
Plan9 – A Distributed Operating System - StriverGuy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs
======
mdszy
What useful discussion is there even to be had around the wikipedia page for
Plan9?

~~~
drannex
You'll notice that random Wiki articles get posted nearly daily here, get very
few comments, but lots of upvotes and get close to the front page. Recent
trend in the last year or so.

Sometimes they are good, most times they are useless.

~~~
kbd
I've been flagging all the "here's a random wikipedia page" low-effort posts,
I recommend people do the same.

~~~
dang
It's good to flag the ones that aren't a good fit, but please leave intact the
ones on obscure topics. More explanation at my sibling comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22990237)).

~~~
3131s
How about just removing the flagging feature? It's annoying that a few people
can derail a discussion on an article that many others have upvoted.

Also, what happened to the "vouch" button?

~~~
dang
That's mistaken. A few flags can't do much against many upvotes. In fact,
almost every story with many upvotes gets a few flags.

What are some cases where you felt like this was happening?

It's true that flagging doesn't work perfectly, but it works better than many
major features of HN. For example, it works far better than the upvoting
system. Upvotes alone would kill the site [1].

There's a tug of war between upvotes and flags [2]. Some users flag because
they personally dislike or disagree with an article, but when an article gets
many votes, those flags aren't enough to win the tug of war. For flags to win,
there needs to be a coalition between that group and a (usually larger) group
of users who feel that the submission breaks the site guidelines somehow, or
that the topic has been repeated too much and the new article doesn't contain
significant new information [3].

HN's system consists of community, software, and moderation. When one part of
the system fails, another part exists to address the failure. For example,
when moderators fail, the community lets us know. When the flagging system
fails, in the sense that an article that is on-topic and interesting gets
unfairly flagged, it's the moderators' job to correct that when we review the
flagged items. Community members can speed that process up by emailing
hn@ycombinator.com.

[1]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22upvotes%20alone%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[2]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20tug%20of%20war&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[3]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

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azhenley
There have been a lot of interesting discussions of Plan 9 here over the
years, including:

Plan 9 released under GPLv2
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7232042](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7232042)

How I Switched to Plan 9
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21701798](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21701798)

Plan 9 from Bell Labs
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8718631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8718631)

Harvey OS - A Fresh Take on Plan 9
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11788445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11788445)

Plan9-9k: 64-bit Plan 9
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11788445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11788445)

Plan 9: The way the future was
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3537259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3537259)

Why Plan 9 is not dead yet and what we can learn from it
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8649534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8649534)

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olivierestsage
Anyone had any luck with 9front, etc.? By which I mean, has it been a fun and
interesting experience? I've been tempted so many times, but the whole thing
is pretty intimidating.

------
RhysU
The same guy at univ, a plan 9 aficionado, who suggested forming a LUG also
suggested Haskell. In 2001.

