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Ask HN: Why master/slave name change post got removed?

8 points by kroolik ↗ HN
I've noticed the post [1] about a dev leaving OpenSSL after having his (among others) master/slave => parent/child naming change[2] rejected and started reading it. To my surprise, after finishing I noticed the HN post got flagged and removed from the list without any reason.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737266

[2] https://mta.openssl.org/pipermail/openssl-users/2020-July/012677.html

7 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 25.5 ms ] thread
wcerfgba
Because these sorts of topics are controversial and the mod policy is to remove topics which are likely to result in people talking past each other.

From the guidelines [1] :

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for.

I don't agree that these posts should be removed, they're not offensive and they don't incite hatred or violence. If people want to get in a flamewar, that's their business. If you don't want to be involved in the discussion, you can just avoid it. This form of moderation doesn't provide people the opportunity to try and deal with controversial discussions in a constructive way, it assumes that this is impossible and that preventing them from arising in the first place is a better solution.

In terms of this post specifically, I think it is quite newsworthy because Rich Salz is a major contributor [2] .

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[2] https://github.com/openssl/openssl/graphs/contributors

EDIT: formatting

kroolik
Thanks a lot! I have a feeling that some of the successful master/slave renames got to the top list at some point in time, so it worried me why this topic got flagged. Could just be my perception. Thanks a lot, again!
yesenadam
> the HN post got flagged and removed from the list without any reason

Without any reason? The title was "Goodbye". I just clicked on it, (which I wouldn't've ordinarily, with a nothing title like that) it's a very short message, I had no idea at all what it was about. I'm not at all surprised people flagged it. Why wouldn't they?

An overwhelming majority of stories that are flagged on here are flagged by HN users. No conspiracy theory needed.

kroolik
I understand the title was a clickbait. But, in such case, it could have been requested to be changed, no? It's been the case for some submissions I've seen that initially clickbait title was rephrased into something more honest and objective.

For example, "Rich Saltz leaves OpenSSL after rejected master/parent rename proposal".

No conspiracy theory here (might've sounded like one). Both the mail thread and the PR were interesting to read.

yesenadam
Yes, you and wcerfgba both sound like you assumed mods removed it, and "for no reason". Why else Ask HN "Why it got removed?" Not exactly a conspiracy theory, but leaping to assume mods removed it, then asking "Why was it removed?" is how conspiracy theorists operate, not how you find the truth. If you really want the truth (not just my guess!), write to HN by email, they will give you a helpful answer I'm sure. But I don't think there was anything right in what wcerfgba said to you.

If you want it discussed, (which maybe the issue already has been, did you check?) write a blog post on it and submit that, or submit it again as news – not an AskHN – writing a comment explaining what you think is fascinating about it.

The title when I looked a few hours ago was just "Goodbye", hardly clickbait - not sure why anyone would click on it. Not sure what interesting stuff you mean, for me it was a short indecipherable message with no context, links, meaning - nothing about it I wouldn't flag, had I looked.

kroolik
Yes, I might've indeed sent an email to HN instead of posting this AskHN post. Thanks a lot!
diehunde
I was reading the Github thread, and I was surprised people who were against it didn't mention any technical problem that may arise from these changes but only opinions about why it's OK to keep them. That alone shows me the disconnection between these developers and the current social situation. I mean, some guys were saying master/slave was unfortunate but too ingrained in tech to remove it! That's sad.