Ask HN: Why did my post about posts getting nixed get nixed? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why did my post about posts getting nixed get nixed?

1 pointmike_tan11 comments

Are we not allowed to discuss how things could be improved?

Direct question. Please, no bullshit.

The title refers to this submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5685482

"Recently, when a single person vehemently objects to a post, it disappears off the front page. Liken a submission to Reddit, or call it over-hyped, and it's a goner.

I've noticed this trend recently, and it just happened with one of my submissions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5684770

Or do votes not count any more?

(I have a feeling this may mysteriously disappear)"

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From the guidelines http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to info@ycombinator.com.

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Votes count, but flags count more. It only takes 2 or 3 flags to get a new story off the front page. If a story has lots of upvotes it takes more, but not too many.

You might also want to read the discussion on the item he links to:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5685482

In addition to your comment there, I think a few flags will get something off the front page even though it continues to rank highly on page 2+. I suppose I could be wrong though.

All the posts involved set off the flamewar detector, except this one which I'm now going to kill manually.

How long have you been lurking before you registered?

The submission is going to get censored, even if there is a proportion of people interested in talking about the topic.

It's a shame, but there's no point in talking about it.

Hi mike_tan, I didn't realize there was already some discussion with you here. Two major points:

1. This does get discussed from time to time. Here is a post from the creator of the site, and a long discussion where members of the site hash things out. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459289

2. Everyone knows that "flags" are more powerful than upvotes, and therefore they only flag things that they really think shouldn't be on this site. Flags are not used as downvotes.

Some users can still see "dead" submissions. Go to your preferences and turn on "showdead" to see auto-killed spam submissions, comments from known trolls, etc.

I know who Paul Graham is.

>Flags are not used as downvotes

I'm not as certain about that.

You didn't answer the question.

> The submission is going to get censored, ...

    You keep using that word. I do not think
    it means what you think it means.

You submissions aren't being censored. Ordinary, everyday members of HN are flagging them as not adding value. If you spent some time here learning about these things you'd understand the dynamics better, but after our discussion on the other item you submitted complaining about how things work, I doubt you'll do that.

>You submissions aren't being censored. Ordinary, everyday members of HN are flagging them as not adding value. If you spent some time here learning about these things you'd understand the dynamics better, but after our discussion on the other item you submitted complaining about how things work, I doubt you'll do that.

I reasoned about every point we talked about.

As you said, I didn't answer the question, so you don't know how long I've been reading HN.

>I doubt you'll do that

Please! The premise that I don't know how things work seem to be a construction of your desire to argue against me, even if it's not on merit of the argument alone.

OK, you've read my explanations. Let me just add these observations:

* Meta-discussions get flagged by many, many member of the HN community.

* Getting lots of flags tends to get you hell-banned.

* You can complain about how HN works, but it probably won't change.

* Evaluate your time and efforts accordingly.

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