Why do the mods of Hacker News delete the top posts?

3 points·tshakur··6 comments

I just posted something about a startup founder wealth survey.

It was #1 and had tons of upvotes and comments.

But for some reason it's no longer there.

Why?

Who are the mods here and why do they delete great content?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10081770

View on HN

(I'm not a mod and not affiliated with HN, just a user)

Your post is still there, so no "great content" got "deleted". HN rankings are quite volatile (looking at the ranking history, two other posts made similar falls in the last 3 hours alone).

If users flag your post, that also gives it a strong bump downwards.

If you want to make sure message the mods (contact link in the footer), but I bet the answer is going to be that this was the algorithm normally working or maybe a spam filter triggering.

It might have reached 40 comments before 40 votes and therefor been deemed "controversial"[0]. Per the guidelines you're not supposed to ask about moderation publicly though.

[0] http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really...

ha! Controversial? If Hacker News find that to be controversial, they're weak.

Great content? A survey asking people to give you a bunch of their personal information? I'd be willing to bet that it got flagged and that's why.

It was voted the number 2 post. So clearly people liked it.

I also noticed that awhile ago..something would be up on the first page for an hour and the suddenly go to the second page when it should have stayed on the first page longer.

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