cowabungacode

> If you're talking about something I actually said as opposed to simply making things up, I'd like to see a link

Sure, here you go. I would never "make things up" and lie on HN, that's despicable and I do not appreciate being accused of such trash by the HN mods.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20192283

That is a well researched story on the NYTimes on an underreported topic that is mostly technological in nature. You claim it got a "software penalty" as opposed to being flagged.

I cannot imagine any interpretation other than what I described, that there is an automatic penalty applied to posts that you personally don't like or have personal expectations from outside of the community's voice.

How am I to interpret your comments without assuming that you have software that flags content and penalizes it by topic when you state that the software penalty happened "because this topic is unfortunately more likely to lead nationalistic flamewar"

I do not understand.

Edit: I cannot see these posts without being logged in as me. Have you hidden this particular discussion from public view? Am I shadowbanned? For what purpose?

Do you have no comment about the censuring you do of topics like Russian election hacking? To me that is the most violating of your duty, that you preemptively reduce conversation on particular topics.

You replied in depth to every part of my post except that part. Please explain why you have filters on conversation topics but pretend to be impartial moderators.

Does HN have an automatic mechanism to reduce the visibility on stories relating to Russia's physical and digital attacks on American democracy?

> I would have left long ago if flagging had continued to be used to kill topics.

Flagging is frequently used to kill topics still. Climate change articles are still flagged mercilessly, before any discussion starts and without regard for the high-quality of the articles.

dang as a moderator has specifically said that articles about Russia hacking elections are penalized prior to any votes or comments starting (edit: I believe this particular issue is done by the 'moderators' themselves manually or through a filter, not through user-flags. they are not just moderating discussion, they are filtering which topics you see in the first place, on their own).

The discussion here is framed by people who do not want to talk about certain interesting Hacker and Startup related issues, like global climate change or the stability of democracy with technology.

Flags are a common tool used by the community here to shape the discussion before it starts, hiding topics entirely from view that the community would otherwise vote and discuss.

The idea that anyone would refer to people who champion for social justice as a "cesspool" is so disheartening. Equally disheartening is the idea that people find it a strength of HN that it is a haven for the hateful, illogical and damaging rhetoric of the modern Nazis, or the "alt-right".

Positive discussion is frequently derailed and halted by the "alt-right" presence on HN. Their presence here should not be welcomed, much less seen as a strength of the community.

> This happens on both ends of the political spectrum

No, it doesn't. The left is not a racist, hateful group and they do not coordinate and perform mass shootings. This particular problem is not shared equally by both sides.

> The "alt-right" is mostly a boogieman for talking heads.

No, it's not. The alt-right uses anonymous web boards like this one (but not HN to my knowledge) to coordinate and celebrate mass shootings that are directly admitted to be race-focused and white-supremacist-led. (Edit: The alt-right does use HN to spread hate and their "ideology", but I have not seen direct specific calls to violence here)

> Groups labeled "white-supremacist" rarely even contain a large number of white people.

I don't see how this is relevant at all. Being white has nothing to do with being a white supremacist. There are lots of non-white white-supremacists in the world. You're using logical fallacies like whataboutism and appeals to false authority instead of debating anything of substance.

> In my opinion the strength of HN in this regard is that it is.... a "haven for alt-right",

Really? Do you really think that a strength of HN is that it is a haven for the alt-right? This is shocking and extremly scary to me. The alt-right wants me to die. Is this site a haven for those who want to kill off people like me? That's abhorrent. I agree that HN is a haven for the alt-right but I do not think that is a GOOD thing! From Wikipedia,

> The alt-right ... is... white supremacist, white nationalist, white separatist, anti-immigration and sometimes antisemitic movement based in the United States

I do not think that it is a strength of HN that it is a haven for the modern day Nazis of the world. I think it strictly devalues the site and reduces conversation quality here dramatically. Those people do not argue in good faith, they flag climate change articles so we cannot talk about good solutions to real problems facing all of us, and they also convince the moderators to ban discussion of Russia's cyberattacks here. The moderators cave their policies to white supremacists and hard-line rules that minimize the points given and comments written about Russian cyberattacks.

That HN is a "haven for [Nazis and racists]" is decidedly not a good thing.

While this is about the largest nuclear bomb ever produced, I also find the stories of the smallest interesting. Project Orion was a classified effort by the US to produce minituarized nukes for use in dropping out the bottom of a spacecraft to accelerate to insane top speeds.

Wicked pollution but I think they could also get to Alpha Centuri at like 10% c or something like that. Human-lifetime achievable. Project was cancelled for a number of reasons, the top likely being the Atmosphere and Space Test Ban.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...