More here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42637131
As for Sam: this site has hosted countless negativity fests about Sam (as well as other celebrities people love to post about). This story is different, and the way we're handling it would be the same if you replaced his name with anyone else's.
Edit: You can downvote my comments and censor my account all you want. I learned today that to engage with this site one must take an oppositional stance. I'll just make a new account since this one is clearly compromised. I encourage everyone to do the same. Hell make 10 every time you see you're censored.
I didn't downvote you, and indeed no one on HN (including me) can downvote a direct reply to them.
You're telling me there were 40+ flags on this? GTFO.
I was seriously using this site for fun, but this is just straight bullshit so now you've turned this user into someone who was enthusiastic to someone who knows this place is garbage. Streisand effect on steroids.
It doesn't change the important point, though, which is that your submission was downranked because the flags won over the upvotes. It just means that the flags happened while the story was on /newest rather than the frontpage. Actually that is is an even stronger community response.
For the reason I already explained: rank is computed from upvotes and flags, not just upvotes. The flag input proved stronger than the upvote input.
I don't lie to users, partly because it would make me feel bad, and partly because it would be dumb. I'm not going to do anything to risk the good will of the community, which is the only value that HN really has.
It's true that I make mistakes, but that's different from lying, obviously. I can't not make mistakes but I can and do correct them when I find out about them.