Ask HN: What happened to the WhosHere vs Who's Near Me thread? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What happened to the WhosHere vs Who's Near Me thread?

33 pointsdave16197 comments

The stories were #1 and #3 on Hacker News last night at 11pm and then around midnight they suddenly disappeared. I thought it was an interesting story and an important topic to discuss. Was it deleted by a moderator? Why?

View on HN

It's way back on page 8. Edit: That's way further back than most stories less than 24 hours old with 100+ upvotes usually are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4055256

  215.	
	A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network (brianhama.com)
	755 points by pclark 19 hours ago | 215 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4056649

  222.	
	WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me (zendesk.com)
	210 points by nphase 13 hours ago | 131 comments

I was just looking into the same thing. It looks like both stories dropped way down the rankings at approximately the same time last night

WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me: http://hnrankings.info/4056649/

A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network: http://hnrankings.info/4055256/

Also, this very thread right here.

Ask HN: What happened to the WhosHere vs Who's Near Me thread? http://hnrankings.info/4058166/

I don't have a definitive answer, but I can guess.

1. It was not productive. It didn't help, both sides told varying stories and neither side seemed particularly honest.

2. The discussion got hijacked by some folks. It was worse than useless really.

Most likely a few people got fed up with the ranting and flagged them. It only takes a few flags to drop an item back at least one page, possibly several pages. The other responses you're getting here are consistent with that hypothesis.

Most likely, they were removed by mods because they were causing a legal fight to be waged with HN as the middleman. Basically, the story will be interesting once they either settle or actually litigate; until then, it's just both sides trying to sway HN.

This thread, too, will likely be removed, which it probably should. Meta conversations like this are not very illuminating. (Site mods try to retain editorial control of the site in order to preserve the qualities that they think make the site great.)

I also think this is a very important story.

Edit: I just sent info AT ycombinator.com the email below with the subject 'news item'. Hope it gets seen and considered.

Hi team

I think the news item about who's here / who's near me is extremely important. If you don't include the ability of a small close-nit group to moderate itself somewhat, then things like idea-stealing and legal threats become such a burden that a lot of startups won't even bother, the burden will be too high.

I think it's an amazing time where someone with just a server can start a big project. I think silent threats should not shut people down.

I also think the reply is important, and upvoted that as well, though I find it unconvincing.

As for the original story: Even if it's not true in this case, just the idea that a page can be missing from what you're served is important enough for me to check page numbers if I'm ever served in the future. On this point alone the story is worth an upvote, which I gave it.

I think both what happened and the response are appropriate for the front page.

It's also a very important subject of discussion; for example, how far can Zynga go in a category before going too far? (in literally copying a game).

Thanks for giving this another consideration.

Best,

(my name) = its_so_on https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=its_so_on

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