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Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

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Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#91

Post by johnlbevan2 »

paulpauper wrote: post #3

Posting on a social news site is a privilege, not a right. I've had stuff removed from Reddit and a few from Hacker News that got flagged after going on the front page...I've had stories on Reddit that got many upvotes and still removed just as it was going viral because the mods didn't like it...it's just the way it goes. It def. can seem unfair at times. No question about it.

If content is filtered, those filtering the content can bias what's shown; influencing their audience. E.g. imagine if Amazon filtered out all the So whilst it's a privilege to have such a resource, it's also acceptable to complain about issues with that resource; especially when things are being manipulated for unclear reasons with no transparency.

That said, the author wasn't complaining; just doing analysis and pointing out an oddity which was of interest given the context of their research.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#92

Post by sillysaurus3 »

tptacek wrote: post #81
jasode wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the Paypal story was "removed". That story is now on page 2. Yesterday, it stayed on the front page all day. It's decay from the 1st page to the 2nd page a day later seems comparable to other stories with ~200 comments. The author's meaning of "remove from the frontpage" means abruptly disappearing from the front page and you still don't see it in the subsequent 6 or more pages.

Right. Stories that get buried fall from the front page to, like, the 50th. Not to the 2nd.

That's not quite true. "Buried" just means "gravity has been increased." Sometimes the gravity is adjusted massively, which moves stories to the 50th page. But it's very common for stories to go from page 1 to page 2. Even more common is to go from rank ~5 to rank ~29.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#93

Post by ballenf »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #37
hardwaresofton wrote: post #6

The site is being crushed by traffic right now -- but without reading the article, I've also found that some stories that I thought were important that were scrubbed from HN's front page just about as soon as I saw it (when I doubled back to read the comments)... While I realize I'm not entitled to explanations, some transparency would be appreciated. Maybe it could even be automatic, whenever a mod removed something…

> Security through obscurity isn't a thing, and the better response is just to make a better algorithm, not try and suppress knowledge about it. Obscuring an algorithm or making it more tedious to reverse may not make it perfectly secure, but that's not the goal. It's not like actual information security, where loss of the encryption keys means your product is broken or your database is on the Internet. You're just t…

Once it's public (even unofficially), people will begin to rely on the current implementation and then complain if it is ever tweaked or changed. They build towards the value it grants and then complain that the value was arbitrarily stolen from them.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#96

Post by brudgers »

Mithaldu wrote: post #85
brudgers wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A user can see those things by turning on "Show Dead" in their profile.

I have show dead on since a long time. The things i mentioned have no UI to note them. Show dead only makes, well, "dead" posts render their text.

There's also the |contact| link to ask the moderators directly about anything that looks nefarious.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#97

Post by golemotron »

I predict that one of the biggest issues in tech over the next few years will be 'silent moderation.' Tech companies like to present the illusion that it is all 'just an algorithm' but that is deceptive.

Silent curation and other practices like shadow-bannning are unethical and symptomatic of a mentality that seeks to avoid confrontation. If things go well we'll see more transparency over time. A good start for a site like HN would be to create another page that shows just the titles of the submissions rejected (no links). People can google for those titles if they are interested.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#98

Post by ifdefdebug »

throwaway743824 wrote: post #68
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Security through obscurity isn't a thing, and the better response is just to make a better algorithm, not try and suppress knowledge about it. Obscuring an algorithm or making it more tedious to reverse may not make it perfectly secure, but that's not the goal. It's not like actual information security, where loss of the encryption keys means your product is broken or your database is on the Internet. You're just t…

You can always find reasons why something has to be a certain way. But at the end of the day, you can't expect to attract and retain curious hackers/entrepreneurs in this way. The author presumably spent some time compiling the original story, the math symbols and graphs are quite nice for instance, just to have it removed without explanation. It's not a very good way to treat people.

There is no proof it has been removed by different means other than those mechanisms all stories are subject to. I myself am not convinced at all.

Re: Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page

#99

Post by falcolas »

Obligatory pimping of a tool I use (not mine, though): http://hckrnews.com/

Shows stories which have hit the front page ever, in the order of their posting. If it's currently on the front page, the link is orange. If it's not, it's black. It's very interesting to watch how frequently highly upvoted and commented posts turn black, while their temporal peers remain.

Anecdotally, there appears to be trend of positive/neutral news about YC companies remaining on the front page the longest, the latest shiny technology sticks around for awhile longer than average, and pretty much any negative news disappears almost instantly.

For example, as of this instant in time, there is an article about Angular2 which remains on the front page while more highly upvoted and commented articles about laptop security, AT&T discrimination, and a Nintendo Switch CVE discussion are all gone from the front page.

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