I'm not keen on the idea of using this submission to flame the Queen, I obviously agree with the general rule of avoiding flamebait, what I mean is that other HN submissions on the deaths of people certainly didn't get this special treatment. It is also not at all enforced in both directions when looking at the obviously and comically over the top positive comments of low quality which contain no real substance.
Edit: I used the wording "stop negativity" which might be misleading, since (as far as I am aware) no comments are being deleted. What I'm talking about is moderation giving out a lot of warnings and keeping a closer watch on "flamebait" violations than I've ever seen before on any submission.
While we have these kinds of submissions pretty regularly on HN, this is the first time in multiple years I've seen a reminder about this under almost every single negative comment and every comment containing critique. The reminder about the rule was even expanded to the whole concept of royalty.
My point is not that speaking ill of the dead should be encouraged, my point is the selective enforcement of that sentiment with only a special, priviliged group benefitting from it.
Edit after consideration: Whether criticizing the dead or not criticizing the dead should follow a general rule, I can't and won't comment on.
It is pretty obvious that she is regarded positively by the majority here. Are you under the impression that I think otherwise?
I just think there is too much hype in the whole Royal Family than what it’s worth for.
(Sorry if this offends some Brits but being from one of the colonized countries I strongly feel this is not worth it)
It was because, when the thread was getting going, it flooded with crap comments (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769222, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769043). I decided to come down hard on those to try to ward off a shitshow. It would have been the same in any thread that was filling up that way, but which we weren't going to downweight off the front page. And we weren't going to do that because (a) the story was on-topic, and (b) it's such a big story that we couldn't get rid of it if we wanted to—people would just repost it until one got past us.
I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769925 at the top of the thread as a bulwark against the crap comments. That's also standard moderation. At some point, though, the thread started to fill with plenty of more substantive comments and then it looked to people like I was taking a side on the royalist question. Nothing was further from my mind.
It took me a long time to figure this out, probably because after 4 hours of doing nothing but refreshing this page and posting moderation scoldings, my brain was fried. Eventually I got it and the fix was simply to unpin https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769925 from the top and demote it as offtopic. That seems to have calmed things down (except maybe for https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=theirishrover).
The ex-prime minister of the UK who led us through a pandemic where hundreds of thousands died has just said it's the UK darkest day. And, I have received an email to say my kids nursery will be closed due to the situation, and they will be talking about bereavement for the kids. He is 2.
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20661919
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2504770
But it is to be expected. There are the good guys in the Western sphere of influence and the bad guys. And this is a Western site. It cannot be expected to do much but reflect what is this site's audience. The Elephant and The Rider, after all.
Besides, she's just a figurehead, and makes no real decisions. So it's a bit strange to lay the blame at her feet for the Mao-style starving of her subjects (as they would have been considered by her at the time) or the many wars.
Why did you listed a comment supporting abolishing the monarchy an example of "crap comments"?
Because they were crap comments. They'd have been crap comments if they were pro-monarchy, too. One of them was a one-liner "fuck the monarchy I don't care" comment, and the other, not much longer, ended in "cringe asf lmao".
It's quite possible to respect the person who happens to be a monarch and being against the institution of monarchy.
If you're not suppse to question monarchy when a ruling monarch dies, then when is it appropriate?
Not really. She's been the living figurehead and embodiment of "Britain" for nearly a century, and for colonized peoples that by definition includes the generational trauma and suffering from the British empire. You don't get to be Queen and wear a crown with the Kohinoor on it and just separate yourself from that history.
I did not referred to that comment.
> and the other, not much longer, ended in "cringe asf lmao".
The comment you're trying to misrepresent was "Great time to abolish the monarchy. Monarchies are fucking stupid.", and afterwards, once the downvotes started to flow, was edited with "Edit: yall actually support monarchies? cringe asf lmao"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769043
Why do you feel that opposing the concept of a monarchy should be censored in a discussion on a topic which naturally involves replacing a monarch?
This should be obvious if you've read HN's rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
but somehow the dozens of kobe bryant posts didn't get past you, even though it was just as big of a death and just as on-topic (anything piquing curiosity, right?). i'd suggest being even-handed about these kinds of posts, rather than allowing some to be flagged off the front page because [black, athlete, relentless winner, investor, entrepreneur, oscar awardee, loving father, ... ], would help temper the backlash.
none or all such posts should be allowed, but not the picking and choosing that happens currently, which is highly disrespectful in the same way you're criticizing others here.
Concisely: this argument is unconvincing.
> Bias wrapped in fake nuance is obvious and time-wasting.
But how do you know it is "fake nuance" rather than genuine explanation? By being uncharitable?
But I don’t see Dang censoring a robust, thoughtful discussion of abolishing the monarchy here. He shut down a cheap, childish comment that was followed by an even cheaper, vulgar dismissal of people who don’t already agree with the original “comment”.
And as a 'general rule', of course there are exceptions.
polishing by bells for the Putin death announcement celebration
I hope you manage to find some meaning in what will happen in the next few weeks. For many, this is a great loss, perhaps can there be learning in being curious and compassionate regarding other people's experience of loss and grief, and their hopes and fears for the future
Many people are saddened with a small s. Many people don't care much at all. Many people appose to it (and are saddened.)
You may suggest more. But you or I can't know for sure.
That's my point. Millions in the UK lost someone during the pandemic. I'm sure these were darker days. It's the perspective and balance that I feel is off.
Name-calling and other kinds of fulmination don't express much information.
This is the point I was trying to make at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769925 by quoting pg's 15-year-old bit about how empty positive comments aren't so bad (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html). It's true that they don't contain any more information than empty negative comments, but they don't degrade the threads the way empty negative comments do.
Unfortunately people took that as some sort of pro-monarchist stance!
That's an oddly positive attitude to hatred.
Would you be saying the same thing if we were talking about racist, or homophobic individuals? Let's not pretend that the monarchy doesn't have victims.
You were disappointed that there was a moderation warning when some people are celebrating her death? Her job was to take pictures and open hospitals. And random people who dislike the idea of royality or dislike the UK are posting some rancid patter.
Sure all, it's all over the top, sure many people don't care. The warning wasn't there for people who didn't care. It was there because there are literally people going around acting like this woman was a war criminal when she held no real power, if she ever tried to use any power she technically had it would have caused chaos and resulted in that power being removed and the royal family being removed. Some people acting like Indians would be dancing on her grave even though they've been indpendent for all of her reign and every Indian I've met has been interested in the Queen and royal family like all other people are. Or the Irish are happy she is dead, maybe in the 80s or 90s at the peak of the troubles but most people won't care just like most people in the UK don't care.
And let's be serious, you won't have to bite your tongue that much since most other people will be complaining about it all in a few days.
People often propose mechanistic rules like "allow all such posts" or "allow no such posts". The simplicity of that has an obvious appeal in the abstract, but I don't think it's viable on HN. This place doesn't function mechanistically. Human interpretation is constantly required: messy, unsatisfying, flawed human interpretation.
There is genuinely a lot for love for the Royals from a lot of people in the UK so there is a ton of media coverage of them, especially in some of the low end newspapers such as the Daily Express.
Further afield, the Royal family is aggressively marketed by those who stand to benefit from increased tourism.
Is it really hard to have a bit of empathy for people who are sad that someone they loved/admired/respected has died?
A nursery closing is odd, but again, their choice. Talking about bereavement sounds very healthy to me, whatever the excuse for it.
It can serve as a rough detector which alerts you of posts which might violate the guidelines and also rank them from those that are very likely to violate one (which you can get through quickly, without wasting much cognitive energy) and ones which require more judgement.
"Empty" praises and supports for one side of the position - a political position in a complex issue, not just "Thanks" like PG writes - are not really empty, they're the tools of populist campaigns.
Actually, if you read dang's comments you'll see that's not why it was moderated. In fact, there's obviously nothing wrong with celebrating her death as many see her as a tyrant who committed and maintained massive atrocities. The problem here, were the massive amount of low-quality comments just saying stuff like "Good" and "fuck the monarchy" (and nothing else.) See his comment above for more references and explanations.
And honestly, I think there is something wrong with celebrating the death of a woman who had no power and whose primary job was being a mascot. If you think she did have any power you clearly misunderstand the political landscape of the countries she was the mascot for.
to be fair, the all-or-nothing suggestion isn't practicable on the face of it (otherwise you'd get more troll postings, or more unhappy users), so it was more an opening gambit than a fleshed out suggestion.
however, it's pretty clear that implicit biases strongly and unflatteringly drive[0] what gets flagged and what gets popularized (largely by hn users of course). is it hn's job to address implicit bias? that's certainly debatable, but i'd think you'd want the widest reach possible and potentially turning away upwards of 80-90% of the world's population isn't a long-term winning strategy for yc.
most entertainers (singers, actors, celebrities, etc.) are stale topics of conversation (mostly rehashes of what they did/said), but way too many make the front page anyway (or conversely, far too few of the more interesting ones make it).
[0]: it'd probably be an interesting exercise to analyze what obit posts gets flagged, uncommented/unpromoted, and popularized. i've casually observed (and even tested a bit) that nearly all the black/brown people and most women don't make the front page, many of whom are fascinating historically, otherwise they wouldn't have cleared the higher bar for getting noticed in the face of bias in the first place.
If the Queen wanted to go on TV and denounce the evils of UK society, nothing was stopping her. I'm not from the UK, so I've honestly no clue how she used that power - but to say she was powerless is to say that every artist, author, activist, and lobbyist has wasted their life, because not a single one of them had anything like her influence.
If we're expected to be understanding to the people grieving the loss of a celebrity, surely we should be a thousand times more understanding to all the people who are angry at far greater losses caused by the British Empire.
There instances, like HN, where the platform isn't trying to be used for making money or pushing an agenda. Moderation on this tends to be good, but that set of circumstances is rare
She went on TV and denounced stuff all the time. Still doesn't change anything. You're mistaking influence with power. And most lobbyist would have more influence than she actually had.