Though also be mindful of HN's guidelines. Notably:
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Much as I'm interested in insightful discussion of major news events, that's something HN's readership doesn't tend to handle particularly well. Specific angles of such events might make for interesting discussion, however.
(I've addressed a couple of those on the Fediverse, including "Roof Knocking", and various ballistic weapons & defences.)
In practice, hundreds of Ukraine and Russia-related posts were flagged when it was news.
There is no strictly reliable bar of guidelines enforcement, flagging posts is almost entirely handled by users. dang isn't hovering over the "kill" button on your favorite threads, the community is flagging them because they are probably flamebait.
The more submissions there are on a given topic, the greater the number of submissions that will be flagged. That's both a law of averages, and HN's aversion to repeat / duplicate discussion:
The intention is not to suppress an important topic but to hold the countless me-too posts at bay—the ones that don't add anything significant. When the massive wave subsides, we'll remove the penalty. For example, there was a period where HN did this for NSA stories, but that hasn't been the case for a while.
If you're going to post something like this, at least mention what said elephant is. It might not be as obvious to others as it is to you. And that current so-called elephant in the room might be different depending on where you live.
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing more discussion about:
If you've got a specific elephant in mind, state what it is. Vague guessing games are tiresome.
Better yet, find some HN-relevant angle on the story and post it.
HN's guidelines deprecate most (which is of course not all) mainstream news.
Topics, issues, and source articles which are too broad, long, dense, or abstract ... tend not to be discussed well. Find something shorter and more specifically focused. Stories which are literally about nationalistic wars, metaphorical or very, very, very material, tend to do poorly not only at HN but anywhere online.
You can submit an link with a comment of your own highlighting what you think is salient about it.
And in the case of the ongoing situation in Israel and Gaza concerning Hamas, there've been at least 25 distinct submissions within the past week:
16 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 46.8 ms ] threadBe the discussion you want to see online.
Though also be mindful of HN's guidelines. Notably:
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>
Much as I'm interested in insightful discussion of major news events, that's something HN's readership doesn't tend to handle particularly well. Specific angles of such events might make for interesting discussion, however.
(I've addressed a couple of those on the Fediverse, including "Roof Knocking", and various ballistic weapons & defences.)
Im wondering the same thing
There is no strictly reliable bar of guidelines enforcement, flagging posts is almost entirely handled by users. dang isn't hovering over the "kill" button on your favorite threads, the community is flagging them because they are probably flamebait.
The intention is not to suppress an important topic but to hold the countless me-too posts at bay—the ones that don't add anything significant. When the massive wave subsides, we'll remove the penalty. For example, there was a period where HN did this for NSA stories, but that hasn't been the case for a while.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8461596>
That said, yes, the vast majority of moderation is done by HN's readers, not mods.
Baby elephant conceived via artificial insemination and born at the Indianapolis Zoo needs a name:
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2023/10/04/baby-elephant...
He is really cute.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Or did you mean the more-literal elephant? We're still not all that interested:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing more discussion about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babar_the_Elephant
Better yet, find some HN-relevant angle on the story and post it.
HN's guidelines deprecate most (which is of course not all) mainstream news.
Topics, issues, and source articles which are too broad, long, dense, or abstract ... tend not to be discussed well. Find something shorter and more specifically focused. Stories which are literally about nationalistic wars, metaphorical or very, very, very material, tend to do poorly not only at HN but anywhere online.
You can submit an link with a comment of your own highlighting what you think is salient about it.
And in the case of the ongoing situation in Israel and Gaza concerning Hamas, there've been at least 25 distinct submissions within the past week:
"israel" (25 hits): <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1696909371&dateRange=custom&...>
"hamas" (15 hits): <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1696909371&dateRange=custom&...>
"gaza" (7 hits): <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1696909371&dateRange=custom&...>
(Some overlap amongst those, though I've not counted specifically how much.)