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Ask HN: HN censoring Facebook licencing controversy?

79 points by Mayzie ↗ HN
So, I was actively paying attention to a particular topic that was on the front page recently, Facebook saying no to a licence change request from the Apache Software Foundation.[1]

This thread had over 750 points, and 250 comments. However, all of a sudden, after 12 hours of being present, it is being marked as a duplicate of [2], which has under 150 points, not nearly as many comments (approximately 130), and no presence on the front page (or the next 10 pages for that matter).

Surely policy should prefer the thread with the most activity and more points? Particularly when it's on something I really wish to pay attention to (or rather, the commentary of HN participants which I value, of which [1] was receiving a lot of), given that it seriously affects the direction of present and future projects (which, at this stage, will no longer be utilising React).

Cheers.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050841 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050705

31 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 64.7 ms ] thread
gervase
HN actively attempts to avoid flamewars and other types of unproductive discussions on the front page, by means of de-ranking articles that have a high ratio of comments to points.

I don't know if this is the case here, but it's a possibility.

anfractuosity
One article has 126 points to 137 comments.

The other has 759 points to 279 comments.

Doesn't that mean the one marked as a dupe, had less comments to points.

I could be misunderstanding though, did you mean less comments to points.

hobofan
The smaller thread should also be big enough to be found on the first 10 pages, but I couldn't find it there.
falcolas
Probably penalized by user flags. Unfortunate that user flags can have such an outsized impact on the discoverability of important topics.
walterbell
Is there a user flag (and vouch) for dupes?
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kristofferR
"Flamewar" has become a weasel word for interesting discussion.

It's a shame HN actively combats debate, the only discussion allowed here is about benign stuff where mostly everyone here agrees.

williamle8300
Yup. The new HN admin's feefees are easily bruised...
swsieber
I disagree.

Past a certain size, the commentary on an article is hard to digest, and stuff gets repeated in different subthreads. It tends to become quite noisy. I can see the value in trying to steer new discussion away from the hot topic.

Additionally, I think the larger the topic, the more likely it is that you have people chiming who are triggered by emotion rather than thinking out their response (see the above point about most things being already said in a large thread).

Lastly, I have seen good debate on here now and again. I think distinguishing feature is that often people come to a consensus, or agree to disagree.

That said, I do think that there are good debates that have been shut down here, but shouldn't have. Or rather, they are debates worth having, even if HN is the place for them (eg anything skirting the topics of religion or politics)... and it's hard to tell when debates are silently killed if you aren't paying close attention, which I don't, so it's probably a bigger problem than I think.

aptwebapps
What's with the title? You're not alleging censorship in the body of your post - instead you pose it as a question about what the correct policy for marking dupes should be.
Mayzie
Well, I guess I just can't see any reason why a mod of HN would prefer the older thread over the more active one, and thereby removing its position from the front page and stop any further HN discussion altogether on the topic. Even the older thread is not present at all on the front page, or any subsequent pages.

Anecdotal, but it certainly _feels_ like an attempt to censor the topic at hand. Now that I think about it, I agree that my choice of title wasn't the best to be quite confrontational, but it is what spurred my creation of this thread.

Mayzie
Wow, I did not intend for this thread to get on the frontpage, I was merely trying to get an answer on why, and treated HN like Reddit. I need to look into how the ranking algorithm works more. I certainly wasn't trying to start anything. Sorry. :-/
walterbell
You helped return the story+comments to the front page, thanks.
falcolas
The active discussion was closed, the "correct" discussion is nowhere to be found without searching explicitly for the discussion.

Whether censorship was the intent or not, it's the effective result.

[dead] hnthrowaway627
That's the mechanism by which HN does censorship.

For another example see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12285545

This was marked as a duplicate of a PDF version of this essay that was submitted over 270 days prior to that being submitted.

It was high up on the front page and then gone out of nowhere.

I fully expect dang to come and remove this comment but we'll see.

wongarsu
He is alleging that HN purposefully uses questionable dupe marking decisions to make the react discussion undiscoverable, effectively censoring it.
loceng
They listed it as a [dupe] and then it's gone - and now is this post removed from the main page.

The post was clearly gaining rapid traction on a Saturday morning - it could of easily hit 2000+ upvotes.

This is disturbing. HN mods better chime in.

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csomar
It is possible it was flagged by too many users. Censoring can happen from the users themselves and I think the "flag" button should be replaced or deactivated for users with weak Karma.
walterbell
Ranking history for the two stories: one story decayed over many hours, one story was at the top of the front page for hours. Guess which one was marked as a [dupe]?

http://hnrankings.info/15050841,15050705/

Is there a way for users to "vouch" that a story is not a dupe?

Edit: Ranking of this Ask HN:

http://hnrankings.info/15053297/

Edit2 (1440 UTC): the [dupe] tag has been removed and the story is back on the front page, rank #11.

gus_massa
You can send an email to the mods hn@ycombintor.com with a small one paragraph explanation of the details that are different and interesting in the new article. Sometimes they agree and remove the [dupe] label, sometimes they disagree.
philbarr
Your link [2] came 1 hour before your link [1]. Don't think there's anything malicious going on there, they just marked the one that came later as a dupe.
peller
The news on this broke yesterday evening, and at one point both threads were on the front page. In my opinion the time to mark one as a dupe of the other was then, not 12 hours later. Especially in light of the fact that the 2nd comment on the now-marked-dupe post was a link to the earlier discussion, and in spite of that, discussion gravitated to the submission linking to github over the one linking to facebook's PR response.
hobofan
Even if it's not malicious, that policy should be reconsidered then, because it can make interesting front page discussions just disappear.
wongarsu
If marking something as a dupe would transfer points to the duped thread I would agree. I would also agree if it was marked as a dupe within a reasonable amount of time. But marking a popular, 12 hour old thread as a dupe of a marginally older, unpopular thread and giving it the ranking of the unpopular thread feels wrong and doesn't respect the intent the community has expressed by voting.
philbarr
This seems a reasonable argument, and I think the mods should adopt your idea of transferring the points to the duped thread (and possibly the comments?)
walterbell
And the post ranking!
loceng
I assume points being transferred would cover the post ranking.
walterbell
The ranking is based on arrival rate of points, ratio of comments, total points, and other factors including manual moderator boost or demotion.
SirLJ
Unfortunately a lot of manipulation and de facto censorship is going on HN... what a shame...
sctb
A moderator marked the later discussion as a duplicate overnight, which is the default move, but didn't notice the disparity in discussion until a little later and restored it. We've just merged the threads as well.

If you email us at hn@ycombinator.com, we will read it and respond. Users seem to imagine that moderation happens in dark rooms with seedy agendas but the truth is we're a part of the community and accessible. Once we've had an initial cup of coffee and replied to the latest censorship-accusation thread, that is.