
Ask HN: Why master/slave name change post got removed? - kroolik
I&#x27;ve noticed the post [1] about a dev leaving OpenSSL after having his (among others) master&#x2F;slave =&gt; parent&#x2F;child naming change[2] rejected and started reading it. To my surprise, after finishing I noticed the HN post got flagged and removed from the list without any reason.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23737266<p>[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mta.openssl.org&#x2F;pipermail&#x2F;openssl-users&#x2F;2020-July&#x2F;012677.html
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wcerfgba
Because these sorts of topics are controversial and the mod policy is to
remove topics which are likely to result in people talking past each other.

From the guidelines [1] :

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something
> genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That
> destroys the curiosity this site exists for.

I don't agree that these posts should be removed, they're not offensive and
they don't incite hatred or violence. If people want to get in a flamewar,
that's their business. If you don't want to be involved in the discussion, you
can just avoid it. This form of moderation doesn't provide people the
opportunity to try and deal with controversial discussions in a constructive
way, it assumes that this is impossible and that preventing them from arising
in the first place is a better solution.

In terms of this post specifically, I think it is quite newsworthy because
Rich Salz is a major contributor [2] .

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[2]
[https://github.com/openssl/openssl/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/openssl/openssl/graphs/contributors)

EDIT: formatting

~~~
kroolik
Thanks a lot! I have a feeling that some of the successful master/slave
renames got to the top list at some point in time, so it worried me why this
topic got flagged. Could just be my perception. Thanks a lot, again!

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yesenadam
> the HN post got flagged and removed from the list without any reason

Without any reason? The title was "Goodbye". I just clicked on it, (which I
wouldn't've ordinarily, with a nothing title like that) it's a very short
message, I had no idea at all what it was about. I'm not at all surprised
people flagged it. Why wouldn't they?

An overwhelming majority of stories that are flagged on here are flagged by HN
users. No conspiracy theory needed.

~~~
kroolik
I understand the title was a clickbait. But, in such case, it could have been
requested to be changed, no? It's been the case for some submissions I've seen
that initially clickbait title was rephrased into something more honest and
objective.

For example, "Rich Saltz leaves OpenSSL after rejected master/parent rename
proposal".

No conspiracy theory here (might've sounded like one). Both the mail thread
and the PR were interesting to read.

~~~
yesenadam
Yes, you and wcerfgba both sound like you assumed mods removed it, and "for no
reason". Why else Ask HN "Why it got removed?" Not exactly a conspiracy
theory, but leaping to assume mods removed it, then asking "Why was it
removed?" is how conspiracy theorists operate, not how you find the truth. If
you really want the truth (not just my guess!), write to HN by email, they
will give you a helpful answer I'm sure. But I don't think there was anything
right in what wcerfgba said to you.

If you want it discussed, (which maybe the issue already has been, did you
check?) write a blog post on it and submit that, or submit it again as news –
not an AskHN – writing a comment explaining what you think is fascinating
about it.

The title when I looked a few hours ago was just "Goodbye", hardly clickbait -
not sure why anyone would click on it. Not sure what interesting stuff you
mean, for me it was a short indecipherable message with no context, links,
meaning - nothing about it I wouldn't flag, had I looked.

~~~
kroolik
Yes, I might've indeed sent an email to HN instead of posting this AskHN post.
Thanks a lot!

------
diehunde
I was reading the Github thread, and I was surprised people who were against
it didn't mention any technical problem that may arise from these changes but
only opinions about why it's OK to keep them. That alone shows me the
disconnection between these developers and the current social situation. I
mean, some guys were saying master/slave was unfortunate but too ingrained in
tech to remove it! That's sad.

