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Hm, this thread once again slid down the top page at an alarming rate, even though the safety of the environment surrounding engineers is a serious concern of e

Hm, this thread once again slid down the top page at an alarming rate, even though the safety of the environment surrounding engineers is a serious concern of engineers. Hacker News is surprisingly dismissive of user interests and votes. Note that even if it is a suicide, it is still a safety problem of the environment surrounding engineers. Since it is Boeing that pressured him until he committed suicide.

EasyMark 3y ago
Honestly you're probably better off reading threads on reddit about it. The system may not be as elite as HN but it does allow for more attention and free speech IF you're willing to dig through the detritus.
briantakita 3y ago
Are you surprised about the lack of curiosity on this sort of case? When many here are within 2 degrees of the people involved. Most within 3 degrees. It's a small world
- interestica 3y ago
  Number of comments and upvotes doesn't suggest lack of curiosity... It's the fact that it got bumped off front page
  - briantakita 3y ago
    > Number of comments and upvotes doesn't suggest lack of curiosity Yes, I agree with you. I was doing double speak. Many things of public interest are nudged "off the front page". Promoting Political Bread & Circuses instead. I think the networks of the Managerial Class are tight. Due to shared interests, values, & upbringing. So I'm not surprised to see the circling of wagons. I'm more surprised that this post was not flagged yet.
    - jamiek88 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - dang 3y ago
      For those who care, none of this has anything to do with how we moderate HN. I just put the story back on the frontpage - I hadn't seen it earlier.
- falsandtru 3y ago
  Users have now expressed interest totaling over 350 points in several hours.
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  > Are you surprised about the lack of curiosity on this sort of case? I don't think it's a matter of curiosity. If most of the comments in this thread were things like the history of corporate violence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_Uni...) then I think there would be less downvotes. Few people are aware of corporate oppression of the past which robs people of context for the present. Unfortunately rather than provoking curiosity by introducing people to information they didn't know they didn't know, most of the comments here are some form of "in the back of the head twice..." which just isn't interesting or thought provoking.
hnthrowaway0328 3y ago
I would not be surprised if dang wants to quietly get rid of this kind of topics. It is risky. It is a lot safer to criticize a president TBH.
- dang 3y ago
  Let's see if you still feel that way in 5 minutes. Edit: I'm tired and let my snark guard down—sorry. No, I don't want to "quietly get rid" of this kind of topic, except insofar as lurid sensationalism isn't what HN is for. This story is unusual enough that it gets a bit of a curiosity pass. "Riskiness" in any dark sinister sense doesn't play into any of this on the HN side. It's all boringly straightforward, with just enough randomness to be confusing.
  - hnthrowaway0328 3y ago
    Thanks dang, sorry for thinking like that.
  - Der_Einzige 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 3y ago
      People assume all kinds of things—whatever they want. Trying to stop that is a madhouse ticket. One eventually learns these things although in my case it seems to take years. Another slow learning is that it's a bad idea to undertake impossible tasks like "showing clear evidence that astroturfing is not the norm"; especially before breakfast. Btw, though - no one is denying "front page manipulation", though manipulation is an emotionally loaded word. HN is a curated site, always has been. I've posted, let's see, 70,000 comments as an HN moderator and thousands of those are precisely about this. How "posting thousands of comments of explanation" turns into "denying the idea of" is a good example of the first sentence of my comment here.
falsandtru 3y ago
[flagged]
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  A comment with +40/-32 and a comment with +8/-0 are moderated differently despite both being +8. That's a good faith policy that makes sense if you don't want to promote highly divisive "fight provoking" content. I think it's also worth pointing out that this is done algorithmically and not randomly or arbitrarily by moderators based on their prejudices.
- dang 3y ago
  It's standard moderation practice on HN to downweight offtopic comments. If we didn't do that, most HN threads would have something generic or offtopic at the top of the page, choking out more interesting discussion. There's nothing secretive here—I've posted about this lots of times over lots of years. I know it's fun internet time to play sinister speculation, but if anyone wants to know what's actually happening, all they have to do is ask. Edit: I mean about anything happening on HN. Suspicious deaths, I can't help with.
  - falsandtru 3y ago
    The previous comment was deleted as expected. You will surely say that you have nothing to do with it. > This comment was, even though it has 8 points, moved from the top of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39674829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39674829 to the lowest level here below 0 points. The order of comments in the original thread has also been reversed. It has to be said that this is a m...dishonest cover-up. Probably the most importantly for HN users, it proves that the order of comments can be changed by the moderators, not by the order of points. For example, the same operation could be performed in the same thread to produce the same result. This neatly matches the strange behavior often seen on HN. Oh, this comment may be deleted for going too deep. > Also, with this move, the shadowban to this thread has been lifted and this thread is now back on the top page. The previous ranking was page 3.
    - 3y ago
dredmorbius 3y ago
A few points to keep in mind: - Little of HN's moderation is done directly by moderators. Rather it's user actions (flags on stories, downvotes and flags on comments), and some automated mechanisms, most especially the "flamewar detector". - HN detects flames where a story has > 40 comments and the ratio of comments to votes is greater than one. As I write this comment, the story has a ratio of 2.24:1, which is quite high. The average front-page story floats far closer to 0.55 to 0.60 (2021 & 2022, respectively, see: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926236>, based on my own analysis of all HN front-page archives). (At some point I'd looked at all the "spiciest" HN stories in the front-page archive, and though I don't have that handy, a 2.24 ratio is remarkably high by comparison.) The flamewar detector isn't perfect, but it's often appropriate, and can take what seems to be an otherwise interesting story off HN's front page quite quickly. I've seen this happen to a number of my own submissions, and until I understood the mechansism and cause (and inquired to the mods via email) it could be quite discouraging. Note that mods do occasionally override the metric (as they have in this case, see: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39676385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39676385>). Ironically, your best defence against the flamewar detector is to upvote the story and not comment on it. - The story is of course possibly significant, but we've got very little information to go on presently. HN, as with other online discussion sites, has a tendency to go off half-cocked in such cases, often with regrettable results in terms of discussion accuracy or relevance. My suggestion is to absorb the report, keep it in mind, suspend judgement as to what you think may have happened, and look for further investigations or reports.

EasyMark 3y ago

Honestly you're probably better off reading threads on reddit about it. The system may not be as elite as HN but it does allow for more attention and free speech IF you're willing to dig through the detritus.

briantakita 3y ago

Are you surprised about the lack of curiosity on this sort of case? When many here are within 2 degrees of the people involved. Most within 3 degrees. It's a small world

interestica 3y ago
Number of comments and upvotes doesn't suggest lack of curiosity... It's the fact that it got bumped off front page
- briantakita 3y ago
  > Number of comments and upvotes doesn't suggest lack of curiosity Yes, I agree with you. I was doing double speak. Many things of public interest are nudged "off the front page". Promoting Political Bread & Circuses instead. I think the networks of the Managerial Class are tight. Due to shared interests, values, & upbringing. So I'm not surprised to see the circling of wagons. I'm more surprised that this post was not flagged yet.
  - jamiek88 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    For those who care, none of this has anything to do with how we moderate HN. I just put the story back on the frontpage - I hadn't seen it earlier.
falsandtru 3y ago
Users have now expressed interest totaling over 350 points in several hours.
hayst4ck 3y ago
> Are you surprised about the lack of curiosity on this sort of case? I don't think it's a matter of curiosity. If most of the comments in this thread were things like the history of corporate violence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_Uni...) then I think there would be less downvotes. Few people are aware of corporate oppression of the past which robs people of context for the present. Unfortunately rather than provoking curiosity by introducing people to information they didn't know they didn't know, most of the comments here are some form of "in the back of the head twice..." which just isn't interesting or thought provoking.

hnthrowaway0328 3y ago

I would not be surprised if dang wants to quietly get rid of this kind of topics. It is risky. It is a lot safer to criticize a president TBH.

dang 3y ago
Let's see if you still feel that way in 5 minutes. Edit: I'm tired and let my snark guard down—sorry. No, I don't want to "quietly get rid" of this kind of topic, except insofar as lurid sensationalism isn't what HN is for. This story is unusual enough that it gets a bit of a curiosity pass. "Riskiness" in any dark sinister sense doesn't play into any of this on the HN side. It's all boringly straightforward, with just enough randomness to be confusing.
- hnthrowaway0328 3y ago
  Thanks dang, sorry for thinking like that.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    People assume all kinds of things—whatever they want. Trying to stop that is a madhouse ticket. One eventually learns these things although in my case it seems to take years. Another slow learning is that it's a bad idea to undertake impossible tasks like "showing clear evidence that astroturfing is not the norm"; especially before breakfast. Btw, though - no one is denying "front page manipulation", though manipulation is an emotionally loaded word. HN is a curated site, always has been. I've posted, let's see, 70,000 comments as an HN moderator and thousands of those are precisely about this. How "posting thousands of comments of explanation" turns into "denying the idea of" is a good example of the first sentence of my comment here.

falsandtru 3y ago

[flagged]

hayst4ck 3y ago
A comment with +40/-32 and a comment with +8/-0 are moderated differently despite both being +8. That's a good faith policy that makes sense if you don't want to promote highly divisive "fight provoking" content. I think it's also worth pointing out that this is done algorithmically and not randomly or arbitrarily by moderators based on their prejudices.
dang 3y ago
It's standard moderation practice on HN to downweight offtopic comments. If we didn't do that, most HN threads would have something generic or offtopic at the top of the page, choking out more interesting discussion. There's nothing secretive here—I've posted about this lots of times over lots of years. I know it's fun internet time to play sinister speculation, but if anyone wants to know what's actually happening, all they have to do is ask. Edit: I mean about anything happening on HN. Suspicious deaths, I can't help with.
- falsandtru 3y ago
  The previous comment was deleted as expected. You will surely say that you have nothing to do with it. > This comment was, even though it has 8 points, moved from the top of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39674829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39674829 to the lowest level here below 0 points. The order of comments in the original thread has also been reversed. It has to be said that this is a m...dishonest cover-up. Probably the most importantly for HN users, it proves that the order of comments can be changed by the moderators, not by the order of points. For example, the same operation could be performed in the same thread to produce the same result. This neatly matches the strange behavior often seen on HN. Oh, this comment may be deleted for going too deep. > Also, with this move, the shadowban to this thread has been lifted and this thread is now back on the top page. The previous ranking was page 3.
  - 3y ago

dredmorbius 3y ago

A few points to keep in mind: - Little of HN's moderation is done directly by moderators. Rather it's user actions (flags on stories, downvotes and flags on comments), and some automated mechanisms, most especially the "flamewar detector". - HN detects flames where a story has > 40 comments and the ratio of comments to votes is greater than one. As I write this comment, the story has a ratio of 2.24:1, which is quite high. The average front-page story floats far closer to 0.55 to 0.60 (2021 & 2022, respectively, see: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926236>, based on my own analysis of all HN front-page archives). (At some point I'd looked at all the "spiciest" HN stories in the front-page archive, and though I don't have that handy, a 2.24 ratio is remarkably high by comparison.) The flamewar detector isn't perfect, but it's often appropriate, and can take what seems to be an otherwise interesting story off HN's front page quite quickly. I've seen this happen to a number of my own submissions, and until I understood the mechansism and cause (and inquired to the mods via email) it could be quite discouraging. Note that mods do occasionally override the metric (as they have in this case, see: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39676385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39676385>). Ironically, your best defence against the flamewar detector is to upvote the story and not comment on it. - The story is of course possibly significant, but we've got very little information to go on presently. HN, as with other online discussion sites, has a tendency to go off half-cocked in such cases, often with regrettable results in terms of discussion accuracy or relevance. My suggestion is to absorb the report, keep it in mind, suspend judgement as to what you think may have happened, and look for further investigations or reports.