Ask HN: Why did the NPR "Indian treasure" story get killed? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why did the NPR "Indian treasure" story get killed?

26 pointsolalonde20 comments

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2732429

Just wondering... Is it off-topic? Was it posted earlier this week?

I flagged it for being completely off-topic and having a whiff of politics. I'm probably not the only one.

You seem to imply in other comments that you think it was killed by mods. I didn't see it, but judging by other comments here it seems plausible that it was flagged by ordinary readers often enough and early enough to get automatically killed.

In particular, if it's a repeat story (even if from a different source) and it's not "deeply interesting" (specifically to the hacker or entrepreneur mentality) then it's likely to get flagged.

And looking at the article suggested in another comment as being the same story, I can't see what's "deeply interesting" about it. Having read it, I don't think I've learned anything interesting at all.

Can you explain why you think it's interesting?

Apple:FLOSS::HN:Reddit

If you want freedom from stories being killed, sometimes without just reason, go to Reddit.

Just like how you join the Cult of Steve when you get a Mac and learn to stop asking too many questions, you join the Cult of Paul when you become an HN member and learn to stop asking too many questions. They're probably not going to be answered and will just alienate you from the rest of the community. Meta posts like this especially so.

I think it's important to educate new users about why they're being down voted so they don't repeat the same mistakes and integrate the community. The same should apply to killed stories, especially when they have so many up votes.

That's true, but meta-posts like this just exacerbate the problem. Perhaps the addition of a message to the existing post that was killed would be the best solution?

Nah, passive aggressiveness with lack of communication is the way to go. Let the noobs lurk moar.

That was my original plan as well but I'm trying to provide some constructive criticism here. Since olalonde's been on HN for almost 2 years, I thought he deserved at least that much. If his account were less than a year old, I would've just passive-aggressively ignored his reply too ;)

In all seriousness, there is value in learning by observing vis-a-vis learning by being told. Things tend to stick better and for longer when you have to observe them yourself.

That was my original plan as well but comments are disabled on dead stories.

Olalonde: it has been posted before, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2728999

Curious, are you a mod dshankar?

That's NYT link. NPR == NYT?

Lord pg says no dupes of stories please. One indian treasure article is enough for a day He reckons. Multiple sources be damned. I agree.

I agree if the were similar content wise. I wanted to know if both articles were conveying similar opinions or was it the case of merely similar headlines with whole lot different content and opinions.

As a side note, it would be nice if mods could leave a short comment when killing stories.

They can't do that on every other duplicate story. Rather there should be sm kind of internal search or hash matching before being posted and that checks it against possible matches and then asks the poster whether they want to continue with the post.

Curious myself. It's a fascinating story. I had a post titled "Rejected by YCombinator, Accepted by Kickstarter" which got renamed.

Kinda makes me sad inside.

wow..

kerala.. anyone remember this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rain_in_Kerala

Nice. I am in Kerala right now! The vegetarian food here is amazing :)

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