zlacker

>>smackt+(OP)
Oh wow, this made it to the front page and it just got flagged! I was going to say how i really don't care about mainstream news topics worming their way to HN but man, this is crazy. I understand downvotes and bans but flagging this and shadowbans are hitting below the belt.

Is this site for the intellectually dishonest? If not this b.s. needs to stop. How many "I quit facebook" posts make it to the front page all the time? How many social activism related topics make it to the front page. Counter argument to those who say it's not relevant: technology made these protests possible and technlogy is where the fight is happening right now.

I hope the moderator team (@dang) pays attention to this.

>>badrab+b8
I did pay attention, because the OP's claims are false. When people say false things about HN and try to gin up outrage with them, I unfortunately feel obliged to respond.

If you haven't seen these comments, and are willing to read them, I'd be curious to hear if you feel like there's anything that remains unaddressed. I listed 52 threads but it could just as easily have been 102.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624916

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962

Since you mention intellectual honesty: do you think the OP or any of the people who jumped to the same false conclusions will correct anything? I would be surprised if they did, even though acknowledging a mistake of this nature is the bare minimum that intellectual honesty requires.

Edit: on reflection, that last bit crossed a line and I owe the OP an apology. It's one thing to go on about intellectual honesty in general but there was a specific person in the mix and I should have left more room for the possibility that I was misunderstanding him, especially since I know how easy that is on the internet. I was doing the very thing I was complaining about—jumping to conclusions! Sometimes it takes a while to realize this, but it's embarrassingly obvious now. I've told the OP that I'm sorry, and want to say so publicly also.

>>dang+Ew2
I completely agree with your point about admitting mistakes. I am not invested either way on the topic. Either we have a discussiom thread informing OP, myself and others of their mistakes or we don't. That's what downvotes are for. We see clickbait topics make it to the front page all the time but the top comment calls out the article's misleading claims. I've been corrected from holding incorrect beliefs as a result of misleading articles or blog posts on HN. Voting works.

What I didn't like was the constant flagging. And censorship. It's not ok to allow a "i quit facebook" post where commenters discuss the factual nature of the authors reasoning and at the same time ban/censor an "I quit HN" post. I have no problem with downvotes but when a post gets popular enough to make it to the front page and gets removed because it contains incorrect claims the result is people like me who didn't care much about the topic before but the fact the authord HN censorship claim was validated before my eyes made me believe him. Censorhsip does not correct false claims (streissand effect).

I would like to see all popular posts and read commentors opinions so I can make up my own opinion (short of spending time researching the accuracy of every claim for every post first hand).

I hope HN will allow that but I do understand this is a private topic specific platform.