| "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. ... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."[1]
Controversial discussions can lead to comments that are not civil, and these are also violations of HN Guidelines.
If you could provide examples of posts or comments that you think were flagged unfairly, it might lead to a more fruitful discussion.
It's also an evergreen, but that applies to lots of topics that are routinely allowed, e.g. copyrights, diversity, antitrust, or other legal topics that intersect with tech.
Just yesterday there was the lengthy discussion of the atomic bomb & WW II, which is arguably less relevant than censorship.
Could you provide the URL, please?
While "consistency" is a weak argument, as a rule: there certainly is not any Significant New Information about the atomic bombing of Japan. That happened 76+ years ago, and the fact that the US had firebombed most big cities in Japan by then has been well known since the War.
Censorship is not a tech topic, it's a political topic that sometime intersects with tech. And many stories about censorship fit exactly the description of off-topic stories.
> Just yesterday there was the lengthy discussion of the atomic bomb & WW II, which is arguably less relevant than censorship.
We could debate the merits of the specific articles but (1) that, not the merits of the broad subject matter (“censorship” and “the use of the atomic bomb in WWII”) is what is relevant, and (2) even if the particular article excluded today were agreed to be “less relevant” than one not excluded yesterday, that wouldn't make the flags on the other one necessarily abusive.
Your last paragraph, especially ("We could debate the merits of the specific articles") could charitably be called "weasel-wording." Yeah, we could debate the merits -- why don't we?
A reasonable addendum to the flagging process would be for the moderator to disclose:
1. Who flagged it?
2. Why did I agree?
An open question would be whether to disclose when the moderator does NOT agree.
No.
> How is censorship "a political topic that intersects with tech", when Tech companies do it without being compelled by law?
Censorship isn't technology. It's social. “Tech companies are among the actors in society that do it” is...well, mostly an artifact that certain media companies are called “tech companies” rather than “media companies”, but tech companies doing social things doesn't convert those social things into tech things.
> Your last paragraph, especially ("We could debate the merits of the specific articles") could charitably be called "weasel-wording." Yeah, we could debate the merits -- why don't we?
Because you, in debating the exclusion, chose to debate the relative merits of broad topics rather than specific articles. The reference wasn't general, it was to the specific thread.
> A reasonable addendum to the flagging process would be for the moderator to disclose:
> 1. Who flagged it?
> 2. Why did I agree?
No, it wouldn't. One, because HN is community moderated; flags aren't necessarily reviewed at all. Two, because this adds nothing of value, just more distracting meta. If you want to challenge flags, you can email the mods. If you want to discuss an article that has been rejected by HN, you have the rest of the internet, as well as a variety of offline discussion venues.
> An open question would be whether to disclose when the moderator does NOT agree.
If a mod reviews flagged articles and doesn't agree with them being flagged, they aren't flagged any more (usually, there will be an explanation posted as a comment in the thread when this occurs.)
I'll take "Weasel Wording" for $800, Alex.
As for your advice on challenging flags, the motive is certainly there to follow this procedure:
1. Flag a submission early in the morning, before anyone's had a chance to vote on it.
2. Commenting is unavailable to most people for most of the day.
3. If and when it gets unflagged, everyone's moved on.
4. Enhanced downvoting!
If you say no one's doing this: be transparent and prove it.
Write a script that looks at the first N pages of the "New" listings. Count the number of posts that are flagged. Run the script every hour. After a few days, you should be able to either support or disprove your hypothesis.
There may be more thorough explanations. The gist is that topics that get rehashed over and over again with the same arguments are off-topic, and the bar is supposed to be that there is significant new information to have another post about an ongoing topic.
For a discussion about e.g. something on WWII, it could still be relevant as general interest, even if it's old. That's different than yet another vi/emacs debate or whatever comes up every day.
> topics that get rehashed over and over again with the same arguments are off-topic, ane
> something on WWII, it could still be relevant as general interest, even if it's old.
I really don't see how you reconcile these into any sort of objective principle.
How about this: "It's relevant if I say it is." That's perfectly fair for a private group; just say it.
Honestly, that might be where your misunderstanding of HN culture is coming from. There is no set topic for HN that something would be more or less relevant to. It certainly trends heavily to tech and startups, but is not limited to it. At the end of the day, it is community-driven.
For the most part, the things that get flagged like this are both explicitly off-topic (they are almost always areas of major controversy covered heavily in mainstream media and articles not offering any new insights) and simultaneously things which have been shown not to produce useful discussion on HN, but instead be dominated by repetitive flamewar.
I don't see many addressing the comments being flagged. Maybe because it happens less often or is less visible than for posts? At least it seems that way to me. I've seen things mostly down voted instead (posts don't have that option, so maybe that's why flagging is used more there).
The main thing I have seen as comments being flagged are for nonsense/spam replies, or some sort of vulgar name calling. However, I have seen comments (including my own) that don't seem to be breaking the rules get flagged. Usually in this case it's all the comments I have posted in that thread. They later become unflagged. I assume these would be a case of someone abusing the system because they don't like my opinion.
On the other side of this, I see some comments that break the rules when things get heated, and typically they aren't flagged. I usually don't flag them either since the offense is generally de minimus in my view.
I don't agree with flagging comments just because someone thinks they're false. I'm guessing that many things that the majority of people on HN consider false at a given point in time are actually subject to serious debate by knowledgeable people. For example, statements about Covid being primarily spread by droplets, which were made by the CDC early in the pandemic and were later shown to be false. If someone would have posted a comment back then saying it's more likely that Covid was spread by aerosols (which is what the CDC says today), should it have been flagged?
"Facts" in news stories are frequently proven wrong as more information becomes available.
If you think something is false, it's better to cite a reference that supports your position. Perhaps someone will cite a more convincing reference that disputes it, and people can delve further.
This one seems like maybe it got flagged just for typos
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30379327
This one seems to be stating that hiding false information is censorship... and was then flagged. Sort of seems like they flagged the very thing you were talking about not flagging.
I suggest everyone else do the same to avoid regression to the mean.
If it were "No, and here's why" then I'd upvote it instead.