Why I’m quitting Hacker News

[edgefield]

I just shared a post about the world’s oceans setting record temperatures for 80 continuous days. After the post achieved 130+ upvotes and the top spot within several hours, it was nuked. My experience is that every post on Hacker News addressing climate change is removed or downvoted to oblivion. I don’t want to be part of a community that turns away from probably the most important threat facing humanity in the 21st century. Goodbye and farewell!

[dredmorbius]

If you have concerns with how a story is being treated on HN, whether your own or another's, please email the mods at [e-mail], and explain your concerns as briefly, clearly, and succinctly as possible. Include the submission ID in the subject line for faster response and action.

I've been doing this myself for many years, often feeling I'm something of an outsider and contrarian, though my status on the leaderboard and as amongst the most prolific HN commenters (ranked 17th in 2021 via an analysis by Whaly in January 2022[1]) suggest my own perception may be inaccurate.

I'm not a YC founder, haven't applied to YC, I'm just a semi-retired techie who's looked for the clue online since the 1980s and am in large part finding it here.

That said...

0. Climate change has been discussed reasonably frequently on HN, more below, and this story specifically.

1. HN's prime directive is "curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062985[2] Posts don't have to concern startups, or tech, or the Silicon Valley / Bay Area, or the MCU, but any topic which good hackers would find interesting is appropriate.

What HN especially seeks to avoid is religious flamewars. See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27017470>.

I have a significant concern with these priorities in the specific degree that many Big Problems are in fact Big Problems because their nature, whom they effect, and/or potential resolutions or outcomes, are themselves highly polarising. This is all the more true when these issues align along power axes such as wealth, social status, nationality (including rich vs. poor nation status), and the like. Unfortunately HN's policy here, in my view, tends to additionally penalise the under-privileged viewpoint. I've called for wide latitude in view of this multiple times, it's probably my biggest standing concern with HN moderation. In fairness, sometimes HN mods agree in specific instances, in others they don't.

HN also seeks to preserve the integrity of the site and its community, which is probably the most fraught, and least understood, aspect of moderation. It's disappointing to have your submission killed, flagged off the front page, or simply die in oblivion, and I write from experience. That said, maintaining the discussion dynamic itself takes primacy, and is something that must be nurtured in nuanced and gentle ways. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16135266>.

2. HN strongly deprecates repeat coverage of a single story or issue, especially where the repeats bring little additional information or insight to bear.

3. The warming oceans story was covered a month ago, 77 points, 74 comments: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35747417>. That said, climate change really isn't a single event, and many news organisations struggle with how to present it in the context of standard journalistic frames, much as they do other long-standing and complex issues (race, poverty, inequality, power differentials, and the like). I'd like to see a better option, I'm not sure what these might be.[3]

4. There are topics Hacker News has a great deal of problem discussing sanely. I've violated my own brief / clear / concise advice numerous times raising specific examples or general cases with dang, the head moderator and public face of the mod team (it is, as I understand, a team). Sometimes we disagree, sometimes we agree, almost always I end up with a better understanding of why HN acts as it does, and those reasons are ... reasonably justifiable, even where I disagree with the outcomes. I'm finding that very nearly all my concerns have been long anticipated or recognised by HN itself, see for example Paul Graham's (pg) 2009 essay, "What I've Learned from Hacker News": <http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html> (discussed at the time <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495053> as well as four years (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19201999>) and one year (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30394474>) ago.

In particular, dang has also occasionally expressed frustrations ... though I'm not surfacing the example I had in mind presently. This one comes close: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17689715>

You can review dang's own comments to HN which frequently discuss moderation actions and rationales: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...> This is highly illuminating in my experience. You can also search for specific terms to gain insights concerning decisions.

HN strongly discourages meta discussion. Searching reveals this detailed comment by dang:

A separate meta section would be a disaster—it would create a dedicated place for the problem to metastasize, and the demands on moderation would go up not down. I once had a conversation with the founder of a forum much larger than HN, who told me that creating a meta section in the hope that it would help contain such complaints was the biggest mistake they ever made. ...

... How about we make this into a positive this way: if there's a specific article that you feel was intellectually interesting, and capable of supporting a substantive discussion on HN, and which was flagkilled unfairly, let us know at [e-mail].

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24902628>

More on meta here:

Meta posts like this one (posts about the forum itself) are addictive: it feels like they're interesting, but actually they are not. They're more like a waste product of the community, consisting of the same half-dozen points over and over. We've learned over the years that such discussions need to be managed like weeds.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17636158>

I've an interest in the concerns over meta-posts at the moment as I've been doing my own analytics into the HN front page from its inception in February 2007, and am contemplating a submission based on what I've discovered, see: <https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/110437783957361794>. Dang's cautioned me about the meta aspect.

I can share a few findings:

- The HN front-page is a limited resource. There are 30 slots, and with 365 days in a year, 10,950 annual opportunities to make the "past" (<https://news.ycombinator.com/front>) archive of front pages (10,980 in a leap year). That's something of an undercount as more items may appear on the FP for part of a day (as your submission did), but then slip off.

- From Whaly's analysis, slightly fewer than 3% of all submissions (excluding those killed by flags, automatic rules, and/or mod actions) make the FP. It's a gamble and lottery; luck and chance play large roles.

- About half of all comments appear on those 3% of posts which hit the front page. There's also a pretty sharp fall-off in both vote and comment activity from the 1st to 30th entry on the front page.

- There's been substantial discussion of climate on HN over the years, with 212 titles matching the pattern "(greenhouse gas|global warming|climate change|oceans|co2|carbon dioxide|emissions)". (If anyone cares to suggest other terms I can add those.)[4]

My own FP hit rate is almost exactly 3% as well, and I often feel that the stories I'd most like to see land don't. Some of those have been submitted through the Second Chance Pool[5], a mod-nudged option for under-recognised posts. And I'm doing about three times better than the average. Note that HN does not have a formal reputation bonus and specifically shies from any such feature. (I'd just seen a comment from dang or pg regarding this whilst researching this post, but it's vanished again...)

The best way to make the front page is to keep in mind HN's guidelines and FAQ,[6] to try multiple submissions on a given topic (a reasonable number of repeats for a specific item, other coverage where one fails), to contact mods with concerns, and to make use of the Second Chance Pool for items (your own or from others) which you think may have been under-served by the standard submission queue. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Regarding your post specifically:

The submission is data-rich, though context-poor. It consists primarily of a plot of the actual trend deviation (and yes, that's jarring and disturbing by itself for anyone with sufficient awareness to recognise its significance). I'm not sure it has great hooks for discussion. The earlier submission by Paul-Craft listed above affords much more narrative, as does, perhaps, David Wallace-Wells's June 1 essay "The Ocean is Looking More Menacing" <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/opinion/the-ocean-is-look...>, which I don't see in HN's submissions yet.

Late edits: Fixed markup, awkward wording, a few unfinished thoughts. Corrected my own FP hit rate, 3%, not 10%.

[dredmorbius]

Notes:

1. "A year on Hacker News" <https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective?ref=wh...>

2. Many more examples: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>

3. One tool used by other outlets is a scheduled discussion for specific topics. Conventions such as "X day" or "Y month" (e.g., Mother's Day, Black History Month, Earth Day, Pride Month) afford opportunities for such discussions. HN has monthly "who's hiring" and "who wants to be hired" threads, the though occurs that other periodic reviews, monthly, quarterly, annually, etc., might be possible. And of course, members can always take advantage of existing signifier days to attempt to amplify their own message(s).

4. That's a relatively high rate for a non-tech issue, by comparison, housing/homelessness: 103, poverty: 50, racism: 6, ozone: 9, censorship: 117, surveillance: 375. By year:

       6 2007
      23 2008
      13 2009
       7 2010
       3 2011
       2 2012
       3 2013
       5 2014
      11 2015
      23 2016
      12 2017
      16 2018
      37 2019
      16 2020
      16 2021
      14 2022
       5 2023

5. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35957015>. Again, email mods, I use the subject "2nd chance nom" followed by the post title and submission ID.

6. <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html> respectively, linked at the bottom of most HN pages.

[version_five]

You're arguing with and algorithm that says if comments > points then downweight. It's to avoid typical internet flame wars, it's not some rejection by the community or whatever you're inferring. It's just that it rehashes tired and well trodden internet discussions that aren't very interesting. What would you have rather seen happen? It stays at the top so people can pile on about how bad climate change is?

Edit: I'm wrong about the reason, because the comments aren't more than the points. But the point stands, it's algorithmic, it's not some conspiracy against discussing climate change. It's that it's a boring discussion that doesn't add to anyone's understanding.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36187203

[stoniejohnson]

"The cause is algorithmic. This is the algorithm.

EDIT: The post doesn't follow the algorithm. But still, it's algorithmic, stop being conspiratorial."

[threatofrain]

It could very well be admin, as HN has volunteer admins who do this kind of stuff. Since HN keeps the details of administration under wraps we should accept that such speculation, whether true or false, will emerge as a natural consequence to opacity.

[stemlord]

Algorithms are implemented by people

[ttctciyf]

Wait, so the nearest thing to downvoting a story on HN is to comment on it but not vote it up?

[matthewdgreen]

I noticed how highly voted the post was, so I went in to read the comments for a couple of minutes. When I hit "back" to return to the main page the post had mysteriously disappeared. I found it fleeing down the second page, past many stories which had lower scores and had been lingering for much longer periods. It was very surprising.

These current-events climate stories are the most important pieces of news on the site. If the moderators are deliberately nerfing them (ETA: or exploitable algorithmic policy is allowing them to be nerfed), I find that extremely terrifying. I hope it is not the case.

[joecool1029]

> These current-events climate stories are the most important pieces of news on the site.

In your opinion. Many other HN users don't feel that way and get tired of seeing the same topic over and over again. If it's not intellectually interesting and seems overly political it's getting that flag button clicked.

EDIT: Before downvoting/flagging me consider that maybe I don't hold the views you dislike. I'm making commentary in the comment section and only pointing out that perhaps it's not dang killing submissions but actually other HN users that don't agree with you.

[r721]

>If the moderators are deliberately nerfing them (ETA: or exploitable algorithmic policy is allowing them to be nerfed), I find that extremely terrifying. I hope it is not the case.

Some users are flagging climate-related stories, probably:

>Although submissions cannot be downvoted, flags act as a "super" downvote and enough flags will strongly reduce the rank of the submission, or kill it entirely (flagging is supposed to be used for submissions which break the site guidelines, but that isn't always the case in practice).

https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#flaggi...

[nkurz]

I don't think it's reasonable to quit a site because a post you feel is important suddenly drops in ranking. There are all sorts of reasons this could happen, with user flagging by a tiny number of individuals probably being the most likely. It's currently sitting at the top of Page 3: https://hnrankings.info/36187203/.

If you genuinely think rage quitting is the best response, probably this place isn't a good fit for you and you should just go. But if your goal though is to improve the site (and possibly the world) for the better, you could send email to Dan ([e-mail]) and ask what happened here.

[crispinb]

I think what you have to bear in mind is, with all sorts of caveats and exceptions, the HN crowd is at the centre of the current ecocidal empire, with most participants personally gaining from biosphere destruction. Participating here is much like being around public debate forums in 18thC Britain, where, yes, the slave traders inevitably dominated because they were at the centre of power, but abolitionists kept heads high and voices loud and eventually won. Of course we don't yet know whether or not we're going to win.

Being here can be interesting, but don't expect it to be sympatico. There can be no solidarity while exploitation dominates.

[vinnyvichy]

Ecocider News = Home-killer News = HN

[joshuanapoli]

There are a good number of posts about climate change and technologies that are relevant to reducing it on HN. I don’t know the details of your post, but it seems possible to have exposure on the topic of warm oceans here. Staying visible on HN is a bit random, since it depends on how other people comment on your post versus how they upvote it.

[ChumpGPT]

Engaging in extensive participation beyond the occasional comment or upvote can often be a futile endeavor, consuming precious time without much to show for it.

One aspect that I find particularly appealing about platforms like 4Chan is the sense of detachment from the significance of individual contributions. It creates an environment where the present moment holds more value than long-term consequences, allowing for a certain freedom of expression. Despite the abundance of low-quality content, it's fascinating to discover that genuine brilliance can emerge amidst the seemingly endless stream of random posts.

[AnimalMuppet]

The thing is, it really makes sense for it not to be on the front page.

You think climate change is the most important/urgent/relevant thing happening. I get it. I'm not even saying you're wrong. But this is Hacker News; it's not Climate Activism Central. Climate change, no matter how relevant, is not the central topic here.

An article on the world's oceans setting record temperatures for 80 continuous days is alarming. But it was alarming at 70 days, too, and at 60, and at 50. Is there any new discussion that's going to happen on the article about 80 days that didn't happen on the article about 50 days? That's why it shouldn't be on the front page - not because climate change isn't important, but because there's nothing new about the 80-day threshold. It's just the same old bad news. (In the same way, the invasion of Ukraine is bad, and important, but we don't mark the 430th day of the invasion, and then the 440th day, and then the 450th day.)

[rootw0rm]

your loss and ours, unfortunately. still the best place around to have serious debate with awesome people. the overall discussion quality fluctuates, because internet, but it's still pretty great here imo

[amichail]

What about your posts on other topics? Were some of them nuked as well under similar circumstances?

[polotics]

Climate-change related posts that tell us what we already know, but trigger carpet-bombing by deniers, whether those may be deluded earnest posters with their identity somehow stuck to denial, or russian/oil-industry/whatever shills muddying the waters with posts on adaptation or costs miscalculations as their main angles... ...are indeed tiresome, as I kind of feel the urge to respond, argue, debunk. Is there any other intelligent discussion site that manages this better than HN though?

[matthewdgreen]

This post isn't telling us most of us "already know." It's telling us that there's something really unusual going on with ocean temperatures right now, specifically, over the last 80 days. There have been a couple of posts on this before, but the last highly-rated one is over a month ago and so this was an important update. Chart: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

[1letterunixname]

Seems kind of like giving up in a dramatic way. I hope you find a more impactful forum for this important discussion.

The key danger of high ocean surface temperatures is more and stronger hurricanes. If temperatures continue climbing, the specter of needing more hurricane categories and the risk of a future hypercane is on the horizon.

[ftxbro]

> "My experience is that every post on Hacker News addressing climate change is removed or downvoted to oblivion."

show us those removed posts

[slowmovintarget]

Were this Eve On-line I'd ask for your stuff.

As it stands... go well. We'll still be here should you change your mind.

[PeterWhittaker]

That’s why I start at https://hckrnews.com/ - that story is still pretty prevalent there.