Ask HN: why do some non-trollish articles get [dead]ed? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: why do some non-trollish articles get [dead]ed?

10 pointsmariorz12 comments

I've been seeing more and more [dead]ed stories recently, which don't seem to be spamish or trollish, example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=276452

Seems strange, what's up?

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That one got killed automatically because the domain is banned. I think the domain was banned because someone once spammed us with links to it.

Another reason non-spam/troll stuff gets killed is because it's a dupe.

Another reason non-spam/troll stuff gets killed is because it's a dupe.

It's hard to find dupes when all you have is a link you want to post. For example earlier today:

http://www.google.com/search?q=http://www.positech.co.uk/tal...

returns nothing

even though the story is already posted:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=275780

Too often the names of the stories alone don't work. Or the name is misleading or otherwise bad.

Is there is a better way to see if a dupe already exists?

No, there's no good way to check for a dupe besides watching all the incoming stories. So don't get offended if your submission gets killed; it's not a mark against you.

OK, thanks. So should we flag other kills like that in the future?

I know there is some automatic [dead]ing - I occasionally see [dead] spam submissions that are just a minute old, for example. It's possible that one submission triggered some rule in the filter? (maybe the "crm" in the domain name?)

I've had a couple of my own links marked dead recently. It doesn't really bother me, I just submit stuff I find interesting and if the admins want to kill it they kill it.

Editors will also kill straight up dupes of other stories, or things with no intellectual content (like funny pictures, etc.) A lot of it is arbitrary though, obviously.

I'm going to guess that if enough people flag something, it automatically goes dead, unless perhaps it's received some threshold of upvoting.

Is there some gaming of the flag function?

I hate when I've commented on something, am being modded up because of my ostensibly good commend, and then the story goes dead....

Can you imagine what Carl Sagan's karma would be like? It would be through the floor. It would be a disaster.

People with genuinely good ideas don't crave approval. Sites like this are fun, but it shouldn't factor into the way you develop opinions, unless you want popular, stupid opinions.

Oh, I've posted my share of stinkers. I just meant that just when I think I might have contributed something, the whole thread dies. I don't generally play it for the karma, but its nice to know that someone appreciates what you've said every once in a while.

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