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Censoring because you disagree?

4 points by 0x28aa1f185a6b4 ↗ HN
Some editors here are abusing [dead]. Perhaps the editors should be more accountable for censoring. This is the policy on eg. wikipedia.

Side note: I am happy to see now that at least ynews tells you if your comment/link has been censored.

Tip: Turn on "showdead" in your settings.

15 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 42.7 ms ] thread
jrockway
They are trying to keep the site from becoming the next reddit.
[dead] 0x28aa1f185a6b4
Guess you look at it differently when it happens to you.
bkmrkr
ends always justifies the means
anamax
The means, not the intent, produce the ends.
gojomo
I turned on showdead. Everything recently killed appeared to be spam, duplicates, or incoherent crankery. Your allegations seem groundless.
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mynameishere
How about this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=179764

...seems like more of a joke, though.

One thing I've wondered about is why none of my comments have ever been "dead"ed. Maybe there is a policy to be lenient with people who have high karma.

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[dead] 0x28aa1f185a6b4
So it's impossible to delete? I don't think so...
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gojomo
(reply to dead response)

No, you didn't say there was no spam in [dead]. But you also gave no examples.

So I did a brief survey and only saw justifiable kills. We're supposed to keep wading through the sludge the editors usually protect us from to figure out what peeved you?

No, thanks. If you make a serious allegation of editorial abuse, you don't get to play hide and seek with your evidence. State your case clearly or drop it.

0x28aa1f185a6b4
Glad you asked. Here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=be_evil

Couple here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=0x28aa1f185a6b4

Do you need more? There are hundreds.

gojomo
Many of the killed comments seem innocuous on the surface, so these examples do make me wonder what criteria were used. (Is something other than the comment a factor, such as evidence of contemporaneous voting manipulation or sockpuppet accounts?)

Still, I wonder why you started so coy with specifics. (Examples only came 5-replies-deep.) Why not just ask politely, as the original commenter, "excuse me, I don't understand, why was this comment killed?"

The editors may still decline to comment but at least then you wouldn't seem kind of shifty and potentially the same person as other spam/crank posters.