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Comment by groby_b | Hacker News Reader

Because a right wing forum is actively drive hate against Asahi folks (specifically Marcan), and it's using orphaned/unmoderated threads (because the anchor post is flagged) on HN to post that hate and get search ranking for it. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35237006

HN should stop making those threads available, not because right wing, or left wing, or whatever political argument you'd like to make, but because it's a way to get search juice for lots of things for free that is also detrimental, ultimately, to HN.

You can post any garbage you like outside the view of the community, and still get it associated with the community here.

View on HN

Just read KF's post about Hector and while it is frivolous (a lot of "who cares" moments), it is also founded with plenty of evidence. Simple freedom of speech, not hate speech.

Also, I would never have read it if it wasn't for this thread. :-)

Maybe I'm missing some context, but how is some comment calling him weird related to right wing forums and needs the entire thread removed?

Because that same line of questioning (Marcan being Lina) has been entertained by said right-wing forum, ergo this should be purged to avoid giving them "juice".

That's not at all what I'm saying.

This specific case involves a specific group of people. I'd be equally annoyed if people on the other side of the spectrum used what amounts to a bug in HN to influence search ranking for a smear campaign.

HN makes flagged posts and subthreads invisible to its average users (you need to link to the subthread), but keeps them fully searchable. And does not moderate them. As a result, it's an easy way to deposit unreviewed content on a high-reputation website, leeching of that reputation.

It's got nothing to do with politics, and everything with the fact that when you allow a community to be publicly associated with content without letting the community see or moderate the content, you're damaging the community's reputation.

HN should fix the bug. That's all. Everybody involved in this particular drama is entirely entitled to say whatever the heck they want, just not under the cover of being pretend-part of this community.

But the only reason that makes you think that they belong to said right-wing forum is because they entertain this talking point, and their dislike of Marcan.

It sounds quite cyclical. They dislike Marcan because they're alt-right users leeching off this community's reputation, which is obvious because they dislike Marcan.

The people on the link you sent, they, uh, have a long comment history. No one is being "pretend-part" of the community here. Or am I missing some context?

Marcan is Lina. It's no longer something to be questioned.

https://x.com/LunaFoxgirlVT/status/1887896920732876819

> It's the worst kept secret in history that I had to keep alive, I have no interest in keeping it alive anymore.

> I mean, Lina started as an april fools joke on Marcan's youtube channel

https://x.com/LunaFoxgirlVT/status/1887897472527458689

> So yes, Marcan is Asahi Lina, Asahi Lina is Marcan. It's not a secret, it never really was.

> Only really became one when Marcan found out he liked vtubing.

And if you don't like Twitter, Luna is also saying it on Bluesky:

https://bsky.app/profile/lunafoxgirlvt.foxgirls.gay/post/3lh...

> My abuser (asahi lina/marcan) is a Linux kernel contributor.

Why is it HN's problem that search engines suck?

Because HN has a reputation and this influences that reputation. The same way an open relay would harm your MTA reputation or an open redirect harms your domain reputation.

So if HN were to think: "gee, we don't want to delete this content, but we also see how it breaks the rules", they could opt to put some noindex flags for the robots to consume which is a very cheap way to try to do something that reflects their own rules.

It is of course possible that this is no reputation effect at all, and there is also no interest on a human level in all of this. In such a case, nothing happens.

It seems to be smearing HN’s reputation. They don’t even point out any examples of this supposed behavior. They just link to something entirely unrelated.

To me it seems to perfectly outline HN's reputation when moderation is delayed. This brigading has been happening on multiple projects for years, specifically by the actors mentioned in the link, but plenty of others as well.

If anything, this specific behaviour and these actors have been outlined by articles dedicated to just that, right here on this sited. Granted, other sites are often lumped in here as well, such as reddit and even stackoverflow. This is not new behaviour, it happens in all communities. The big differences between them all is to what degree they get abused and in what manner.

As for examples: I doubt people who are targeted will want to share their experience with anyone directly. Someone asking for it to stop should be enough.

It is entirely reasonable to ask for an example. Even a single example will do. I’m not the only one who has never seen this before.

I think it's reasonable to ask, but unreasonable and unrealistic to expect someone to come tell their story just for you. Even if you (and others) have never seen this before.

What you could do is plug "Asahi Linux targeted" in to any search engine and read as much as you like. It's not like this is very new either, this mess has been going on for years now.

As usual, it's also your average internet mud-flinging contest, but at the core the issue of harassment stands, and shining a light on it regardless of the actors is always a good idea.

'Asahi Linux targeted "hacker news"' got no results other than this exact conversation.

That's why I wrote "Asahi Linux targeted". The results cannot be linked here as the contents would violate the guidelines.

You are claiming that asahi Linux has been harassed on hacker news. There appears to be no evidence of this.

> unreasonable and unrealistic to expect someone to come tell their story just for you

They are explicitly* asking us to take action--the onus is on them to explain to us why we should take action. They have not, so no action will happen. It's as simple as that. We aren't the ones asking for something to be done here.

Kiwi Farms is a terrible website that does terrible things. What does that have to do with us? Barring any explanation from them, my conclusion is that it doesn't have anything to do with us.

* "Please demand change within your community."

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