Dead means, to my understanding, killed by moderation.
What do you mean by that?
Broken link detectors?
I don't get it.
We can debate the reasons and logic as to why that might be but to pretend it isn’t happening is just silly.
In case anyone is interested: the way we approach situations like this comes out of what happened with the Snowden avalanche of 2013. It seems obvious now, but at the time we weren't clear about the difference between articles containing significant new information [1] and copycat / follow-up posts [2]. Tons of repetitive stories were on the frontpage, and there was a backlash from users complaining about it. The current principles around to handle this came from reflecting on how we could have handled that situation differently.
What we need here, in order to keep having major threads about this topic, is a story containing significant new information—something that moves the needle on the discussion. If one of those is getting flagged, I'd like to know about it!
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://news.ycombinator.com/active
As I write, 4 out of the top 10 stories on "active" appear related to Musk, Trump, or both (numbers 4, 5, 8, 10):
1. Meta torrented & seeded 81.7 TB dataset containing copyrighted data
2. Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor
3. Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
4. A German court rules: X must provide researchers access to data
5. Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
6. The origins of 60-Hz as a power frequency
7. Stop Using Zip Codes for Geospatial Analysis
8. Announcing the data.gov archive
9. U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users' encrypted accounts
10. Feds Halt the National Electric Vehicle Charging Program
If you prefer what you see on "active", you can bookmark that as your standard entry point to HN. I flag stories when they appear to be getting repetitive. I haven't actually done that with any of these stories, but I have previously done it with submissions about COVID, OpenAI, and Matt Mullenweg when they come in waves.
It may seem strange, but both of these things are true:
(1) it's the most-discussed topic that exists on HN right now; and
(2) most of the submissions about it are getting flagged.
If you think about how the internet (and HN) work, it's to be expected: there's a tsunami of submissions; some are getting through and producing condition #1; others are getting flagged and producing condition #2.
This has happened many times on HN over the years, and every time it happens, the community splits between the people who want more and the people who feel like it's too much.
For example, here's a case from 2020 where someone felt that HN was suppressing stories about what in fact was the most-discussed topic on the site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962. This dynamic has been around a long time.
Also, I don't see what good would come of it. It would lead to much more conflict, and would change the character of the site. People would no longer feel free to express their preferences—actually they would no longer be free to express them. This is not a way to fix the problems we face as a community.
Edit: I have to reply to the comment below by editing this comment because I’ve now been banned from making new comments but I couldn’t help but notice you managed to take the original quote and literally remove half of it which would have made your argument look very silly. To be fair Dang did the exact same thing.
Second edit: oh and would you look at that… it’s flagged. Exactly as predicted.
That is despite violating HN's "intellectual curiosity" rule.
