Untitled topic

Secondly, and more importantly, we are all about using algorithms to automate and take care of peskiness.

I applaud people who do that in nearly all circumstances.

Perhaps we should add an information criterion? E.g.

"Otherwise please use the original title — unless it is linkbait, or misleading (or uninformative) about the content of the article."

Someone linked to his article about Ender's Game (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=376820), which opens up with a comparison to pornography that he carries throughout. The original submission title was something like Ender's Game Review: It's Porn. It's an accurate edit.

Reading through the comments I found this exchange

> jimbokun 1723 days ago - Ugh. My kingdom for a submission down arrow. Citing Jesus and mocking Christianity as part of reviewing Ender's game totally jumps the shark. This is such an obvious troll, I am utterly disappointed that Hacker News has collectively up-modded this close to the top of the front page (as I write this). I thought this community was better than this.

>>pg 1723 days ago - Yeah, I thought the same thing. I considered killing it, but it didn't seem quite deliberately dishonest enough. I just took "it's porn" out of the title. I suspect that's why this got so much attention.

So, here's an author with a website full of essays talking about the issue with the unacknowledged self-selection bias that afflicts geeks, criticizing one of their most beloved works, and the response is "he must be fishing for views. let's not give him attention" (btw, Bonds' website does not have ads in it).

Truly bizarre.

15.[dead] Oracle's Larry Ellison enthusiastically applauds NSA spying (techeye.net) 1 point by Mitt 17 minutes ago | flag | discuss

I copy and paste it in to google, and find what looks to me like a reasonable article. It even has a CBS video source(1). It is a legit article and fits in HN guide lines. The submitter has a decent karma level too.

Why was it banned? Could one suggest that HN is protecting Larry Ellison from the likely criticism? Should I hold on to that, or will we get "openness", "transparency", and all the other things HN members seem to want from every one else?

Looking at these dead submissions makes HN look like one of the most oddly censored sites on the net. Many of them seem perfectly legitimate. Of course, I have no real idea how censored other sites are. Maybe we cant trust any one at all.

I'll tell members this: It would come as a real blow to find that a site and community one comes to trust, may not be trust-able after all. Title manipulation is bad enough, true, but what we have here is what we accuse others of, opaque censorship. With out frank explanation, I have to conclude that Hacker News is hypocritical.

Lastly, I do hope this isn't censored. Wouldn't that be ironic?

(1) http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57598390/tech-tycoon-l...

"ROSE: Let me just hear you clearly. You were saying whatever the NSA's doing is okay with me?

ELLISON: It's great. I wish, you know, it's great. It's essential. By the way, President Obama thinks it's essential.

It's essential if we want to minimize the kind of strikes that we just had in Boston. It's absolutely essential."

And, even if we disagree, its a reasonable position to take.

When I see something with Title A in the morning and re-click the link with Title B later in the day, and to my surprise they are not only the same article but the very same HN submission, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This happens a lot, perhaps because I'm on the East Coast and the mods are on the West?

I've started spending less and less time on HN partly due to this, and all the meta-discussion that it generates. Reddit has successfully managed to take these types of discussions off into subreddits where they can be safely ignored, it is the first discussion board of any significant note to not shove meta issues in front of everyone. I'm actually starting to wish that HN would become more like Reddit, in some ways.