Comment by dang
8 months ago
There's always a ton of randomness with these things. People tend to underestimate how that affects nearly every aspect of HN. That is, they misinterpret a random outcome as being meaningful and then attribute a meaning to it.
If you assume that rhyme or reason is involved, then of course the results seem bizarrely inconsistent and the only models that fit will be Rube Goldberg or Ptolemaic ones. Simply understand that randomness plays the largest role, and the mystery goes away. (But I know that's less internet fun.)
In terms of all these political stories getting flagged: it's a simple consequence of there being a huge influx of intense political stories while HN's capacity remains "30 slots on the frontpage" (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
Thanks Dan, I never mean to point fingers at moderation here. I always assume it's users. Not sure if that's the correct assumption, but it's one I stick with.
Oops, I hear you! Well, maybe the explanation is helpful to others who are worrying about the moderation side.
But of course there's no rhyme or reason to "users" either, since that's really just a statistical cloud (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
(Also, if anyone is weary of my inveterate self-linking: sorry, I am too. It's just somehow the only semi-efficient way I've found to give enough background information on various points of HN.)
> Not sure if that's the correct assumption, but it's one I stick with.
Now that dang has confirmed it's incorrect, maybe stop sticking with it.