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Ask HN: Stallman resignation story disappeared from front page

47 points by MichaelMoser123 ↗ HN
This story was on the HN frontpage and then disappeared after a few hours. Why did it get off the frontpage so quickly?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583

35 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 82.9 ms ] thread
nabla9
It didn't get off quickly.

It's over day old and has 1665 points. HN news gradually get lower in the rank as they get older.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
ecmascript
Because it's controversial and HN seems to remove/kill such discussions.

I wrote in such a thread and after 4 posts I couldn't post anything for over 3 hours.

nabla9
Or maybe because there is constant stream of Stallman resigning posts. Few every hour. Latest is 23 minutes old when I'm writing this. The fsf.org linked was the main post with lots of good comments and it's now over day old.
ecmascript
Yes but a few was more popular, like the one who OP linked. Stories like that usually exist on the front page (or at least page 2) for more than 1 day.

This is also not the first time I've experienced that controversial topics simply disappear. Maybe you're right but it just seems like it happens too often.

nabla9
> like the one who OP linked.

It was the fsf link.

ecmascript
Yes? It is not currently even on page 3 or 4 even if it got almost 2000 points. This is probably due to moderated behavior or else it would still be on the frontpage since it's such a big story.
thrower123
All of these threads rapidly go into dumpster fire territory, so I imagine they get bounced out pretty quickly by the automated flamewar detectors, if not the various classes of flags.
ecmascript
I'm not saying it is not the correct thing to do, just that it seems like it's happening. But just stating this makes people downvote which is very confusing to me.
nabla9
The old HN ranking algorithm is roughly:

    (votes - 1) / ((item_hour_age+2)^1.8)
The current ranking might have some tweaks, but there is exponential decay.

It meas that using the old algorithm, the article with 1667 points and 1 day old (24-48 hours) has score between 4.5 and 1.5. Currently the last item in the front page has 242 points, 11 hours ago, so it would have 2.5 points.

ecmascript
I think you are correct in this case. I found the link on page 4, I just searched badly before but in my defense HN can be pretty hard to read sometimes.
[dead] sawaruna
Mods were embarrassed at all of the derivative posts blaming "SJWs"
shkkmo
My best guess is that the slightly quicker drop-off was caused by the number of comments exceeding the number of upvotes triggering the "flame war" detector.

There are a number of posts that talk about how HN ranking works, here are the few I could find:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6799854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9426040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16018430

gitgud
Interesting, I thought there was a flame war detector on here. I've seen it happen to a few extremely polarising articles before.

Is there a way to view hacker news in "flame war" mode?

ryacko
Go to page 2 of the home page.
MichaelMoser123
Wow, that means HN is still running in Arc, didn't know that.
shkkmo
I have no idea if it still is, though I suspect so. It definitely was running on a modified version of Arc several years ago when the last public discussion I could find with HN staff took place.
[dead] mordant
My best guess is that the slightly quicker drop-off is because he happens to be Jewish, and so the mods are sensitive to the merest hint of a possibility of being accused of anti-Semitism.
aliswe
Don't mean to say you're necessarily incorrect (don't know), but I think that kind of claim will need some basis in order not to be seen as a baseless accusation.
rowanG077
Ridiculous. HN censoring important news... I guess the best time is over for this site and it's time for something new.
krapp
There is no new or intellectually gratifying ground to cover with this. People have made up their minds, joined their tribes, drawn their lines in the sand and are just throwing bottles at one another at this point. If the subject of these threads weren't Richard Stallman, but some other celebrity, they would all be flagged as mainstream news and flamebait and rightly so.

Let me save everyone the trouble and condense 90% of the state of these threads now and in the future:

- Richard Stallman did nothing wrong, this is just character assassination by the feminist media complex.

- Richard Stallman did nothing wrong, this is just an attack on free software by corporate interests.

- Richard Stallman did nothing wrong, insert tedious, pedantic argument about age of consent and assault here.

- You can't prove Marvin Minsky did anything wrong either.

(...)

- Richard Stallman was actually a sexist creep who had no concept of consent and the many, many stories about his behavior towards women finally caught up with him.

  - Richard Stallman did nothing wrong.
The story is worth talking about, but it doesn't deserve more coverage than it's getting here.
decasteve
> There is no new or intellectually gratifying ground to cover with this.

Your meta analysis was pretty intellectually gratifying.

buboard
i think the bigger story is about deplatforming and the freedom to speak your mind. its intellectually gratifying unless we ve given up on free speech and willing to give a pass to every mob
krapp
The freedom to speak your mind is also the freedom for others to criticize what your mind says.

People can circle their wagons around RMS and attempt to delegitimize anyone who takes issue with his behavior and opinions as merely an angry mob if they want, but their right to express that issue is as valid as his.

buboard
and i m criticising the mob. the mob didn't lose it s job, rms did
antisemiotic
And then there's you, trivialising the whole discussion with the "did nothing wrong" meme. How is that intellectually gratifying?

You left out from your list the stance that while Stallman did in fact, repeatedly, do wrong, he still didn't deserve to get his words mangled by the press (which undoubtedly contributed to the public outrage).

[dead] burn-it-all
People talk a lot of shit about Stallman being a creep, but consider his long life as a total reject.

It's obvious that he's long since abandoned the idea that the women he's attracted to would never reciprocate in kind. That dream probably died before he ever attended college.

So what does that do to a person? How is he supposed to face a life like that? I guess the expectation is just suicide? Drink the hemlock?

Well, looks like that's where we've arrived.

This is the flipside of the politics of character assassination. Mob justice, ostracism and suicide.

[dead] nairobi222
It didn't get off quickly. It's over day old and has 1665 points. HN news gradually get lower in the rank as they get older.
eaandkw
I am just waiting for a representative backed by big business to fill the void that RMS left.
potta_coffee
The discussion became a dumpster fire / flamewar and was probably repeatedly flagged.
buboard
It's called deplatforming / cancelling / damnatio memoriae by someone called Selam Jie Gano. Every system of power needs executors.
doubleunplussed
It cracked 2000 comments. Anyone know what the most commented threads of all time on HN are?
hacknat
I looked at the comments briefly, then flagged it. The politics of the FSF's decision is relevant and interesting to this community, but that was not what was being discussed, which didn't surprise me at all.
caspervonb
Twitter was up in arms over how "toxic" HN is with several high profile people "nice people" taking screenshots and implicitly urging people to flag and call people out.

So, that's likely why.