Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

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I explained this to you some time ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33445000): you were posting a plethora of unsubstantive Ask HNs that users were not only flagging but emailing us to complain about. That's a strong signal of community rejection, and after reviewing the posts as a moderator it was clear those users were correct.

Anyone who wants to check https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=unknownaccount with 'showdead' turned on in their profile can see this for themselves.

I don't know what you mean by "the Fischer link" but the way this works is that we take away submission privileges from an account when they've been submitting too many off-topic or bad (for HN) things, and that causes the software to kill future submissions. So of course there was a time lag between the time that we did this and the time you noticed it—there always is.

Btw, I didn't say "unsubstantiated" but "unsubstantive", meaning that the posts you were submitting didn't contain much information (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unsubstantive).

There’s a lot wrong with this. First off: The number of times a post is flagged or reported should absolutely have no bearing on whether it stays or gets deleted by staff. Why even bring this metric up then? In a community like this especially where every other user possesses the ability to spin up their own personal HN flagger-bot army with a residential proxylist / hacked email list. The fact you admit that you use variables like flag count and email report count to base your decisions is really disappointing. As it stands now the mob is running roughshod on your website- abusing you - and the algorithms - to take down valid posts & silence entire accounts that expose abuses committed by corporations or persons. I still disagree with the premise that my posts were “unsubstantive”. If anything, I was forced to make my posts increasingly more and more syntacticly succinct BECAUSE I was forced to by your mechanism which only provides a short window of time-a couple minutes-to blow the whistle and reach the attention of as many real people as possible before the bad faith takedown mechanism kicks in( bad faith humans & bots reporting the post & emailing complaints en-masse. My original posts about any given topic were on-topic, truthful, relevant, and that’s why they were gaining momentum with positive upvote counts within the short windows before takedown. None of my posts should ever of been taken down in the first place because they were all published factually correct statements that were both on-topic for this website and pertinent to its users. It’s your own fault that I was forced(as a person with a conscious) to repost the same ideas in an increasingly succinct and consolidated manner. There is a factual basis behind all of my posts. You were manipulated / social engineered into silencing valid information, with tragic consequences for the world at large. Taking into account our previous conversations I think you tremendously underestimate the impact a post can have on the world. This site is THE forefront of tech thought. You, dang, are the gatekeeper of the tech world’s information access. And, under your leadership your website is being used to facilitate the coverups of horrific abuses in the world of tech. Case in point: Remember that time you silenced my submission which blew the whistle against Twitter for blatantly allowing a public figure to distribute controlled substances(DIY sex change drugs) to minors? Yeah, good job coveringup that one. If you hadn’t covered it up it would of gone to the front page and gotten enough media attention that something actually would of been done in order to stop it. But no, you let the kids down. I wonder how many other Sexual Abuse conspiracies involving major Tech Companies have you been instrumental in the censorship of? Statistically likely many. I don’t know how you sleep at night having the knowledge that you and your website are openly being abused by corporations and private persons to takedown evidence of their wrongdoings. I implore you to do the right thing, re-evaluate your entire strategy for content takedown: stop taking down factually true, relevant, pertinent information just because it’s controversial. Your current mechanism and negligence is depriving the world of justice in a massive way.

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