If you have concerns with how a story is being treated on HN, whether your own or another's, please email the mods at hn@ycombinator.com, and explain your concerns as briefly, clearly, and succinctly as possible. Include the submission ID in the subject line for faster response and action.
I've been doing this myself for many years, often feeling I'm something of an outsider and contrarian, though my status on the leaderboard and as amongst the most prolific HN commenters (ranked 17th in 2021 via an analysis by Whaly in January 2022[1]) suggest my own perception may be inaccurate.
I'm not a YC founder, haven't applied to YC, I'm just a semi-retired techie who's looked for the clue online since the 1980s and am in large part finding it here.
That said...
0. Climate change has been discussed reasonably frequently on HN, more below, and this story specifically.
1. HN's prime directive is "curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062985[2] Posts don't have to concern startups, or tech, or the Silicon Valley / Bay Area, or the MCU, but any topic which good hackers would find interesting is appropriate.
I have a significant concern with these priorities in the specific degree that many Big Problems are in fact Big Problems because their nature, whom they effect, and/or potential resolutions or outcomes, are themselves highly polarising. This is all the more true when these issues align along power axes such as wealth, social status, nationality (including rich vs. poor nation status), and the like. Unfortunately HN's policy here, in my view, tends to additionally penalise the under-privileged viewpoint. I've called for wide latitude in view of this multiple times, it's probably my biggest standing concern with HN moderation. In fairness, sometimes HN mods agree in specific instances, in others they don't.
HN also seeks to preserve the integrity of the site and its community, which is probably the most fraught, and least understood, aspect of moderation. It's disappointing to have your submission killed, flagged off the front page, or simply die in oblivion, and I write from experience. That said, maintaining the discussion dynamic itself takes primacy, and is something that must be nurtured in nuanced and gentle ways. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16135266>.
2. HN strongly deprecates repeat coverage of a single story or issue, especially where the repeats bring little additional information or insight to bear.
3. The warming oceans story was covered a month ago, 77 points, 74 comments: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35747417>. That said, climate change really isn't a single event, and many news organisations struggle with how to present it in the context of standard journalistic frames, much as they do other long-standing and complex issues (race, poverty, inequality, power differentials, and the like). I'd like to see a better option, I'm not sure what these might be.[3]
4. There are topics Hacker News has a great deal of problem discussing sanely. I've violated my own brief / clear / concise advice numerous times raising specific examples or general cases with dang, the head moderator and public face of the mod team (it is, as I understand, a team). Sometimes we disagree, sometimes we agree, almost always I end up with a better understanding of why HN acts as it does, and those reasons are ... reasonably justifiable, even where I disagree with the outcomes. I'm finding that very nearly all my concerns have been long anticipated or recognised by HN itself, see for example Paul Graham's (pg) 2009 essay, "What I've Learned from Hacker News": <http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html> (discussed at the time <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495053> as well as four years (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19201999>) and one year (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30394474>) ago.
In particular, dang has also occasionally expressed frustrations ... though I'm not surfacing the example I had in mind presently. This one comes close: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17689715>
You can review dang's own comments to HN which frequently discuss moderation actions and rationales: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...> This is highly illuminating in my experience. You can also search for specific terms to gain insights concerning decisions.
HN strongly discourages meta discussion. Searching reveals this detailed comment by dang:
A separate meta section would be a disaster—it would create a dedicated place for the problem to metastasize, and the demands on moderation would go up not down. I once had a conversation with the founder of a forum much larger than HN, who told me that creating a meta section in the hope that it would help contain such complaints was the biggest mistake they ever made. ...
... How about we make this into a positive this way: if there's a specific article that you feel was intellectually interesting, and capable of supporting a substantive discussion on HN, and which was flagkilled unfairly, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com.
Meta posts like this one (posts about the forum itself) are addictive: it feels like they're interesting, but actually they are not. They're more like a waste product of the community, consisting of the same half-dozen points over and over. We've learned over the years that such discussions need to be managed like weeds.
I've an interest in the concerns over meta-posts at the moment as I've been doing my own analytics into the HN front page from its inception in February 2007, and am contemplating a submission based on what I've discovered, see: <https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/110437783957361794>. Dang's cautioned me about the meta aspect.
I can share a few findings:
- The HN front-page is a limited resource. There are 30 slots, and with 365 days in a year, 10,950 annual opportunities to make the "past" (<https://news.ycombinator.com/front>) archive of front pages (10,980 in a leap year). That's something of an undercount as more items may appear on the FP for part of a day (as your submission did), but then slip off.
- From Whaly's analysis, slightly fewer than 3% of all submissions (excluding those killed by flags, automatic rules, and/or mod actions) make the FP. It's a gamble and lottery; luck and chance play large roles.
- About half of all comments appear on those 3% of posts which hit the front page. There's also a pretty sharp fall-off in both vote and comment activity from the 1st to 30th entry on the front page.
- There's been substantial discussion of climate on HN over the years, with 212 titles matching the pattern "(greenhouse gas|global warming|climate change|oceans|co2|carbon dioxide|emissions)". (If anyone cares to suggest other terms I can add those.)[4]
My own FP hit rate is almost exactly 3% as well, and I often feel that the stories I'd most like to see land don't. Some of those have been submitted through the Second Chance Pool[5], a mod-nudged option for under-recognised posts. And I'm doing about three times better than the average. Note that HN does not have a formal reputation bonus and specifically shies from any such feature. (I'd just seen a comment from dang or pg regarding this whilst researching this post, but it's vanished again...)
The best way to make the front page is to keep in mind HN's guidelines and FAQ,[6] to try multiple submissions on a given topic (a reasonable number of repeats for a specific item, other coverage where one fails), to contact mods with concerns, and to make use of the Second Chance Pool for items (your own or from others) which you think may have been under-served by the standard submission queue. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Regarding your post specifically:
The submission is data-rich, though context-poor. It consists primarily of a plot of the actual trend deviation (and yes, that's jarring and disturbing by itself for anyone with sufficient awareness to recognise its significance). I'm not sure it has great hooks for discussion. The earlier submission by Paul-Craft listed above affords much more narrative, as does, perhaps, David Wallace-Wells's June 1 essay "The Ocean is Looking More Menacing" <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/opinion/the-ocean-is-look...>, which I don't see in HN's submissions yet.
Late edits: Fixed markup, awkward wording, a few unfinished thoughts. Corrected my own FP hit rate, 3%, not 10%.
3. One tool used by other outlets is a scheduled discussion for specific topics. Conventions such as "X day" or "Y month" (e.g., Mother's Day, Black History Month, Earth Day, Pride Month) afford opportunities for such discussions. HN has monthly "who's hiring" and "who wants to be hired" threads, the though occurs that other periodic reviews, monthly, quarterly, annually, etc., might be possible. And of course, members can always take advantage of existing signifier days to attempt to amplify their own message(s).
4. That's a relatively high rate for a non-tech issue, by comparison, housing/homelessness: 103, poverty: 50, racism: 6, ozone: 9, censorship: 117, surveillance: 375. By year:
I've been doing this myself for many years, often feeling I'm something of an outsider and contrarian, though my status on the leaderboard and as amongst the most prolific HN commenters (ranked 17th in 2021 via an analysis by Whaly in January 2022[1]) suggest my own perception may be inaccurate.
I'm not a YC founder, haven't applied to YC, I'm just a semi-retired techie who's looked for the clue online since the 1980s and am in large part finding it here.
That said...
0. Climate change has been discussed reasonably frequently on HN, more below, and this story specifically.
1. HN's prime directive is "curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062985[2] Posts don't have to concern startups, or tech, or the Silicon Valley / Bay Area, or the MCU, but any topic which good hackers would find interesting is appropriate.
What HN especially seeks to avoid is religious flamewars. See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27017470>.
I have a significant concern with these priorities in the specific degree that many Big Problems are in fact Big Problems because their nature, whom they effect, and/or potential resolutions or outcomes, are themselves highly polarising. This is all the more true when these issues align along power axes such as wealth, social status, nationality (including rich vs. poor nation status), and the like. Unfortunately HN's policy here, in my view, tends to additionally penalise the under-privileged viewpoint. I've called for wide latitude in view of this multiple times, it's probably my biggest standing concern with HN moderation. In fairness, sometimes HN mods agree in specific instances, in others they don't.
HN also seeks to preserve the integrity of the site and its community, which is probably the most fraught, and least understood, aspect of moderation. It's disappointing to have your submission killed, flagged off the front page, or simply die in oblivion, and I write from experience. That said, maintaining the discussion dynamic itself takes primacy, and is something that must be nurtured in nuanced and gentle ways. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16135266>.
2. HN strongly deprecates repeat coverage of a single story or issue, especially where the repeats bring little additional information or insight to bear.
3. The warming oceans story was covered a month ago, 77 points, 74 comments: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35747417>. That said, climate change really isn't a single event, and many news organisations struggle with how to present it in the context of standard journalistic frames, much as they do other long-standing and complex issues (race, poverty, inequality, power differentials, and the like). I'd like to see a better option, I'm not sure what these might be.[3]
4. There are topics Hacker News has a great deal of problem discussing sanely. I've violated my own brief / clear / concise advice numerous times raising specific examples or general cases with dang, the head moderator and public face of the mod team (it is, as I understand, a team). Sometimes we disagree, sometimes we agree, almost always I end up with a better understanding of why HN acts as it does, and those reasons are ... reasonably justifiable, even where I disagree with the outcomes. I'm finding that very nearly all my concerns have been long anticipated or recognised by HN itself, see for example Paul Graham's (pg) 2009 essay, "What I've Learned from Hacker News": <http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html> (discussed at the time <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495053> as well as four years (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19201999>) and one year (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30394474>) ago.
In particular, dang has also occasionally expressed frustrations ... though I'm not surfacing the example I had in mind presently. This one comes close: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17689715>
You can review dang's own comments to HN which frequently discuss moderation actions and rationales: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...> This is highly illuminating in my experience. You can also search for specific terms to gain insights concerning decisions.
HN strongly discourages meta discussion. Searching reveals this detailed comment by dang:
A separate meta section would be a disaster—it would create a dedicated place for the problem to metastasize, and the demands on moderation would go up not down. I once had a conversation with the founder of a forum much larger than HN, who told me that creating a meta section in the hope that it would help contain such complaints was the biggest mistake they ever made. ...
... How about we make this into a positive this way: if there's a specific article that you feel was intellectually interesting, and capable of supporting a substantive discussion on HN, and which was flagkilled unfairly, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24902628>
More on meta here:
Meta posts like this one (posts about the forum itself) are addictive: it feels like they're interesting, but actually they are not. They're more like a waste product of the community, consisting of the same half-dozen points over and over. We've learned over the years that such discussions need to be managed like weeds.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17636158>
I've an interest in the concerns over meta-posts at the moment as I've been doing my own analytics into the HN front page from its inception in February 2007, and am contemplating a submission based on what I've discovered, see: <https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/110437783957361794>. Dang's cautioned me about the meta aspect.
I can share a few findings:
- The HN front-page is a limited resource. There are 30 slots, and with 365 days in a year, 10,950 annual opportunities to make the "past" (<https://news.ycombinator.com/front>) archive of front pages (10,980 in a leap year). That's something of an undercount as more items may appear on the FP for part of a day (as your submission did), but then slip off.
- From Whaly's analysis, slightly fewer than 3% of all submissions (excluding those killed by flags, automatic rules, and/or mod actions) make the FP. It's a gamble and lottery; luck and chance play large roles.
- About half of all comments appear on those 3% of posts which hit the front page. There's also a pretty sharp fall-off in both vote and comment activity from the 1st to 30th entry on the front page.
- There's been substantial discussion of climate on HN over the years, with 212 titles matching the pattern "(greenhouse gas|global warming|climate change|oceans|co2|carbon dioxide|emissions)". (If anyone cares to suggest other terms I can add those.)[4]
My own FP hit rate is almost exactly 3% as well, and I often feel that the stories I'd most like to see land don't. Some of those have been submitted through the Second Chance Pool[5], a mod-nudged option for under-recognised posts. And I'm doing about three times better than the average. Note that HN does not have a formal reputation bonus and specifically shies from any such feature. (I'd just seen a comment from dang or pg regarding this whilst researching this post, but it's vanished again...)
The best way to make the front page is to keep in mind HN's guidelines and FAQ,[6] to try multiple submissions on a given topic (a reasonable number of repeats for a specific item, other coverage where one fails), to contact mods with concerns, and to make use of the Second Chance Pool for items (your own or from others) which you think may have been under-served by the standard submission queue. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Regarding your post specifically:
The submission is data-rich, though context-poor. It consists primarily of a plot of the actual trend deviation (and yes, that's jarring and disturbing by itself for anyone with sufficient awareness to recognise its significance). I'm not sure it has great hooks for discussion. The earlier submission by Paul-Craft listed above affords much more narrative, as does, perhaps, David Wallace-Wells's June 1 essay "The Ocean is Looking More Menacing" <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/opinion/the-ocean-is-look...>, which I don't see in HN's submissions yet.
Late edits: Fixed markup, awkward wording, a few unfinished thoughts. Corrected my own FP hit rate, 3%, not 10%.