>So, there's no aberration from the guidelines in the case of this item.
as other guy wrote, this article essentially violates all rules. and there is no "new phenomenon" described in it. Why it's not flagged/killed by you ?
There were dozens of times when articles about Israel were unflagged by mod team. Articles that violate all guidelines. Articles that are not even news but speculations. Articles with quality of sourcing that will be typically laughed out of the room here. Articles that 100% of time turn into circlejerk about Israel in which all dissenting opinions and facts (backed with links) are flagged away in order to suppress them (how does it goes with "important topic to discuss here")
quoting you
>- does this story contain “significant new information”?
>- will many of the most positive contributors to HN think that this is an important topic to discuss here?
>If it's yes to both then we'll turn off flags and spend the day trying to keep >the thread healthy. If not then we'll let it disappear.
This is laughable
And i won't say that this forum becomes reddit. it worst than reddit. at reddit mods of subreddits are honest enough with putting in guidelines "no zionists are allowed here". you hide behind "significant new information" and "important to discuss"
> as other guy wrote, this article essentially violates all rules. and there is no "new phenomenon" described in it. Why it's not flagged/killed by you ?
We don’t ever kill things unilaterally unless it’s blatant spam or troll content. We rely on community flags. That’s the case regardless of the topic.
What I’m saying about this post isn’t on our radar as it had barely any votes or discussion and no front page time. It effectively doesn’t exist except for people using it to prosecute this meta-debate about past threads.
> There were dozens of times when articles about Israel were unflagged by mod team
Please list the “dozens of times”. There have been a small number of times when major breaking stories about Israel/Palestine have been discussed here. They got into our radar because they were already large numbers of upvotes and comments, and also significant numbers of flags, but based on what we saw in the story and discussion, it seemed to have enough gravity to warrant turning off the flags so the topic could be discussed.
> Articles that 100% of time turn into circlejerk about Israel in which all dissenting opinions and facts (backed with links) are flagged away in order to suppress them
In those threads I personally unkilled and preserved plenty of comments that were making the pro-Israel case, even in the face of complaints about those users via email. I also flagged (helping to kill) plenty of comments that were attacking the Israel position in ways that broke the guidelines.
My hope with topic like these is that, if they are major stories in the media that are being talked about globally, due to having something “new” about them, then HN should be the best place to discuss them, because unlike a subreddit dedicated to a topic, we’re not talking about it daily or weekly; we can save our time and resources for when it really matters.
As moderators, we can’t determine in advance if a story is “true”, or if something like a U.N. committee’s declaration is fair; that’s what the discussion is for - to get into the details and let the truth emerge and the best arguments prevail. I learn much from seeing arguments put by either side in these discussions. That’s the entire purpose of vigorous debate - to understand both sides of a topic in detail so you can make the most informed judgement about it.
HN is not the reason these stories are major topics in the world; they’re major topics in the world before they make it to HN, and as much as we sometimes wish we could be an isolated cocoon that is quarantined from what is going on elsewhere, we’ve learned we can’t be that; we can’t always act as though these events and topics don’t exist.
What we can do is make HN a place where everyone who cares about the topic can present the facts as they understand them and present the arguments they believe in, and let the most sound arguments win out, and that’s what HN’s ethos and guidelines exist to facilitate.
What you and mhb seem to be advocating is that we should make an upfront judgment that a story is false or a U.N. committee’s declaration is unfair, and overrule the community’s (and world’s) feeling that it’s an important topic to discuss. In our experience, that kind of pre-judgment and unilateral action is the fastest way to destroy community trust, and community trust is the only thing that keeps us going.
I emailed as you suggested, and that's fine, but I thought I'd add a comment from the email since it seems relevant.
The phrasing of the guidelines led me to believe that the "significant new information" was intended as a secondary or clarifying guideline. Otherwise why not just list it as one of the on-topic criteria?
This clarification of the exception is relevant: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." If I watched TV news, I'd expect to see many of the posts we're discussing on it.
"New information" is an essentially tautological fig leaf that could justify the inclusion of anything that shows up in the eponymous news. If I need to, I can find numerous examples of flame wars incited by posts that violate all the guidelines except, possibly, this one about significant new information. Which seems to make this into a discussion about what is "significant". I think a community-trust enhancing action would be to eliminate this criterion.
Some examples of posts which violate all the guidelines except, perhaps, being new information and also, perhaps, significant. Although, arguably, if they are new and significant would be covered by TV news.
as other guy wrote, this article essentially violates all rules. and there is no "new phenomenon" described in it. Why it's not flagged/killed by you ?
There were dozens of times when articles about Israel were unflagged by mod team. Articles that violate all guidelines. Articles that are not even news but speculations. Articles with quality of sourcing that will be typically laughed out of the room here. Articles that 100% of time turn into circlejerk about Israel in which all dissenting opinions and facts (backed with links) are flagged away in order to suppress them (how does it goes with "important topic to discuss here")
quoting you
>- does this story contain “significant new information”?
>- will many of the most positive contributors to HN think that this is an important topic to discuss here?
>If it's yes to both then we'll turn off flags and spend the day trying to keep >the thread healthy. If not then we'll let it disappear.
This is laughable
And i won't say that this forum becomes reddit. it worst than reddit. at reddit mods of subreddits are honest enough with putting in guidelines "no zionists are allowed here". you hide behind "significant new information" and "important to discuss"