most of my time this week posting explanations and answering emails about this, so it's a bit odd to hear that I'm denying it, but I understand how these perceptions arise.

It may seem strange, but both of these things are true:

(1) it's the most-discussed topic that exists on HN right now; and

(2) most of the submissions about it are getting flagged.

If you think about how the internet (and HN) work, it's to be expected: there's a tsunami of submissions; some are getting through and producing condition #1; others are getting flagged and producing condition #2.

This has happened many times on HN over the years, and every time it happens, the community splits between the people who want more and the people who feel like it's too much.

For example, here's a case from 2020 where someone felt that HN was suppressing stories about what in fact was the most-discussed topic on the site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962. This dynamic has been around a long time.

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#46

Post by dang »

anigbrowl wrote: post #39
like_any_other wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the claim was "No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn", and his data shows that significant discussion is happening. Mass flagging doesn't change this. That is despite violating HN's "intellectual curiosity" rule.

You know perfectly well that the original top comment was expressive and hyperbolic in nature, stop trying to analyze it as if it were a dry quantitative claim. The point, which is extremely obvious, is that many posts are being systematically flagged for reasons of favoritism. They're clearly HN relevant, given that they relate to a tech titan effecting drastic changes in government structure, with significant secur…

Please don't cross into personal attack.

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#47

Post by talldayo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #37
talldayo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people really fall for this? Yeah. There are still people that call it "Twitter" in 2025.

What a weird comparison. Some people do that to annoy Musk fans, others do it because the original name for something is often preferred to a meaningless rebrand - much as everyone still refers to Alphabet corp as Google.

It's not weird at all. Twitter isn't just symbolically dead, it's literally gone. If you still use it or even refer to it as a euphemism for X, you're promoting an alt-right radicalization platform intended to farm hatred. There's not really a middle ground here, advertisers will tell you.

Similarly - there are still people looking at the Digital Service expecting great results and deferred gains. They don't understand that this effort has been damned since the starting gun was fired.

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#48

Post by ivanech »

dang wrote: post #45
mdhb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t tell me with a straight face when you have access to the data more than anyone that these posts aren’t getting flagged en mass. We are all watching it happen.

Of course. I've spent most of my time this week posting explanations and answering emails about this, so it's a bit odd to hear that I'm denying it, but I understand how these perceptions arise. It may seem strange, but both of these things are true: (1) it's the most-discussed topic that exists on HN right now; and (2) most of the submissions about it are getting flagged. If you think about how the internet (and HN)…

Thank you, Dan! I really appreciate all the work you do making HN what it is

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#49

Post by basementcat »

relaxing wrote: post #42
dang wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn Here is the largest HN thread from the last 3 months (and the 3rd largest in all of the last year): The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2954 comments) Other recent large discussions include: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (304 comments) DOGE…

Imagine if this standard was applied to any other topic. “We’ve already had four Rust topics this month, better flag any new ones!” This article is not the same news as the others you’ve listed. It’s disingenuous to claim they’re all the same.

While I appreciate all the submissions about running Doom on HDMI dongles, it doesn't affect the health of millions of people. The submissions that are flagged inhibit intelligent discussion about items that affect every person on this forum.

Re: DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

#50

Post by pvg »

basementcat wrote: post #49
relaxing wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if this standard was applied to any other topic. “We’ve already had four Rust topics this month, better flag any new ones!” This article is not the same news as the others you’ve listed. It’s disingenuous to claim they’re all the same.

While I appreciate all the submissions about running Doom on HDMI dongles, it doesn't affect the health of millions of people. The submissions that are flagged inhibit intelligent discussion about items that affect every person on this forum.

There are endless things that affect every person on this forum that are not a particularly great fit for the forum so that in itself isn't much of a practical criterion.
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