Sone7

Maybe it's time one of these threads wasn't flagged/shadow-flagged.

Try to find this thread on the front pages of HN...

It's not there, at least in the first 150 results.

It seems to have been unflagged, then "shadow flagged". Which is even more fucked up.

Your first two links are the same btw, did you mean to link to this one, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577485 , where I asked for a discussion on removal of such an important story? According to moderator 'dang', I was just "creating drama".

The only unusual thing in this case is the drama you've created about it.

I haven't created any drama at all. Many people feel strongly about this and have said so, are they all "creating drama" as well, or is it possible people really give a fuck that this torturer will have an incredible amount of power?

there's no question that the above submission and your comments are breaking the site guidelines

The only guideline I have broken is the one about vote totals, which I was unaware of and which has special relevance here. You could have asked me to remove it, there was no need to allow the whole thread to be flagged over a straw-man.

It is telling that you claim there is 'no question' about this, when people are questioning it all over this thread.

Not all political stories are off topic, but the ones that only stir up outrage, however justifiably, and don't also gratify intellectual curiosity, are particularly important to flag.

What?? So, no matter how important a story is, if enough people pretend to be 'outraged' the story must be flagged? Please tell me you see the many things that are wrong with that line of argument. What a despicable thing to say.

There are many comments that agree this is worthy of discussion, the least you can do is allow the conversation to happen - the very least.

This is a critical discussion to have. As it stands, conversation on this topic has been strongly suppressed, and rather than being concerned about that, you're patronizing me, accusing me of creating drama, and implying I want HN to work according to my political views. Please take this all a little bit more seriously and recognize that it's nothing to do with me; but all of us, globally.

Thank you for your support.

I also believe this is a terribly important topic to discuss, with special relevance for the HN community (not that I need to prove that, the number of comments speaks for itself).

I have emailed the mods, and will update with the reply I get (if I don't end up banned).

I don't have an issue with flagging dumb stories.

I have an issue with flagging active and important stories, hiding upvoted comments, silently de-ranking stories without any notification, etc.

Straw-man all you like, there's no justification for this.

Update, 52 mins in:

This thread is not appearing anywhere on the front pages. With 31 points and 18 comments in less than hour.

What the Fuck?

The CIA employ what percentage of the tech community again? Maybe this shouldn't be considered an entirely political story, given the ramifications it has for all of us.

There were plenty of active commenters, most of them considering this a very serious issue.

And no one has been able to offer any explanation why my comment is permanently collapsed even when opened on a different browser, despite no obvious flag and a healthy amount of positive votes.

Finally, as I've said elsewhere here, there appears to be evidence of "silent de-ranking" where stories like the one about Google's censorship are not flagged in any way but won't show up on the front pages.

As a community HN deserves better, by far. Normalising this behaviour will lead to dark and bad places.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745363

This story from 3 months ago is as tech-related (Google changing their algorithm) as you can get. It wasn't visibly flagged, but was almost certainly de-ranked, and it wasn't just me who commented about it.

Even if you can buy the excuse that this isn't related to tech or start-ups, and ignore the very active commenting on it, you're still left with the utter refusal to allow any transparency about what is flagged and de-ranked. Why shouldn't we demand better?

Oh look it's happening again. The people who think this article might not be "drivel" are being grayed within minutes.

And by the way, this censorship happens on tech stories too. This article from three months ago wasn't even flagged, just didn't show up until page 3 or 4 despite being new and having tons of comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745363.

"These type of posts"... Posts on incredibly important topics with incredibly active discussion?

I haven't seen one flagged and treated like this since 3 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745363) - but that's the problem isn't it - we don't see them because they've been flagged.

As I said then, a little transparency isn't too much to ask for a "Hacker Community". And it's really weird how my comment is compressed, even in new browsers, despite having 11 points.

My point was that if you were expecting the GOP to end torture you're a fucking moron.

Obama, on the other hand, was full of fiery speeches during his campaign about ending torture.

What are you, implying I don't care that crazy people are running the country? Feck off ya mook.

Update:

My comment is compressed even when opened in a brand new browser, and this thread no longer shows up on the News pages at all, at least the first seven pages.

If I'm not mistaken, there has been no reason for this given whatsoever.

Weird weird weird shit.

My other comment on this page got 11 points in 6 minutes. But since then, every time I refresh the page my comment shows up as 'compressed' (as if it had been flagged), and it has been been on 11 points every time I've checked (now an hour old).

Weird shit happening here for sure.

It's impressive that we've fallen so low that we're blaming the Obama administration for not fixing what the Bush administration did.

Why The Fuck shouldn't we, he campaigned on ending that shit. His similar actions on the banking crisis continue to have horrific consequences.

Who gives a fuck about the GOP, we know they're nutso - Obama pretended to be sane though. Obama is also directly responsible for the DNC owing so much money that they were forced to sign a deal with Hillary before the nominations even started.

I'm sick of hearing that I have the politicians I deserve - the amount of money spent by special interests to warp the minds of citizens is at an all time high. The authorities supposed to regulate and hold these people accountable are captured.

And it's all extremely systematic.

The interests of the super-wealthy are aligned against education, cooperation and the health of the planet, and we don't have time for throwing blame at the victims.

Tesla was lazy? Can you call a man lazy, as an extreme example, who slept 16 hours a day and output half of what Tesla did?

Da Vinci did the same shit with tangents/investors, and slept multiple times a day. Was he lazy too?

Sure would have been nice to know tho. Ah well - why should we expect that basic level of transparency, right?

Hey YC -

Please answer me this question - have your mods flagged this story? It sure is odd how an incredibly active discussion in a fresh story with >100 points is on page 2 behind stale and dead stuff on the front page.

Seems kinda relevant to the topic at hand. Also relevant is how little coverage this story is getting outside of RT - Fucking hmmm.

You wouldn't say that if you'd seen how the BBC and the Guardian, never mind the right-wing rags, were talking about Corbyn last year.

And the US election? I honestly don't know why ye haven't dismantled your MSM brick by brick after that. Fucking hell.

It's disturbing how all your comments are going grey.. Fuck this site, it's lost it's way.

The BBC are awful. The way they covered Corbyn in the last election was sick and horrifying. They are no longer the example to use in these situations, if they ever really were.

Agreed, I think it's very hard to deny at this point. Careful what you say :D

Thank you for reminding me to read the Culture series. I've put it on my list for many other reasons, and now I have a new one :)

Benjamin Lee Whorf - Language, Thought, and Reality

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/language-thought-and-reality-...

This little collection of essays from the 20s by a chemical engineer is astounding. For anyone interested in cognition, engineering, language, there are mind-blowing insights packed throughout.

I wouldn't - see the recent spez shit over on Reddit.

Would be nice if we could have a discussion on it instead of just saying it's impossible though - is this a community of hackers or just apologists?

Is it though.

Because it seems like we have zero evidence either which way, and your account is seemingly always on the status quo side.

Myself, I see fuck all discussion on here any more that reminds me of old HN.

Oh, good to know. Guess we don't need any kind of logging system for that, we'll just take it at face value - I'm sure there are absolutely no other reasons that mods would downweight posts, so that's just great. /s

There's a ring of truth in that alright. Thanks for the insight :)

Since you design these systems - how developed are the standards for customer service? Are there watchdogs on the practice, or is it basically left entirely up to the company?

I have seen customer service depts go to astounding lengths to avoid helping, even when it means their company would make money.

An example:

Me - "I don't want a refund, I just want my account to be charged. Here are all the details."

Large company everyone knows - "Sure we can do that, we're just going to dick you around for three weeks first. Actually we can't do that, even though it's the major step in how we make money" - followed by multiple requests to rate their customer service.

It also feels like these issues are far more common when being overcharged rather than undercharged. I can't help wondering how the incentives are really balanced for some companies customer support teams.

Pfft. You want a citation, go make a vaguely anti-GMO comment on a major sub. Include keywords. See what happens.

It mightn't be as substantive or civil, but I've learned more from this HN thread than most.

Reading some of the comments here confirmed for me that this woman is on to something. People are claiming that there's more to the story, or that she must be a bitch/bad at social interactions (with no evidence worth mentioning and despite a respectful and genuinely empathetic writing style).

In fairness to GitHub, there may indeed be more to the story. However, I think if the tech community didn't have the issues she's talking about, the comment section here would be very different. Nothing she said sounds remotely unbelievable, nor is she selling us something, but people here read that she was forced into a mental health institution and felt free to jump to wild conclusions and publicly speculate on her job performance.

I'd have liked to see more discussion of BI, merit strategies, ideas on humanising large organisations, commiseration, maybe job offers and suggestions. And in fairness to this thread, there is a bit of that too. But experience has shown me that when people react this defensively to polite and well though out criticism, there is a measure of projection / delusion going on.

Now, I'm not saying that all non-substantive discussions should always be deemed kosher, but I feel like it's worth pointing out the irony here - the poor quality discussion has verified the quality of the OP.