Dupes of 'reaction' and/or controversial news posts have been pretty common lately. Ex 'Dear GitHub' 'Dear Dear GitHub'.
One pattern I've noticed is there's almost always a comment with a link to the previous post.
A shortcut solution could be to encourage users to use a common convention. Ex 'Dupe: [link-to-dupe]'. That way it would be especially easy to pattern match and list dupes for moderation.
To prevent dupe creation to begin with might involve some creativity. Such as checking the post link against existing links and notifying the user of an existing post. Similar to what Stack Overflow's 'related posts' listing in the question creation page.
Follow-up posts like the example you mention aren't strictly dupes. Some of them are good submissions in their own right, others (probably most) are a bit lame.
A similar category that's a lot more problematic for HN is the spate of me-too stories that inevitably pop up as every website in the business publishes its copycat article about story Foo. Again, those aren't not strictly dupes, but morally they are.
> A shortcut solution could be to encourage users to use a common convention
Too much like cat herding to succeed. But some kind of software support for reporting dupes is on the agenda.
I confess I am ignorant about how this second submission of an article recently discussed here[1] got through the duplicate submission filter. I do enjoy the article, as it illustrates a point I have often observed as a teacher: learners don't start out with blank slates in their minds, but often have all kinds of preexisting misconceptions that have to be actively undone in any educational process.
I found the reason, I found the article on LinkedIn, if you compare both links you'll see that mine is different because linkedIn added some stuff at the end of the url.
Of course, but that doesn't make checking before submitting difficult at all: bottom search box, enter a relevant keyword (e.g. "ignorance"), then sort by date. You'd see that it was posted twice before with the first getting 104 comments.
linkedIn added some stuff at the end of the url
Yes, many sites (e.g. medium, signalvnoise) add phony fragment identifiers to URLs now; I can't think of a reason to do so other than to evade dupe detection.
I recently read a statistics books by Charles Wheelman in which he covers the topic of using statistics to manipulate facts. I have always taken statistical facts with a grain of salt, but when you understand the methods of manipulation and then review papers debating climate change for example, its mind blowing to see the manipulation of facts...by both sides of the argument.
Any pointers to good examples on both sides for the less knowledgeable (me)? Something I assume is happening in any argument, but I'd love to see exactly what you're talking about.
Naked Statistics is the book I read a while back on the topic. There are two particularly interesting chapters, one on Descriptive Description and one on Statistical biases.
That's why we go by consensus. Of course any one paper could be BS, but if 98% of scientists agree on something, then I feel fairly confident in that consensus.
I mean, look at all the acronyms after this doctor's name. Clearly he is expert. And his argument seems plausible to anyone who has not studied physics.
Here's another one that is not quite as clear-cut: 'Anti-perspirants Cause Cancer'.
""There is no convincing evidence that antiperspirant or deodorant use increases cancer risk," Ted S. Gansler, MD, MBA, director of medical content for the American Cancer Society"
Ah. Good. The American Cancer Society says anti-perspirants don't cause cancer. To be safe, let's check one more...
"Because studies of antiperspirants and deodorants and breast cancer have provided conflicting results, additional research is needed to investigate this relationship and other factors that may be involved."
Your analysis of antiperspirants and cancer is completely wrong, and you've likely fooled several people because you claim to have analyzed it correctly. The fourth link isn't the NIH's official position — it's just a paper hosted on an NIH paper-hosting service (PubMed). The Snopes link doesn't say that antiperspirants don't cause cancer — it merely states that they aren't the leading cause of breast cancer. The real takeaway is that the studies are inconclusive and more research is needed before you can state that they are or are not carcinogenic with any degree of confidence.
Trump is a very good example of his hypothesis on the Republican side but he left an impression of bias by not balancing that with an example from the other side of which there are also plenty.
I see Trump's rhetoric as so detached from reality, that I can't think of any current, relevant people on "the other side" that would come close. Who do you have in mind, exactly?
Seriously? You can't think of one person on the Democratic side who is "suggesting easy solutions to followers that are either unworkable or unconstitutional"?
Hillary "It was all just a response to a video" Clinton
Bernie "Terrorism is caused by global warming" Sanders
Harry “light-skinned” and speaking “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Reid
Al “White folks was in the caves while we [blacks] was building empires … We built pyramids before Donald Trump ever knew what architecture was … we taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” Sharpton
Barack "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance" Obama
Nancy "We have to pass it to find out what's in it" Pelosi
Elizabeth "I'm Indian because my ancestors had high cheekbones" Warren
Harry "Mitt Romney didn't pay any taxes" Reid
Hank "I'm not sure if Guam can tip over" Johnson
Leland "I am a leading gun proponent, but am running a illegal gun trafficking business on the side" Lee
Al "the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years" Gore
This is just manipulation of decent people. You can always get some percentage of people to agree with something you've propositioned with a camera and mic in their face and when they don't really understand what you mean (and then edit out all the people that didn't). Basic psychology phenom.
Repealing the bill of rights is obviously not something Clinton or Sanders have ever proposed and certainly have not been screaming it on national television like Trump
The difference is that the fringe, radical right wing beliefs have been mainstreamed. The left has nothing like that.
David Neiwert (Orcinus) has done a great job chronicling the steady encroachment of hate speech, eliminationist rhetoric, white supremacy, etc. As a journalist, Neiwert has long history with many of the players. He attends their events and interviews them. Kind of like watching Fox News, so we don't have to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Neiwert
Every person has some goofy beliefs. If the wingers keep to themselves, I don't mind.
But some things do push my buttons.
#1 Hypocrisy. Like hating on "illegals" and then hiring them to work on your house. Or railing against welfare while sucking on the government's teat.
#2 Victimhood, persecution complex, clutching at pearls. There's a subset of the right wing that are just a bunch of cry babies, with no real equivalent on the left.
#3 False equivalence. Personal example. A political colleague wrote that our senator should be burned at the stake for some imagined betrayal. Flat out hate speech. So I called him on it. In turn, he stated that the Rodney King riots in LA were an example of left wing hate speech. Um, what? And then he wanted me to be accountable for the actions of some people 20 years past. Um, okay.
Like goofy beliefs, I don't mind cognitive dissonance either. But trying to wrap an opponent up in one's delusions is just trolling.
The "truth lies in the middle" theory of American political analysis/reporting is perhaps the most dangerous idea in that field. I'd say, in fact, the truth rarely lies between the two big parties. Often it's outside them entirely, or way out on the fringe of one of them. Sometimes one side's perspective really is correct and the other is wrong. Sometimes either side's solution to a problem would likely be fine, though they conflict and a balance between them would not work. Sometimes one side has a mountain of evidence behind them and the other has a tiny amount of evidence, some anecdotes, and alternative plans based mostly on speculation (cough the healthcare debate).
For any of the above, trying to "balance" reporting leads one farther from the truth, not closer. It's not even the case that they must both be right or wrong equally in aggregate.
Similarly, just because there are prominent, awful people getting a lot of press and support on one side doesn't mean that each of them must have mirror images on the other.
Failing to manufacture false balance isn't evidence of bias.
Methinks this endless whining about "bias" when people rightly call out a certain endlessly ignorant political party for that ignorance is the last refuge of people who really have no cogent arguments in them.
You think Sanders doesn't fit this role? Sure there is not the wide array on the stage because there are only really two running on that side, but if you don't see Sanders as running on a pile of impossible-to-fund ideas then you are just being played by him.
Yet conversely, your point is an example of the very 'balance routine' mentioned in the article.
Let's say that Trump is an egregiously bad candidate. (Please note I'm trying to make a logical point, not give informed comment on US politics). Offering up the worst candidate from the other side as an equivalent might well appear to reduce bias, and yet be wrong in an objective sense.
Not that I'm trying to claim there's much objectivity to be found in party politics, but it seems reasonable to treat egregious-badness that way. Also, I have no doubt one could delve back through the years to find truly woefully dreadful Democratic presidential hopefuls, but since hopefully they are history's also-rans it's starting to ask a lot of knowledge from the audience. Just as with the debate of whether it's a good idea to fill one's lungs with toxic smoke, balance doesn't always help.
I find it really ironic that he feels the need to make contentless jabs at current political candidates in an effort to show how those candidates "spread ignorance".
Is your concern that there are an unnecessarily large number of references to political candidates, or that there are references at all? While I am tired of the constant jockeying for position and tribalism of politics, I also wonder what would have been said of the most horrific leaders of the past during their rise to power. Without totally diverting this discussion or fulfilling Godwin's Law, there is a genuine fear among some US citizens that certain candidates could be horrific in this manner.
Interesting read, but not very much information underneath the fluff -- the definition of "demagogue" combined with a cursory knowledge of common logical fallacies covers pretty much everything here. It's also interesting that an article like this is being published by an organization like the BBC; punditry is (I think) one of the most common examples of the phenomenon of obfuscation through constructed debate.
Looking at the dozens of "chewing gum for the mind" links surrounding the story, before I even read the article I wonder:
1) Is it possible to have real content on a clickbait site? Is this story, any story, worth an exception on the "no platform for clickbait" standard?
2) When did the BBC go full on tabloid clickbait? And on the tech side of clickbait, Ghostery only blocked ten trackers, and of course I block flash. BBC had (had!) an amazing reputation, but that was the BBC worldwide shortwave service in 1975, etc, but this is an internet clickbait site in 2016... what in the world happened?
(Yes, we're working on a better dupe detector.)