connorspeers

Saw this on my Twitter, good article. I liked this line:

> The spread of “highly forwarded” messages then dropped 70%. Though we can’t see exactly what happened inside, the change forced people to be more thoughtful about what they pass along.

It seems like devs have been getting lazy (or, worse, incentivized to turn the other cheek) when it comes to thinking about the impact of features that have been fundamental to the social networking experience in the past.

Moving forward, it’s vital that those who create the internet we know today build thoughtfully and responsibly. When constructing a building, there’s a reason we have rules for how the building is made; fire exits, electrical code, etc.

We need a similar rule book when it comes to building online platforms, and it needs to be just as enforceable as the real world equivalents.

Good share.

Thanks for weighing in. Administering this stuff is undoubtedly exhausting, and I appreciate the honest explanation here. I agree that community rule should be rarely overridden, and to be honest, until I asked this question I was under the false impression that flagging was a moderator action. If I had done my homework and seen that it was the community who decided it wasn’t HN worthy, I wouldn’t have posted this. But I’m glad I did! Live and learn.

The fact it got flagged is interesting all on its own. Maybe Wired is inviting flame wars by simply saying Fox News in the title? I wonder if it would’ve been flagged had they not. Food for thought.

Thanks, dang!

Hot damn. So that’s what that setting does. I thought it just triggered zombies or something, never gave it a second thought.

This is the explanation I was looking for. I wish you all the karma, thanks!

If someone who knew my name called me by another, I would take that to be a low-bar insult and hard feelings would ensue.

If someone did that same thing to someone I respect, more hard feelings.

Hard feelings trigger useless discussions. I’m just saying, maybe you should use his real name, not the name that J.O. told you you should use instead despite it not being his legal name. :)

Unless you want to be insulting to his supporters. But that’s what Twitter is for.

I totally agree with your opinion of modern news.

Your opinion of HN and what deserves to be on here is what I take issue with. It felt initially like you argued that because Fox News was the subject of the link, it would start a shitstorm of garbage talk and therefore shouldn’t be on here. While it may start a shitstorm of garbage talk (it totally would, no doubt), I think this particular headline is interesting because it’s a move made by Wikipedia, one of the most widely used references on the internet.

I would argue that despite the shitstorm, we should still be allowed to talk about it on HN because it’s relevant to policy makers at various internet companies. We can see that Wikipedia did something they haven’t done before, and it might influence how others move forward. i.e. “If the good folks at Wikipedia doubt Fox News’ credibility as an information resource, maybe we should too? Let’s talk about that.“

It wouldn’t matter to me if it was Fox or CNN or MSNBC or what have you. What matters (to me) is that it’s Wikipedia, and I would love to know what people smarter than me think about this situation.

But how can I get their opinion if posts about this get flagged to oblivion?

Edit:

For example, if I could poll what information overlords at companies thought, here’s what I’d ask:

- At what point does a particular information resource deserve to have its reliability status revoked?

- What is a good summary of some of the internal discussions happening at Wikipedia regarding this problem and it’s surging importance?

- How do you, as a company, respond when the mob attacks with something along the lines of “Leftist/Rightist bad people at company XYZ told me my favorite news entertainment network wasn’t truthful, let’s cancel them!” (Personally, my answer to this one would be: nothing.)

- What do sociologists say about this, given historical context of misinformation and the cults that grow to protect it? How do we bridge existing knowledge about combating bad info with the instant-communication age we are in?

Honestly, I could go on forever. Might not be the kinds of discussions you personally want to see on HN, but as a long time lurker, these are exactly the kinds of discussions I’m looking for, and it’s disheartening to see that other people think they shouldn’t happen just because it ruffles feathers.

Could be mobile safari but I still don’t see a vouch button. :(

I have 4 karma, my guess is that HN admins restrict who can vouch, which would help stem the tide of spam.

I’m not spam. If this is working as designed, I’d like anyone calling the shots at HN (if they read this) to know that I am vouching in spirit and wish I could vouch in reality. :)

Update: I’m dumb, this comment explains what I’m too lazy to search for:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24133425

Yeah this is probably true. I wish it weren’t, because seeing what non-political hackernews users think about this development would be very valuable. At least to me.

Wikipedia questioning the reliability of a major cable news network is an interesting new phenomenon.

Fake news is an incredibly important topic of discussion for anyone in the social media side of the tech world.

I think you’re wrong. Debate me?

I think it would be best to not poke bears and call him by his actual name. If users are instinctively flagging things they see as critical of someone they like, maybe the best way to ferry them back to reality is to provide them with information that, while truthful, doesn’t overtly denigrate their intellectuality. I myself am guilty of knee-jerk reactions when someone portrays me as stupid.

That’s not to say I don’t agree with you, though. It would be a sad thing if the people of HN were taking advantage of anti-spam features to turn this space into something of an echo-sphere, regardless of political leanings.

I also don’t see the vouch button. Sad that there’s a karma threshold for this kind of thing but I understand the purpose. Wish the barrier to entry was a tad lower though.

Edit: I’d like to point out that the article in question has nothing to do with Donald Trump specifically, but it does discuss the reliability of Fox News, which has willfully linked itself to the president and his ideology/persona.

I’m having trouble finding concrete information about the vouch button. Seems like it shows for some users but not all. Do you happen to know if there’s any official information on this?

Thanks for your help! I will keep looking once I’m not on mobile.

This isn’t about political discourse. It’s about information reliability and how websites are dealing with it.

Don’t flag important conversation starters about problems endemic to the internet!

Not just you! I’m just HN illiterate. Had no idea that was a thing.

Thanks!

Here’s the wired article the submission linked to: https://www.wired.com/story/why-wikipedia-decided-to-stop-ca...

I got the submission in my RSS reader (Feedly) which regularly shows me posts that end up getting flagged for removal. After seeing the linked article elsewhere, this seemed like an odd submission to remove.

"Ruminations on the heavy weight of software design in the 21st century."