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How Hacker News ranking works: scoring, controversy, and penalties (2013)

205 points · 110 comments · theanonymousone

  1. kens · · focus · HN ↗
    Author here. I don't know why this popped up 13 years later, but hi :-)
    1. doginasuit · · focus · HN ↗
      Would you say it is still roughly the same?

      > It's unclear if these penalties result from HN administrators or from flagged articles.

      Any answers or insights on this within the last 13 years?

      1. 0xbadcafebee · · focus · HN ↗
        The mods are much more sensitive now to anything they consider flame-bait, flame-baiting, or controversial. Much quicker to intimidate/threaten, de-emphasize posts, flag-kill, etc. I presume because HN may be influencing/affecting some billion dollar bottom lines now and they can't afford a bad look
        1. Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
          > intimidate/threaten

          Links to examples?

          I see “please stop fulminating” “we’ve asked you not to do this [guideline violating behavior] and we’ll have to ban you if you keep it up”, which is gentler than [shadow]banning even with the ‘threat’ of punitive action. Assuming you’ve seen mod comments I’ve missed.

          1. slopinthebag · · focus · HN ↗
            why would you think they would make that publicly visible?
            1. gucci-on-fleek · · focus · HN ↗
              I've never heard anybody claim that they got a threatening email from dang before though. The moderators could easily block any such story from appearing on HN, but there are plenty of other sites where they could post it, and I suspect that a credible claim would become popular quickly.

              So I'm not saying that it's impossible, just that if it did happen, we probably would have all heard about it by now.

              1. slopinthebag · · focus · HN ↗
                they aren't gonna send a threatening email, they just ghostban you.
                1. Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
                  We were responding to your insinuation that they would do the intimidation nonpublicly. Perhaps it was misinterpreted.
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