Ask HN: Bias in flagging stories? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Bias in flagging stories?

10 pointscurtisblaine22 comments

So, today I posted this NYT article regarding a settlement Asia Argento paid to an underage boy who accused her of rape in order to avoid trial: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17798703

The post has been flagged and it's not possible to comment it anymore.

I'm not familiar on how HN flagging works; I understand it's been flagged by an user for some reason and that flagging prevents it to reach the frontpage or to discuss the story further. I also guess it's been flagged because it's not in line with the usual content you might find in HN.

That would be OK, but why a number of, let's say, specular stories (the ones where Argento accused Hollywood producer Harwey Weinstein have not been flagged and some of them reached the front page? (e.g.: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=harwey%20weinsten&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story).

I just joined HN last year and I'm not incredibly familiar with its internal mechanics. Is there an implicit bias regarding what can and what can not be posted? Did the Weinstein stories get to the top because HN "likes" their narrative more than Argento's story? Not making any accusations, of course, this is just to understand. Happy to engage in respectful discussion.

Thanks, Curtis.

I did not see the story, therefore I had no 'flagging' input into it, but based upon the "guidelines": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and your description of the story above, I'd bet that a few users felt it fell into this category:

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, ... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

But the Weinstein stories have been not flagged. That's why I ask: is there an implicit bias? Should one only post stories that support a certain narrative?

Keep in mind that "flagging" is not handled by a small core set of moderators. The ability to 'flag' a story is granted to anyone with more than X karma (right now I can't find any reference giving the exact X value).

So whether a story is flagged is based on exactly which random users happen to see it when it gets posted. If you get one random set, they may be more likely to flag it, if you get a different random set, they may be more likely to not flag it.

So there's no way to answer the question "buy why did that other story not get flagged" because the reason why is:

it depends on exactly which random sub-group of users with 'flag rights' saw the story when it was first posted.

The 174 point Weinstein story you mention has as the top comment... someone complaining it got flagged, and a big [flagged] in the headline. So yes, it got flagged.

As you say, you're ignorant of how flagging works.

It's probably a good idea to stop flinging accusations of bias around until you understand the balance between upvotes and flags.

What I see is a story about Weinstein abusing Argento in the front page and a story about Argento abusing an underage boy flagged. And I get answers like "HN is not for news". Shouldn't it be both ways?

Not flinging anything, by the way. Just asking.

The HN internals are kept a bit opaque. Some users can flag, and then IIRC it can be "vouch"-ed for once, where it might be re-flagged again. Upvotes may factor in. Mods will occasionally override manually. Luck of the draw is always a factor.

I'd say that the bias around the Weinstein stories were that they were simply very hot in the mainstream, and that caused otherwise off-topic posts to catch some traction here.

To be fair, the linked story was doing quite well, in terms of upvotes, until someone flagged it repeatedly.

For completeness sake, the story title was "Asia Argento, accused of rape of an underage boy, pays $380k deal to avoid trial (nytimes.com)" and pointed to https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/asia-argento-assault-j...

Edit: it seems the story has been unflagged. I'm kinda confused in how the whole thing works.

I now flagged it, 21 upvotes, and it went into flagged mode again. No idea how many flags cancel out upvotes or how the algorithm really works.

In my opinion that's entertainment news, not hackernews material. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

Some topics, scandals, even catastrophes are usually completely ignored on HN. The idea is that other websites, the main stream media and large newspaper, sufficiently cover it.

I'm not arguing against the story itself. I've read it in the newspaper this morning. Just my expectation when opening HN is not to see/discuss a celebrity paying off a rape victim, regardless the circumstances that led to act. Actually I'm surprised the Weinstein story made the frontpage.

Yet a lot of Weinstein stories weren't flagged and two made the frontpage. Looks like bias, so was asking if this kind of implicit bias was common in HN. You flagged Argento's story, did you flag Weinstein's too when it came out?

You may want to re-read the guidelines. Especially the bit about emailing the mods.

I'm not asking the mods why Argento's story was flagged. I'm asking the community if HN has a double standard on what news are "acceptable".

Yet again, you don't understand flagging.

You probably already know the answer. There is certainly a liberal bias in the readership and that bias in naturally reflected in what is flagged.

I'm not sure that's true. Every single post about climate change or global warming, for instance--no matter how tech-related the story may happen to be--gets flagged almost immediately. That's not being done by liberals.

I vouched it, that's why it was unflagged. I thought it was an interesting other perspective, regardless of which "side" you believe.

Still flagged though :(

Thanks!

It has been flagged again

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