Why has this aritcle (124 points, in 1 hour) only 15th on HN?
Who is flagging this?
Vkontakte is larger than Facebook in Russia, and the CEO has to flee due to ugly pressure. This isn't germane technology news?
Who is flagging this?
Vkontakte is larger than Facebook in Russia, and the CEO has to flee due to ugly pressure. This isn't germane technology news?
It's not a question of it being off-topic. It's a question of it spurring shallow discussion that is high on agitation (noise) and low on reflection (signal). Consider the distinguishing features of the thread:
(1) A top comment that has no substance and is merely an internet witticism to fire up the crowd;
(2) A person attempting to contribute substantively accused of being a propagandist for Putin;
(3) A predictable Snowden argument whose only connection to the story is "Russia".
You might want to reconsider the premise of flagging topics in order to facilitate ease of topic moderation. There's more to this site than merely the user discussion.
Are there any metrics that distinguish the ratio of active thread participants, versus quiet lurkers, versus users that seldom view the HN thread at all, and only look at the lists?
On a busy day at work, I'll check the RSS feed frequently, but rarely bother with HN proper. In short, this means if an article doesn't make it into the top 30 list, a (possibly-not-insignificant) portion your user base (myself included) might be effectively disinformed of the topic.
That's kind of important.
The status quo isn't ok, because it violates HN's values of substance and civility. Not having any threads at all is not an option. Selectively shutting down threads when they go off the rails seems draconian. Banning people for making poor contributions to poor threads is wrong; the same people often make good contributions elsewhere. Thoughts?
Sometimes the acrimony and the controversy is an integral part of a news story. Without the gossip from the peanut gallery, it might not be news.
Relevant social topics often smell terrible. I think it just comes with the territory...
Odd. You have successfully convinced me to flag this, whereas I hadn't before.