HN Explorer

Does HN have an archive of its flagged threads?

7 points by chaps ↗ HN
I've seen some pretty silly things on the HN front page that have stayed up for way longer than expected. But I've noticed multiple articles that criticize Andreessen's manifesto have been flagged to not be on the front page. Some of the criticism might certainly be meh, but it gives me vibes that folk are merely flagging because they're uncomfortable with the criticism.

So I'm curious -- is there an archive, or an API that would show how often a thread is flagged, deleted, or pulled from the front page?

8 comments

[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 34.3 ms ] thread
hreaeqnqr5gaer
The point of censorship is to deprive the audience of the information, not necessarily to punish the speaker.
keikobadthebad
To be fair you can browse HN with dead posts visible, which I have done since I discovered the setting. If you browse new posts, you can see what is being killed without depending on (disabled for dead) votes. The main loss then is the comments also being disabled on dead.

Practically submissions and comments have to be moderated, it's not such a terrible mix of censorship and transparency for the submissions.

chaps
Not saying moderation shouldn't happen. Just wanting to understand the feeling in my gut that leads me to think there's a much deeper extent of biased moderation than we think. Hell, the amount of flagging might even be a sign of a lack of moderation because it might mean @dang isn't unflagging.
keikobadthebad
... and you care about this so much, because...? Flagging doesn't stop you interacting with it AFAIK.
chaps
Because curiosity drives the fuck out of me. No need to be weird about it, friend.
c0nducktr
If something immediately drops off the front page/is hidden, it's the same is it never being posted. Hard to interact with something which doesn't seem to exist.
keikobadthebad
It's quite different.

There's a public log of killed stories, with clickable link intact to the source, available inline to anyone who cares. If it was never posted at all, there would be nothing. Killing it removes the chance for traction and buzz.

If you don't have a hidden motivation (ie, financial or political interest) in driving views to your link, it's not very painful if it doesn't gain traction without being killed, nobody was going to comment anyway.

If there is a hidden motivation to the link, like the torrent of web3 sewage, or information space poisoning actions by foreign powers, as a user I'm actively happy to see them killed.