
Ask HN: Why did this article just silently disappear from the front page? - golergka
I managed to take a screenshot that shows this link on position 9:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newdiscourses.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;07&#x2F;woke-wont-debate-you-heres-why&#x2F;<p>But after I read it, the &#x27;discuss&#x27; link leads to empty page: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24014806<p>Why was it removed?
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ColinWright
In your profile set "Show dead" to "Yes" and two[0] submissions[1] show up ...
there may be more. They have been flagged by "the community" and so are dead.
As I write this I see that it has been submitted yet again[2].

 _Edit: Now that 's flagged dead as well_

Submissions are sometimes flagged as just being so far wide of the general
community interest so as to be irrelevant to the vast majority. But sometimes
they're flagged because they are divisive, and known (or expected) to produce
flame wars and unpleasant exchanges.

But whatever the reason, it would appear that this article is thought to be
interesting by some, and inappropriate by others. That's part of how HN works.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015300)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24014806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24014806)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019257](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019257)

~~~
thu2111
The fate on HN of this well written and intellectually curious article is a
neat proof of the point it's making.

~~~
yesenadam
Beware of "Being downvoted proves I'm right!" \- that way lies madness.

EDIT: My thoughts exactly GP,

> sometimes they're flagged because they are divisive, and known (or expected)
> to produce flame wars and unpleasant exchanges.

I had a look at the article. I thought it was well-written and interesting,
but already I was imagining and dreading a huge messy HN comment page, with a
lot of whited-out comments etc, not really worth reading.

Sometimes I upvote stories/blog posts I think are really bad, but the comments
are really good and I want to encourage them. People coming along later saying
"I cant believe this crappy story has 500 votes!" or "Why was this flagged??"
miss that point - people also vote on the comments as a whole, even if there's
none there yet. Many people mostly just read the comments, so not surprising
they'd vote on them, not the story.

~~~
thu2111
As you say, the article is well written and interesting, it's also about a
highly topical issue relevant to many in the tech industry.

It's also about why critical theorists flat out refuse to engage in debate
over their beliefs. And Hacker News, a community that has more than its fair
share of critical theorists, is witnessing a systematic effort to stop people
even meta-debating why critical theorists don't debate.

Obviously defining a flag-worthy story as "one with a lot of flagged comments"
is circular logic. The sort of people who want to avoid debate at all costs
will certainly white-out and flag people who try to debate them. It's visible
on so many threads here. That doesn't mean the article or comments aren't
good.

Sad to say but Hacker News is really nowhere near as good at promoting
intelligent curiousity as its staff like to believe. The software just isn't
good enough to do that and nor do the owners ever upgrade or experiment with
it to try and make that situation better.

------
nebukadnezar
It is pretty discouraging to see this kind of censorship happening. The
article seems reasonable and if you disagree, good for you, argue about it or
just get over it.

This whole woke stuff/cancel culture reminds me of the little red book waving
youngsters during the cultural revolution in China.

Very scary to see this happening again.

The fact that this can be so easily be removed, suggest that the algorithm for
flagging is not very good and needs to be improved.

As said above, discuss instead hide behind your cancel button.

~~~
wmf
There are plenty of places like TheMotte where you can discuss this. We don't
need to discuss every topic on every site.

------
byoung2
From the guidelines[1]:

 _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic._

Maybe enough people flagged it for being off-topic

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

~~~
wcerfgba
I don't like these guidelines because they are vague and subjective -- just
because an article does or does not gratify one person's intellectual
curiosity, it doesn't mean it won't / will gratify another person.

Flagging is heavy-handed, because it hides the post unless you have showdead
enabled, and it prevents the post being able to gain upvotes which would
otherwise justify it being posted.

When a post gets 10 upvotes in 50 minutes, it's clearly satisfying _some_
people's curiosity. If you're not interested in the post you can just scroll
past it, you don't have to flag it out of everyone else's view...

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't like these guidelines because they are vague and subjective

They are intended to be subjective: since it's about fit to the audience.

> just because an article does or does not gratify one person's intellectual
> curiosity, it doesn't mean it won't / will gratify another person.

One vote/flag doesn't have a giant effect. The idea isn't to have stuff that
might appeal to _someone’s_ intellectual curiosity, but will do so for the HN
community broadly. HN isn't the only community around and isn't intended to
be, and it isn't trying to be all things to all people.

> Flagging is heavy-handed, because it hides the post unless you have showdead
> enabled, and it prevents the post being able to gain upvotes which would
> otherwise justify it being posted.

Tools to adjust the signal-to-noise ratio need to, well, actually have an
effect to work.

> When a post gets 10 upvotes in 50 minutes, it's clearly satisfying _some_
> people's curiosity.

Yes, and the formula weighting votes, flags, and activity already considers
that.

> If you're not interested in the post you can just scroll past it, you don't
> have to flag it out of everyone else's view...

Conversely, if you are interested in content that doesn't appeal to the HN
community generally as expressed by the mechanisms established, you are free
to use a different link-sharing and discussion site (there are plenty) or set
up your own.

------
gwright
I think it is quite ironic that an article about an epistemology that rejects
criticism of itself was flagged.

~~~
wmf
HN is intrinsically a system of oppression, man.

~~~
giardini
Haha! Thanks for these two posts - made my day!

------
totetsu
How any anything that has the word "woke" right there in the title be taken
seriously? It's all a bit too Sea Liony.
[http://wondermark.com/1k62/](http://wondermark.com/1k62/)

------
gwright
Another attempt got to 7 points before being flagged and marked as dead:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24015300)

------
bezmenov
I can attest to the page disappearing and appearing “empty”. The page is now
back, although flagged and dead.

------
password4321
[https://hckrnews.com](https://hckrnews.com) shows dead discussions.

unfortunately it looks like [http://hnrankings.info](http://hnrankings.info)
does not.

i don't think there's a way to find out exactly what happened without emailing
the mods: hn@ycombinator.com. i also doubt they go into the details that much.

------
8bitsrule
Tar baby.

