HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why was the Aretha Franklin post removed?

40 points by kwamenum86 ↗ HN
Aretha Franklin just died and a story about her reached #1 on HN this morning before being removed (edit: looks like mods revived it and removed this post :D): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17774698

When other celebrities die the post stays up. For example, this story about Anthony Bourdain's death wasn't taken down https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17264376

Aretha Franklin has had a much broader impact on culture (and I say that as a fan of them both) and if a post reaches #1 it's hard to make the case the story isn't relevant to the community.

Why the double standard?

7 comments

[ 160 ms ] story [ 1073 ms ] thread
dubeye
Suicide is more unusual?

Mods didn't notice?

rhacker
It looks like it's on the second page. Not sure it's actually removed or just not trending?
kwamenum86
It was previously [dead] - I guess mods revived it
rhacker
Ah, gotcha might have been your post.
[dead] objectivetruth
Was it removed? (I don't know how that works on HN.)

When I browsed HN this morning, your post was on page 1, and the Aretha post you cited was on page 2. I clicked it and it opened fine.

_mnr
It's still on my feed. Second page. Edit: Oh, saw your other comment. Weird.
dang
Users flagged it.

HN is a complex system, so I don't think it's possible to come up with a consistent model for it. That's a wild goose chase. I know it can be frustrating (I like Aretha too).