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Ask HN: Why can’t I submit Inquistr’s story about Reddit’s The_Donald subreddit?

4 points by Calvin02 ↗ HN
I’m sure others before me have tried to submit the story from Inquistr about The_Donald subreddit being a haven for Russians. My submission was blocked but I don’t see the story anywhere.

Censoring, YCombinator?

18 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 53.1 ms ] thread
grzm
I don’t see any submission from you for this. I’ve seen submissions from some domains get marked dead by default (often spam-type sites it seems). I don’t know if that’s the case here. Can you describe how you’ve tried to submit and what the failure mode has been?

As an aside, I can understand you might be frustrated, but please don’t immediately assume bad faith or malicious intent. Even stories which are flagged dead can be resurrected by members who vouch for it or mods if they think it’s appropriate. You’ve provided far too little information here for someone else besides a mod to easily figure out what might be going on. You can also contact the mods directly via the Contact link in the footer, which is often the most expedient method of getting an authoritative response.

Calvin02
I’d like to believe you but I tried submitting from another account: http://imgur.com/a/tDiA7
gus_massa
The title can have up to 80 characters. Your title is 13 characters too long. (Yep, it's cryptic error message.)

The original title is:

  Reddit’s The_Donald Was One Of The Biggest Havens For Russian Propaganda During 2016 Election, Analysis Finds
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It has 109 characters. I guess you removed ", Analysis Finds".
grzm
> "I’d like to believe you but..."

I checked for submissions from the 'Calvin02 account, which shows no dead submissions for the inquistr story. Like I said, you gave much too little information about what had failed for me to try much else.

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=Calvin02

The image you posted shows a message that the submitted title is 13 characters too long, which is the reason it's not letting you submit. You'll likely be successful if you shorten the title.

Calvin02
I just tried again with a shorter title (below) and still got the same error message.

“Reddit’s The_Donald Was One Of The Biggest Havens For Russian Propaganda“ (72 characters)

grzm
That's not an error message (though, FWIW, I can't replicate that message: I only see "X too long" when that's applicable, and 72 chars is well under the 80-character length limit). The submit button should be enabled, and you should be able to click it to submit.

AFAIK, if you're logged in and have a title that's of acceptable length, you should be able to submit. Any flagging or whatnot happens after submission: there's no filtering that happens before the submit button is clicked.

If you think something else is going on, or there's something that's affecting your account, I again suggest you contact the mods directly. If that is the case, they're the only ones who are going to be able to confirm and address it.

Calvin02
I’ve tried submitting multiple times with shorter titles but I get the same error (as the second screenshot in the Imgur link) after I hit submit: “Sorry, that story was previously submitted.”
grzm
If I understood you earlier correctly that you've been trying to submit using a different account, I can't help any more without knowing that account so I can see its submissions (though I don't see any recent submissions for the inquisitr.com at all using 'gus_massa's link). I've seen that error IIRC when I've tried to submit the same story after previously submitting it from the same account. But again, I don't know which account you're posting it from. (Out of curiosity, why are you submitting from a different account than the one you're using here?)
gus_massa
It's difficult to be sure with the public information, so I have to make a few guess ...

<guess> You probably submitted the story once and see that it was killed (automatically). Then you probably deleted it and tried to resubmit it (with a shorter and longer title) (from your account and from other account).

Probably some of the automatic spam filters can detect resubmission of deleted stories, perhaps for a short time. This is probably to prevent spammers form resubmitting stories that are flagged/killed. You are not a spammer, but automatic filters sometimes make mistakes.</guess>

In any case, to get an official reply, send an email to the mods.

gus_massa
The submissions to the Inquisitr are autokilled. See https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=inquisitr.com with "showdead" enabled.

For an official reply, send an email to the mod in the morning hn@ycobinator.com , sometimes they unkill the story.

Calvin02
This probably explains it but definitely wasn’t apparent in the error message shown.
gus_massa
typo warning: hn@ycobinator.com -> hn@ycombinator.com
gamechangr
Also - post things that are more interesting that Politics.

There is such an abundance of Political fodder that it makes political stories less relevant or interesting.

There's a place for it, but it's not here. If people wanted that, there would be no need for HN's.

It's not really censoring as much as that's the boring content that's on every other major news syndicate.

Calvin02
This isn’t about politics. It is about how tech companies are enabling outsiders to create political discord and influence elections.
gamechangr
The whole "influence elections" was interesting in the Spring of 2017 when Trump was recently elected.

Now it's just a dead horse that's being beat.

Let me give you the benefit of the doubt - Is this the first you have heard of it?

Calvin02
This is the first I’ve heard of Reddit being used in this capacity.

In my opinion, Reddit could have had a greater influence than either Facebook or Twitter. On Facebook, the Russians ran ads and they used bots on Twitter but in both of those cases the total reach was probably less than Reddit’s reach.

Also, while we are scrutinizing Facebook and Twitter (rightly), it is time that Reddit (the fourth most popular site) should also have to explain what it is doing.