Comment by ndsipa_pomu

9 days ago

I believe that Dang does make an attempt to unflag some of these kinds of topics, but there's also the issue that the discussions can become highly politicised too which is not the stated purpose of HN.

13 comments

ndsipa_pomu

pera 9 days ago

Yup I have emailed dang a few times regarding wrongly flagged submissions and he has always unflagged them.

mandmandam 9 days ago

Indeed, higher category theory is a veritable minefield of political rabbit holes.

And who could possibly trust HN denizens, those notoriously toxic and tech-ignorant people, to sensibly discuss such things as a tech oligarch delivering Nazi salutes at an inauguration [0, 1]. Or the same man (wealthiest known on Earth) being given physical access to the US treasury [2]. Or warnings from five former treasury secretaries in the NYT about the danger this poses to Democracy [3], the EFF bringing lawsuits over this (unflagged after many hours)[4], or the ability to even discuss all the false flags which we have been riddled with for the last month [5, 6].

This last month has been a real eye opener. Even Paul Graham and Garry Tan have been cheerleading for DOGE, and it's fucking disturbing that we're not allowed to discuss it on any active thread.

0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42781604

dang 9 days ago
> it's fucking disturbing that we're not allowed to discuss it on any active thread
This is the "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" theory of HN threads. You're talking about the most-discussed topic on HN, by far, of the past several weeks.
If you, or anyone, want to know what's happening with these threads and flags, how we moderate this, and what the principles are, there are a bunch of links here which should answer all your questions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43050893. If you familiarize yourself with that material and still have a question that I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Btw, you can't evaluate this with a random sample of links on a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic). You need to look at the threads that have had significant frontpage time and discussion. Obviously there have been many more submissions than that—that is the case with any MOT. If most of these didn't get flagged and/or downweighted, then HN's frontpage would consist of little else.
I realize that some users feel so passionately right now that they would welcome that, but I don't believe that the bulk of the community wants this (far from it), and in any case we couldn't let HN be completely taken over by any MOT without ruining it for its intended purpose.
- pred_ 8 days ago
  
  So I'm curious, what's the deal with the thread at hand? It looks like the "[flagged]" tag on the post title is now gone, but, as far as I can tell, the post itself still does not show up on the main page at all, so effectively it's still hidden?
  It's probably a lot to ask for, but the context for a flag could be helpful. I came across this one since I just posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43059077 which I thought was on-topic (maths are, and we have had plenty of useful conversations on how science is done too), but that post was flagged.
  
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- mandmandam 9 days ago
  
  Every post I've seen recently talking about all the false flags here has ended up rapidly flagged.
  Feel free to prove me wrong, by showing one single post on this topic, at any time over the past couple weeks, which wasn't flagged. Such an obvious way to manipulate discussion here needs to be addressed from time to time; now being one of those times.
  The discussion in those threads (ie [6]) shows widespread agreement; far from your assertion of what "the bulk of the community wants".
  You can assert that stories about DOGE are not being deliberately and widely suppressed here, or that they are but for a good reason - but I don't believe you. And I don't think you believe yourself either. If you do, you shouldn't.
  [6] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560
  
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