Untitled topic • Hacker News Board

#1

Post by esonica » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:00 AM UTC

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#2

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:03 AM UTC

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#3

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:12 AM UTC

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#4

Post by mattyb » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:12 AM UTC

There is no pulling on HN, only flagging, so you're not going to get an 'official reason'. Apparently enough people thought it was offtopic.

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#5

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:13 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #3

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#6

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:14 AM UTC

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#7

Post by jbenz » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:19 AM UTC

It was probably flagged because it's a little ridiculous. Those companies are not Michael Arrington's bosses. They are advertisers trying to reach a certain market, the type of market that reads TechCrunch.

I don't think it's fair to shame these people for conducting business and attempting to bring in customers. Are they suppose to pull their advertising every time TC posts a controversial article? They're ads would barely show up at all.

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#8

Post by gojomo » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:19 AM UTC

Even if it was initially on-topic, a critical mass of people might decide -- "this is sending attention and discussion in degrading directions" -- and flag. I have flagged things at times only after seeing the discussion.

I am distressed by the (seemingly new) policy where no comments are allowed on [dead] topics. Even if something's kill-worthy, interested people should be able to finish conversations. Also, as some topics go back and forth between [dead], there needs to be some way to discuss borderline cases. On the topic itself is better than followup stories (like this one).

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#9

Post by staunch » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:28 AM UTC

mattyb wrote: post #4

There is no pulling on HN, only flagging, so you're not going to get an 'official reason'. Apparently enough people thought it was offtopic.

I don't think that's true. An editor can kill any submission they want, AFAIK.

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#10

Post by rwolf » Fri, Jul 17, 2009, 3:30 AM UTC

jbenz wrote: post #7

It was probably flagged because it's a little ridiculous. Those companies are not Michael Arrington's bosses. They are advertisers trying to reach a certain market, the type of market that reads TechCrunch. I don't think it's fair to shame these people for conducting business and attempting to bring in customers. Are they suppose to pull their advertising every time TC posts a controversial article? They're ads would…

I may be wrong, but I believe the page is not suggesting a temporary TechCrunch boycott by advertisers. While I agree that advertisers are not Arrington's boss, they do have more leverage than your average commenter (as the linked page says, "A note to the people paying Techcrunch's bills can make a big difference. They care what their customers think."). The attention-grabbing "wall of shame" phrasing makes this a little hard to parse.

For people upset about the Twitter leak, convincing the advertisers to support their idea doesn't sound crazy. So, I disagree that the page is ridiculous.

I'm a big fan of not seeing stories if HN's users don't think they are interesting (go social web!), and I don't think the original link was interesting.