We probably banned it for submissions because we want original sources at the top level.
Then why web.archive.org isn't also banned? [1] And what about things which aren't available from the original source anymore?
[1]: >>37130420
Because web.archive.org is generally used for...
... things which aren't available from the original source anymore.
While archive.is is generally used to bypass paywalls. These 2 websites have 2 very distinct missions and use-cases.
Plenty of both left- and right-wing sites are banned and/or downweighted on HN. When a site is primarily about political battle, we either ban it or downweight it. Which of the two we choose depends on how likely the site is to produce the occasional interesting article (in HN's sense of the word "interesting"). That's why The Federalist and World Workers Daily (or whatever it's called) are banned, while National Review and Jacobin are merely downweighted. Both the Guardian and Daily Beast are downweighted, btw, as are most major media sites.
If you or anyone thinks that HN moderation is unfairly ideologically biased, I'm open to the critique, but you guys need to first look at the site as it actually is, and not just look at your own pre-existing perceptions. Every data point becomes a Convincing Proof when you do the latter.
People think that when their team gets moderated, the mods are OMG obviously on the other side. The Other Side feels exactly the same way. This "they're against me" perception is the most reliable phenomenon I've observed on HN. Leftists feel it, rightists feel it, Go programmers feel it, even Rust programmers feel it. Literally the very-most-popular topic on HN at any moment is perceived by someone as Viciously Suppressed because of this perception. Stop and think about that—it's kind of amazing. Someone should write a PhD thesis.
Since when has moderation actions and relevant data been made available to the lay public here? We cannot look at the site as it actually is. We either have to trust you or pound sand.
>Stop and think about that—it's kind of amazing. Someone should write a PhD thesis about it.
Just because (you think) everyone feels persecuted doesn't mean you're doing a good job keeping things level. It's a common joke to make but it's just a joke. Similarly, if both a rampant nazi, and a fierce tankie hate you, that doesn't make you a bastion of democracy. "Fairness" doesn't mean pissing off everyone equally, and that is neither a necessary or sufficient condition.
These are just minor notes, don't take them too seriously
:D
> Someone should write a PhD thesis about it
In a perspective it could be related to Multi-Agent Systems (maybe with reference also to Minsky and H. Simon), as a consequence of the narrow view of the single agent, and/or an intrinsic fault of resource optimization.
We don't publish a moderation log for reasons I've explained over the years- if you or anyone wants to know more, see the past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... and let me know if you still have questions.
Not publishing a mod log doesn't mean that we don't want to be transparent, it means that there's a tradeoff between transparency and other concerns. Our resolution of the tradeoff is to answer questions when we get asked. That's not absolute transparency but it's not nothing. Sometimes people say "well but why should we trust that", but they would say that about a moderation log as well.
Re your second paragraph: I agree! and I don't think I've claimed otherwise. In fact, the lazy centrist argument is a pet peeve (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
It's true that the way I post about these things ("both sides hate us") gets mistaken for the obvious bad argument ("therefore we must be in the happy middle", or as Scott Thompson put it years ago, "we're the porridge that Goldilocks ate!"), but that's because the actual argument is harder to lay out and I'm not sure that anybody cares.
As for "why archive.org and not archive.is" - that's a bit of a borderline call, but gouggoug pointed out some of it at >>37130890 . The set of articles which (a) are no longer on the web, (b) are not on archive.org, but (c) are on archive.is, isn't that big. Paywall workarounds are a different thing, because the original URLs are still on the web (albeit paywalled). For those, we want the original URL at the top level, because it's important for the domain to appear beside the title.
Otherwise, HN's rule is to "submit the original source": <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>
I suppose that might be clarified as "most original or canonical", but Because Reasons HN's guidelines are written loosely and interpreted according to HN's Prime Directive: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" <>>508153 >.
I'd run across an instance of this when the Diaspora* pod I was on (the original public node, as it happens) ceased operations. I found myself wanting to archive my own posts, and was caught in something of a dilemma:
- The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has a highly-scriptable method for submitting sites, in the form of a URL (see below). Once you have a list of pages you want to archive, you can chunk through those using your scripting tool of choice (for me, bash, and curl or wget typically). But it doesn't capture the comments on Diaspora* discussions.... E.g., <https://web.archive.org/web/20220111031247/https://joindiasp...>
- Archive.Today does not have a mass-submission tool, and somewhat aggressively imposes CAPTCHAs at times. So the remaining option is manual submissions, though those can be run off a pre-generated list of URLs which somewhat streamlines the process. And it does capture the comments. E.g., <https://archive.is/9t61g>
So, if you are looking to archive material, Archive Today is useful, if somewhat tedious at bulk.
(Which is probably why the Internet Archive is the far more comprehensive Web archive.)
How can one see the site "as it actually is" when the decisions are kept secret from submitters?
> People think that when their team gets moderated, the mods are OMG obviously on the other side. The Other Side feels exactly the same way.
This will always be a thing. But it's also true that society is more divided now than it was 20 years ago. We find ourselves unable to communicate across ideological divides and we resort to shouting or in some cases violence. Some effort must be made to improve communication, and transparency for content authors is a minimal step towards that.
This is the murkiest part to me since it's not just a binary flag.
For sites in this category (i.e. not banned, but downweighted) we don't distinguish between political sites, major media sites, sensational bloggy sites and so on. They're all in the same bucket.
Doctors smoke it
Nurses smoke it
Judges smoke it
Even lawyer too