HN Explorer

Ask PG: Why stories with "wiki*****" in the title don't hit the frontpage?

4 points by gasull ↗ HN
EDIT: As explained by mooism2 in the comments, this can be explained because flags count as downvotes even if they don't affect the point score (BTW, then I think that the point score is broken).

Maybe I'm having my tinfoil hat on, but I see some stories that have more upvotes and are more recent than some in the frontpage, but they aren't hitting it. Examples:

- WikiLeaks as a Preview of All-Out Cyberwar (voipsa.org) 4 points by danyork 14 minutes ago | discuss

- WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US (twitter.com) 4 points by wiks 25 minutes ago | discuss

And in the frontpage:

- The end of a single global namespace? (christopherkullenberg.se) 3 points by unicornporn 47 minutes ago | discuss

- Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month (stratumsecurity.com) 4 points by packetwerks 40 minutes ago | 1 comment

16 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 90.3 ms ] thread
mindcrime
Dude, we get enough wikileaks crap already... and it's not like there aren't plenty of other places for wikileaks stories. Maybe somebody can create a /r/wikileaks subreddit (if there isn't one already).

Personally I want technology / entrepreneurship news primarily when I visit HN... but that's just me.

gasull
Personally I want technology / entrepreneurship news primarily when I visit HN

WikiLeaks is technology.

RiderOfGiraffes
But the articles aren't discussing the technology, and wikileaks itself, although it uses technology, isn't itself technology. It's like submitting endless articles about, say, the New York Times, just because they use technology in their printing processes.

And it's not even a wiki.

mindcrime
No it isn't. Wikileaks is an organization that uses technology. That doesn't imply that every story about Wikileaks is a "technology story." Most of these Wikileaks stories are closer to "politics" than "technology," IMO.

At any rate, it isn't what I'm interested in reading about on HN.

mooism2
Presumably people are flagging them for being off-topic.
gasull
Does flagging something prevent it from being in the frontpage?

Also, this is only happening with stories with with the word "wikileaks" in the title. Not with other stories about wikileaks that don't have the word "wikileaks" in the title.

mooism2
For the purpose of something appearing on the front page, flags count as downvotes. They don't affect the point score, but they can cause something to appear further down than they would otherwise. There are several Wikileaks stories on the second page.
gasull
OK, this explains what is happening.

But if so I think some people are flagging automatically, maybe with scripts. There are WikiLeaks news in the frontpage. Only those with the word "wikileaks" in the title are affected, apparently.

RiderOfGiraffes
As I said in a comment to the last time you submitted this question ...

Possibly because people are flagging them as fast as possible to avoid being swamped by the wikileaks flood. Or possibly, as with TSA stories, there's currently a penalty being applied to them. Flagging things moves them down the rankings, just as upvotes move them up.

I count between 30 and 40 wikileaks stories submitted in the last 24 hours, and around 130 to 140 in the last 5 days. Personally, I think it's too many, but I'm just a grumpy old man who thinks technology stories, and stories about people in business, are more interesting, and more relevant to HN.

icey
Since the first few, I've flagged every wikileaks story that's I've seen on the frontpage because they're almost all rehashes of what's already been on the frontpage, or information you could get from going to cnn.com.
gasull
I agree there are sometimes too many stories, but the story of wikileaks.org domain being dropped has enough votes and isn't in the frontpage, and I think it's important enough to be there. Other technology websites are reporting it.
RiderOfGiraffes 

  > Other technology websites are reporting it.
And there is perhaps the main point. I don't come to HN for generic technology stories, I go to other places. I don't automatically flag wikileaks stories, but I've seen the same stories over and over and over again from nearly every tech site I go to, and having them flagged on this site, and hence not reaching the front page, doesn't disturb me. Quite the opposite, it helps to bolster my faith that HN is different, and more valuable.
gasull
And there is perhaps the main point. I don't come to HN for generic technology stories, I go to other places.

Maybe it's me, but I come to HN for the best stories, "anything that is in the interest of hackers" according to the rules, whether they are reported by other media or not, I don't care.

RiderOfGiraffes
I know you can't downvote me - you're replying to me. And I'm not complaining about the downvote (which someone has reversed, so I've removed my comment) but simply remarking on it.

And I'm being saturated with wikileaks stories from every source: twitter, facebook, BBC news, etc, etc. I don't need to get it all over again.

My personal opinion, of course, and, as I said, I don't automatically flag them, but every day I just feel enough is enough. 130 submissions in 5 days is excessive.

mindcrime
> Quite the opposite, it helps to bolster my faith that HN is different, and more valuable.

Exactly. I expect to find a slightly more refined list of news stories at HN, as opposed to, say, the Reddit.com frontpage. Not every generic story that shows up on other "technology news" sites is appropriate for HN. And even more so when most of the stories are just rehashes of the same information, or every minor developments in the overall story (which I find to be the case with most of these wikileaks stories).