zlacker

>>Robin8+(OP)
Looking at the list of removed stories makes me really happy with the moderators here. They're all sensationalist, advertising for some company, clickbait, way off topic, or some combination of above. In fact, I don't see a single story that I personally feel should not have been removed.

Thanks, mods.

>>a12k+Q2
At a quick glance, I found several that don't match that criteria you mention, here are a few:

Open Source Doesn't Require Providing Builds

https://codeengineered.com/blog/2024/open-source-not-builds/

Sam Altman Says AI Using Too Much Energy Will Require Breakthrough Energy Source

https://futurism.com/sam-altman-energy-breakthrough

Avoid Async Rust at All Cost

https://blog.hugpoint.tech/avoid_async_rust.html

(Perhaps that last one could be renamed to be less hyperbolic, but the content was still an interesting opinion piece)

I don't think this is being done by the mods, by the way. It's more likely some spam filter with false positives, report brigading, or an anti upvote ring mechanism.

>>TheCor+f7
I don't agree with the GP at all. Most seem normal for the front page or the intellectual curiosity standard (I mean, personally I'd like a much higher standard, but I'm basing it on what HN already has).

All from only one day:

* Ford's new 48-inch digital dashboard is a lot of Android for one car: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/22/24045932/ford-android-scr...

* Secret Plan Against Germany (a very big story in Germany about a far-right planning meeting): https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories/2024/01/15/secret-plan-...

* Show HN: Vx.dev – GitHub-Powered AI for effortless development: https://vxdev.pages.dev/

* Open Source Doesn't Require Providing Builds: https://codeengineered.com/blog/2024/open-source-not-builds/

>>wolver+Ga
What these are is evidence of your parent comment's point that this isn't direct moderator action, rather a combination of algorithms and user flags.

Most likely, people flagged the Germany story because it has a sensational title and they likely aren't from Germany and so wouldn't have context to know whether it's overblown.

I'm confident that Vx.dev got flagged by a bunch of people because they're tired of LLM stories (as repeatedly attested in this thread).

Based on the ratio of comments to upvotes, I suspect the Open Source Builds and Ford discussions ran afoul of the overheated discussion detector. Usually when the ratio gets too lopsided the software automatically drops the post off the front page, because that's an indicator that a lot of people are arguing in the thread without actually reading or enjoying the article.

>>lolind+ph
There ought to be a time-based flagging limit, so that people don't abuse the system. I've already raised this earlier.

If Company A makes a killer product announcement, rival Company B could simply get its employees to spam down votes on and flag that post. Company A gets less visibility, and dang won't be able to come on time to stop it.

This is an easily plausible hypothetical, which may already be happening.

>>fakeda+Wj
Flagging requires high HN karma. You get that by being a positive member of the community. Most such people, if a company even has one, would find it against their personal ethics to do that. And dang can see the karma ratio and unflag any actually worthwhile announcements.

>>LordDr+gr
I think as people have become more and more aware that flag negatively weights items for rankings, and isn't just a "hey have the mods look at this rule breaking thing", more people have started using it as a downvote button. It was my understanding that HN originally didn't have a downvote feature to avoid the kind of issues that the flag usage is now causing.

>>Macha+Ht
Even the highest karma users can lose their flagging privileges, temporarily or perhaps even permanently, if they do it enough times within a time window or if abuse is detected. So from what I understand that issue should be taken care of.