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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

The thread was flagged by users and downweighted by moderators, probably for similar reasons: it's not clear how this is a significantly new story, given that the topics it relates to are already getting tons of coverage on HN. This is standard moderation here.

HN is a curated site; it always has been. One of the things we have to do, to keep it interesting, is to prevent it from getting too repetitive. If you want to understand more about the principles that this place operates by, here are some links to past explanations. If you read some of those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

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I am sorry but this does not sound very convincing. You are blocking the visibility of a highly important topic.The thread was not just down-weighted, but also taken away from the topic listings altogether. It happened within a very short time-frame. There is not a ton of stories on HN about how an 8B net worth and highly influential person is inciting a mass layoff of 20℅ of Google staff, just so this person's hedge fund profit would be raised by 1℅. This coming from an already super high EBITA of 39℅ is a prime example of greed of a few is "disrupting" the lives of many. If you are already manipulating the feed, at least dont insult our intelligence with run-of-the-mill explanations. For the record, I was never a Google employee, just irritated with the letter in question.

I certainly didn't mean to insult your intelligence!

I just don't see how a grinchy investor squeezing a company for more layoffs counts as a story about which there is anything surprising. HN has had hundreds of posts and many major discussions (surely dozens by now) about layoffs at tech companies. Once a topic has gotten that level of coverage, follow-up posts need to contain significant new information* in order to count as on topic. This is just standard HN moderation.

If this investor actually got Google to lay off a bunch more people and there was evidence showing this, I suppose that might be interesting... maybe. But sending a letter? How is that a significant story?

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

It is extremely relevant topic because it is *not a standard bureaucratic-technical layoff discussion around roumors, numbers, departments, teams etc.

Our new buddy Chris, in his own words, un-covers all the shitty corpospeak, all the bullshit about focus, values, alignment, performance and lets not forget - the so called "corporate social responsibility" etc. for what it really is - greed and maximising profits at the cost of people who build these companies.

The immorality of someone probably not working at all, who dares openly incite a disruption of the livelihoods of at least 12k working families should not be hidden from the public, least of all from the segment frequenting sites like HN.

It is important because for one high-profile like this, there are thousands of MBA-types at smaller companies who are learning by watching and who inevitably pass it down the line and spread the disease of these practices everywhere. We need to publically call these people out and ostracise their dangerous practices.

This topic was trending on the frontpage before you hid it.

How many people here contributed to this thread? The topic was clearly interesting to many and is clearly super-relevant.

Please put it back on and allow for the discussion to continue.

Btw, this is the only layoff discussion you hid, from all the many others. I wonder why.

It's one of dozens that we treated exactly the same way. This is bog-standard HN moderation.

Lots of things trend on the front page before they get downweighted, whether by user flags or by moderation downweights. That's how HN works and has always worked. The system can't go by upvotes alone* - if it did, the front page would consist of nothing but sensationalism, rage, and the same few hottest topics upvoted over and over again.

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

That is a lot of words to bend around my arguments. Apart from effectively stating that your curation can be completely arbitrary, you are offering no arguments in the way of explaining WHAT specific criteria did you apply here? Not wanting to embarass a billionaire? You have completely ignored my arguments, what bloody sensationalism are you talking about, the man said openly he approved of 12k people kicked out and then prongued 'Dear Sundar' to push out another 28k. Why not just be honest about it and stop repeating this line about "how HN works". My account may be new, but I've been reading here for many, many years. I've never seen a topic literally disappear within 60mins - at least be honest about not wanting to embarass a 'high roller'. Put this discussion back to the front page.

I've done my best to explain what specific criteria we apply in cases like this (major ongoing topic, no significant new information). You can certainly disagree about whether I've applied the criteria correctly—e.g. if you feel that this letter does contain significant new information—but the criteria themselves ought to be clear, and are not arbitrary.

This is pathetic. You provided only multiple repetitions of a general description of your supposed process, dancing around very specific and concrete questions. You did not dispute any of my claims. Your explanation sounds a lot like the non-language of these moron CEOs in their layoff letters. A modicum of respect for your readership here would have been to highlight which other threads already display this information and discussion. Instead you clearly posted in your first response that it was an arbitrary decision. Also, calling this guy "grinchy" to make it somehow cartoonish is oversimplifying the danger these present to real livelihoods. Think US employees and health insurance for them and their dependants being tied to employment, etc. Just hideous. Please put the whole thread back to the frontpage.

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