It's unacceptable to post snarky comments or nationality-based stereotypes on HN. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines, especially these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
It's not exactly an auto-magical "title shortening algorithm"; just a simple software function that cleans up titles by removing common title patterns that are baity, abusive, ugly or superfluous.
It wasn't the cause of this change; the submitter submitted it without the “with help from AI” part, for some reason.
It wasn't. The submitter submitted it with the title “Ladybird Browser adopts Rust”. We initially changed it to “Ladybird adopts Rust”, and now I've changed it to the original title, per the guidelines. The automatic title cleaner wouldn't make a change like that.
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
We have no policy or pattern of boosting or downweighting protests in any particular country, and neither of us are from the U.S. I think this one was only on the front page for a few hours over night when we were both asleep and had already been downweighted by the flamewar detector by the time we were online in the morning. Most protests in any country are probably off topic on HN due to being related to mainstream news.
I'll accept your perspective and try to learn from it.
However I think that the comment is relevant, and you can see from the replies gathered before it was flagged that it did spark a relevant discussion.
Reminding that the speaker is a spiritual leader and not an authority on the use of technology is not a sneer and and not an ideological statement. In any context other than religion, which I understand is sensitive, a statement of that sort would be considered a contribution to the discussion, not an ideological battle. And that's precisely the problem - censoring a discussion about the relevance of religion to the matter is the ideological act.
The phrase “supernatural woowoo” is clearly against the guidelines I cited, as is age-old cynicism about the validity of religion or intellectual merits of anyone who believes in it. We're here for intellectual curiosity, not the same old predictable thing.
Thanks for clarifying. I can see the point. Would a phrasing like "The pope believes in and promotes supernatural claims that are not supported by evidence" work better? On reflection I would have preferred that too.
Sure, but it's not just the wording, it's the topic. The validity of belief in religion, and its bearing on the believer's authority about other matters, is just not a good topic to bring up after how we've seen the topic play out countless times on internet message board over more than three decades. Everyone just says what they always believe about the topic, and nobody learns anything new.
There is no evidence of any such organised campaign. The critical comments we see against that company and person are generally from known, established HN users, and align with frequently-expressed sentiments among the general public. And the complaint is just as often made that "anything remotely critical" about that company and person is flagged. If posts about the topic are being downvoted and flagged, it's mostly because that person and company are in the news so frequently that most commentary about them is repetitive, sensationalist and uninteresting, and thus off topic for HN.
Please don't post like this. If you suspect something, please email us (hn@ycombinator.com) with links to specific comments. The guidelines are clear abut this:
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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